THERE GOES THE NEIGHBOURHOOD

Betting on the Studs (Steve Friess, Newsweek, December 12th, 2005)

Standing on a desolate stretch of property dotted with sagebrush and litter 80 miles northwest of Las Vegas, former Hollywood Madam Heidi Fleiss surveys the sexual frontier. She's sketching out her vision for Heidi's Stud Farm, the country's first legal brothel serving female customers. This pleasure palace will be shaped like a castle, with a marble-floored great room, a spa, a sex-toy shop and secluded bungalows where 20 Casanovas will spend quality time with the clientele (at $250 an hour).

But Fleiss may not be welcome in these parts. As a convicted felon—she served time in prison in the late '90s on charges stemming from her high-priced call-girl operation in L.A.—Fleiss may find it difficult to get a license. And some owners of the state's legal bordellos (where rates range from several hundred to several thousand dollars, depending on the activities) worry that Fleiss's business could give Nevada's religious conservatives ammunition to get prostitution outlawed altogether.

"Heidi Fleiss scares the hell out of me," says George Flint, lobbyist for the Nevada Brothel Association, which represents some of the state's 26 legal houses of ill repute, most of them dressed-up doublewides with names like the Chicken Ranch and the Cherry Patch. "Our industry is not so firm, so to speak, that we need to flirt with some secondary activity that could bring down the whole house of cards." Because the brothel laws all refer to prostitutes as "she" and require cervical STD tests for sex workers, Fleiss would need to get the statutes reworded to cover her studs. Richard Ziser, president of the conservative group Nevada Concerned Citizens, warns: "She may bring enough publicity to cause a problem for the industry."

What hope is there for the West when even the reprobates choose security over freedom?