Brothel: Mustang Ranch and Its Women

When Harvard medical student albert conducted a public-health study as the Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada, the only state in the union where prostitution is legal, neither she nor the brothel could have predicted the end result. Already intimate with the human devastation caused by the sex trade, and curious to see if Nevada’s brothels offered a less harmful model for a business that will always be with us, Albert was given unprecedented access to The Mustang Ranch which was eager to get publicity for its rigorous standards of sexual hygiene as fear of AIDS was hurting the business. Albert was drawn into the lives of the women of the Mustang Ranch, and what began as a public-health project evolved into something more intimate and ambitious, a six-year study of the brothel ecosystem, its lessons and significance. The women of the Mustang Ranch poured their stories out to Albert: how they came to be there, their surprisingly deep sense of craft and vocation, how they reconciled their profession with life on the outside. Dr. Albert went as far into this world as it is possible to go - some will say too far - including sitting in on sessions with customers, and the result is a book that puts an unforgettable face on this much maligned and much caricatured subculture.