Jeff Simpson on the recent attention to the local sex trade

Sunday, Sept. 9, 2007 | 1:23 a.m.

As often happens in Las Vegas, the most interesting news story of the week involved an outsider taking a shot at Sin City.

New York Times columnist Bob Herbert sharply criticized Mayor Oscar Goodman for suggesting that legalized brothels might be a good idea in Las Vegas, which Herbert said set a tone of "systematic, institutionalized degradation" of women.

Oscar being Oscar, he swung back, threatening Herbert with a baseball bat and calling him a clown.

TV news broadcasts eagerly jumped into the fray, airing reports on the subject of prostitution, a ratings bonanza fueled by a few oft-repeated video loops of streetwalkers and interviews with former prostitutes.

Although I disagree with Goodman's tough talk, I think that his philosophical and pragmatic support of legalized prostitution makes sense, but I don't think that giant brothels are a good idea.

Just as the rest of the country does, we keep our heads in the sand in Las Vegas when it comes to the pervasiveness of the sex business.

We really don't pay much attention to our 10,000-plus streetwalkers, escorts, massage-parlor workers and exotic dancers unless there is violence at a strip club or a bust at a residential brothel or massage parlor.

Or when strip club kingpins use their abundance of cash to make politicians dance.

The convention and casino businesses make the city a natural host for strip clubs and for prostitution.

It is ridiculous to think that rigorous law enforcement would eliminate prostitution in the city.

When the Clark County sheriff took action 25 years ago to get rid of streetwalkers on the Strip, Metro was largely able to accomplish that goal - by effectively moving prostitutes inside the casinos or into escort work.

The smartest tack that Las Vegas and our law enforcement folks can take on prostitution is the one that we already implicitly follow.

We should crack down on the most egregious elements of the business: pimps and those who coerce women into prostitution; underage prostitutes and their pimps and customers; and streetwalkers.

Escorts and discreet working girls plying their trade in casinos should be the lowest law-enforcement priority, ignored unless they are hurting the casino or tourism businesses in some way.

Although we shouldn't discount the likelihood that some women are forced into prostitution, we shouldn't ignore the reality that many women choose the business.

In economic terms, they make up the supply that meets the demand of their customers, many of them conventioneers and tourists.

Financial and psychological support should be available for women who wish to transition out of the business.

Although many other countries wink at prostitution or allow brothels to operate openly, the Puritan streak in America runs deep.

The public relations backlash that would accompany the establishment of the "magnificant brothels" that Goodman talked about would be powerful. The negative publicity could harm the tourism, gaming and convention businesses, and that is something that we can't afford.

In fact, the brothels sprinkled around rural Nevada already cast our state in a bad light - not the idea that there is prostitution, which exists everywhere, but the fact that we are the only state in the country to so openly house the oldest profession.

I don't think Goodman should be criticized for his philosophical support of legal brothels in Las Vegas. It is a legitimate position to take on what I believe is a legitimate profession.

The time is not yet ripe for Goodman's proposal, but I believe the time has come to decriminalize discreet prostitution conducted behind closed doors, crack down on underage prostitution and pimps, and close down the brothels that Nevada allows outside of Clark and Washoe counties.