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the condom into an acceptable and even erotic part of sex—a skill that could be useful for other women, sex workers and non–sex workers alike.
    A few of the women turned the tables on me. Did I use condoms with my fiancé? I started to say “No, we’re monogamous,” but caught myself and mumbled “No, but I probably ought to.” According to these prostitutes, most of their customers were married, and I’m sure the men’s wives hoped and believed, like me, that their significant others were faithful.Despite their caution on the job, even the Mustang women rationalized not using condoms with their husbands and boyfriends, who they assumed were monogamous. At first I couldn’t believe these women hadn’t grown more cynical about marriage and monogamy, given the amount of infidelity they witnessed. Their hopefulness in spite of what they knew about human nature made my heart ache. These women were just like the rest of us.
    All of which made me think: it was prostitutes and other sex workers whom we in mainstream America accused of contributing to the spread of HIV. Society blamed prostitutes’ recklessness on ignorance, poverty, and disregard for personal responsibility, but I knew plenty of people who were more educated and more affluent and failed to properly protect themselves sexually. Despite widespread condom promotion by the mainstream media, my own friends neglected to use rubbers regularly with new partners. My future brother-in-law said he and his friends, all ten years my junior, worried more about pregnancy than disease. By contrast, Nevada’s licensed prostitutes seemed remarkably conscientious. I wondered who really should be casting the first stone.
    Relishing the opportunity to turn the magnifying glass on me, the prostitutes of Mustang Ranch wanted most to know if I could ever turn a trick. Because of my apparent interest in prostitution, they assumed that deep down I wanted to try. (I would discover that most people assumed the same thing.) Not wanting to offend anyone, I kept to myself how repulsive Ifound the idea. I tried to dodge the question by saying I didn’t think I would make a very good prostitute.
    But that was exactly where I—like all squares—was wrong, the working girls said. All women sold sex for one reason or another. The housewife who slept with her husband to maintain her household, the secretary who dated her boss for job security, the girlfriend who had sex with her boyfriend for status or another piece of jewelry (maybe an engagement ring). Prostitutes just did it more honestly. “My motto is, ‘A bitch with a pussy should never be broke,’ ” one terse Mustang prostitute said. “If you’re going to put out, why not get paid for it? There’s too many women giving their bodies away for free and getting nothing but heartache and pain.”
    It was an argument I would hear used over and over again to defend brothel prostitution. Although I struggled with the notion that all sexual relationships could be reduced to commerce, the women’s larger point wasn’t wasted on me. Prostitutes weren’t social deviants, they were trying to say. They were no different from other women.
    All the working girls had stories about feeling disrespected and misunderstood. Baby once confessed to another American vacationer on a tour of Japan that she was a brothel prostitute; he ignored her for the rest of the trip. Her friend Barbie overheard a ticket agent in the Reno airport complain to her colleague about the brothels and how “those damn prostitutes” were a constant threat to her marriage.
    Even I encountered the contempt Mustang prostitutes described when I went home four weeks later and tried to describemy experience to family and friends. People cared less about how decent and helpful the women were than about how much money they made, what types of sexual activities they sold, and what horrible circumstances forced them to resort to selling their bodies in the first place.