What could possibly motivate me, Jim Jefferies,
wildly successful comedian and cable television personality,
to wander for hours through the unforgiving Nevada desert?
I made it!
I'm in Pahrump, Nevada, one of the last places in America where prostitution is legal.
F**k, Jack! Make it tumble!
It's in the name!
Yes, if you want to legally sell sex in the U.S.,
you can only do it in seven rural counties in Nevada.
And it turns out even those are under constant attack.
The illegal sex trade and the legal sex trade are inextricably linked.
And with the horrific crimes of Jeffrey Epstein, there has never been a larger spotlight
on the illegal sex trade.
So now, more than ever, people are asking,
"are brothels a hot bed for illegal activity?"
To find out, I'm paying my very first visit to Sheri's Ranch.
Jim!
To find out, I returned to Sheri's Ranch for a closer look.
First, the madame kicked off my visit with a quick tour.
So, this is the porn star experience room.
There's a camera up there, camera over there.
I'm off the tele. I could sell, like a sex tape.
This is your best one. This is your dungeon.
The amount of c*m that's probably been on these bars.
Ah, it gets cleaned.
Ah, yeah.
It feels like I'm at a detention center on the border
and I won't see my parents again.
[Jim] Next, I sat down with Christina Parreira.
She's a PhD candidate at UNLV.
And she studied Nevada's brothels from a very unique perspective.
I prostituted myself for science.
Christina went deep undercover.
Between the fet-sessions and the tug jobs, she interviewed over 50 sex workers.
And despite what campaigns like this are saying –
[Woman] Poverty and abuse drives women into prostitution.
Women in legal brothels are often victims.
[Jim] Christina is calling bullshit on that claim.
I'm willing to bet my whole PhD and all six years of this study
that sex trafficking is not happening in the brothels.
What is sex trafficking?
Because people have this idea of women in shipping crates.
Yeah, yeah.
Now, I'm not saying that doesn't happen. Obviously, they must have that happening.
Yeah.
But is it common or –
There is real sex trafficking going on out there.
But women that are being arrested for prostitution,
consenting adult women,
now some of those numbers are being funneled into the sex trafficking numbers.
There is a misconception that all prostitutes are forced into it.
Yes.
[Jim] And that misconception can really complicate a conversation about sex trafficking.
Sex trafficking is defined as a person forced into commercial sex against their will.
It doesn't matter how you got there or even if it happens where you live.
Now I'm no trafficking expert,
but it does seem like a woman who's been forced into working here
wouldn't introduce herself as...
I'm a smut peddler.
Smut peddler?
Smut peddler!
My name's Jim and I consider myself to be a smut peddler.
[Jim] Meet Allissa, Kayden, Lovecraft, Voss, and Sky.
These five ladies traveled by choice from all over the country
to prostitute legally here at Sheri's Ranch.
So, you live here on the premises?
[Sky] For like one to three weeks at a time.
And so, is it just like summer camp a bit?
But with less f**king?
[Sky] Yeah, it's like a really slutty sorority.
How'd you all get into the business?
[Allissa] I was just f**king a lot of people for free already
and my friend was like, "you can get paid for it."
And I was like, "that's a better idea."
That's similar to my story. I was f**king a lot of people for free
and they said to me, "you should pay for that."
Look, I don't think I know the answer to this, but I have to ask.
Have any of you been trafficked?
Being around women of this industry and being empowered by our madame,
I was able to get out of it.
So this business stopped you from being trafficked?
For sure. It definitely did.
[Jim] But even some sex worker advocates are starting to agree with brothel workers
that sex trafficking numbers might be inflated.
People are lumping us all together and saying that we're all trafficked,
none of us chose to be here, and you need to save us from ourselves.
[Jim] And those numbers have been used to push through some pretty serious laws,
like the controversial anti trafficking bills SESTA and FOSTA.
The legislation shut down webpages like backpage.com,
which escorts actually used to gather information about clients
and keep themselves safe.
We did a piece on FOSTA and SESTA.
It seemed like most people in the media was pro-these bills.
We on The Jim Jefferies Show were anti.
Good! You saw through it.
SESTA and FOSTA will actually make life more dangerous
for the people they're meant to protect.
How has it made it unsafe for girls who work independently?
Since the passage of FOSTA-SESTA, there are pimps and predators
coming out of the woodwork.
[Jim] After sex workers were evicted from the internet, lots of them faced a choice.
Do you know anyone who chose to work in a brothel after SESTA and FOSTA happened?
Yes.
I personally believe that there was an influx in applicants after SESTA-FOSTA
because their resources were shut down.
Why work at a brothel rather than just be an independent sex worker?
If you look at the statistics, any sex worker is 400 times more likely
to be murdered on the job.
So here in the brothels, no one gets murdered here.
Why is it different? Why is this safer?
Well, someone who's working independently because it's criminalized –
they are more afraid to report assaults.
Right.
So it's kind of – they're almost easy targets. They're easily taken advantage of.
and we have, you know, a team of security.
We have people we can call. And we can report it to the police.
[Jim] The other reason girls work here:
They're just a tiny bit kinky.
[Allissa] Ninety-year-old couples.
I've had couples that are old enough to be my grandparents.
You had a 90-year-old couple have sex with you?
And they like the hard nipple clamps.
This is how we used to get lubricant during the Depression.
[Lovecraft] Oh, no. Don't do that!
[All] No, no, no!
Alright, alright, alright. I found the limit. Alright.
[Kayden] No, it's that's considered fluid exchange, one.
And two, it does not work.
[Sky] No.
Note to self.
[Jim] Turns out regulation actually works.
Mandatory STD testing, no fluid exchange with clients,
it all makes sex safer for everybody.
Feels like the answer to this one is simple.
Prohibition has never worked.
You make it legal, right?
[Jim] Yes, let's finally give all sex workers
the same safety protections these five ladies enjoy.
Surprisingly, even three democratic presidential candidates
support the decriminalization of sex work.
[Harris] We can't criminalize consensual behavior
as long as no one is being harmed.
[Jim] Plus, other countries have already figured it out for us.
Even dumb, old New Zealand.
Although, they have one big drawback.
Those New Zealand girls, they should be paying you.
Is that right? I've never been over there.
Very rough.
(thick accent) Do you want me to take me rugby jersey off?
Oooo, look at them.
You enjoying that?
[Christina] That doesn't sound very sexy.
No, it's not! They're the worst.