"Hey you guys you got to calm it down in there.
Alright you ready?
We're gonna have some fun."
Dennis Hof is the owner and proprietor of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch and six other Nevada
brothels.
He's a businessman and a libertarian with political aspirations, and when it comes to
laws around prostitution he's one of the biggest advocates for legalization.
"Can you define the word pimp in your own terms?"
"A pimp, in its simplest term, is a man that brings women, brings men or women to girls
for sex.
So in the simplest term I'm a pimp.
But I have a license, I have a business license to do this."
"So you're a legal pimp."
"I'm a legal pimp absolutely.
But in the street vernacular and in most people's thoughts a pimp is a guy that goes to Kansas
City, grabs underage girls, runaways, fills them up with drugs, and owns them and makes
them, hauls them around to Oakland, Las Vegas.
So when you legalize something, who do you take out of the business?
You take the underage girls out, because every girl here has to go down and get a business
license, be fingerprinted, photographed, they run the federal check on them.
Who else can't get into the business?
The pimps.
This business, the prostitution business worldwide, is a dirty disgusting drug-ridden, disease-ridden
business, until you legalize it.
And when you make it legal everything changes.
The whole game changes."
"How many girls are applying to work for you a month?"
"A thousand.
If it's some girl that I think I'm really interested in which would be typically a very
attractive girl, a hot blonde, or a mixed girl that I think is unique, then I might
get involved in it myself.
We think we are a family.
We're all a close knit little community here that supports each other.
The difference is, we can have sexual interaction too, and the girls do it."
Hof has a big financial stake in legal sex in the U.S., so it's no surprise he has a
pretty harsh view of the illegal sex trade.
Even when someone is experiencing serious harm.
"I'm black and white.
If you're having sex for money, you're a criminal.
That's it.
Now if you're underage you're a victim."
"But if they are of age but they're being trafficked they're not victims?"
"They're criminals.
They have no business being in the business.
We can't enable."
"The women are criminals?"
"Of course they are.
You're selling sex for money in America and you're not doing it legally in a brothel?
You're a criminal."
"I mean but there's a lot of sex workers who are doing it because they feel like they have
no other choice.
You would still paint them as criminals?"
"There's always alternatives."
"But if they don't have a choice."
"What do you mean.
What do you mean?
Everybody's got a choice."
"But if you're.
If you have a pimp or if somebody is taking the money from you or if you're in a terrible
situation."
"That's terrible.
That's terrible it's disgusting."
"But you still think they should go to jail."
"It depends on the circumstances.
They don't have to do this.
They can break those ties.
Everybody knows how to call 9-1-1.
Ok they walk out of the hotel room they're in and dial 9-1-1.
'I'm being trafficked and I need help.'"
"But what about in the cases where law enforcement isn't helping them or is arresting them instead?"
"They're helping them.
You know these sex workers that are doing things illegally have all these excuses.
It's bullshit.
Trust me it's bullshit.
They're criminals, they're working at a criminal activity.
If they're being forced to work sexually and being sex slaves, yes ,they are victims.
No matter what age they are, they are victims and they need help.
I can tell you just by the questions you're asking that you're falling into the trap their
nonsense and don't do it.
I got it right.
Trust me I got it right."