CovOps
 Location : Ether-Sphere
Job/hobbies : Irrationality Exterminator
Humor : Über Serious
 |  Subject: Nevada's legal brothels remain closed during pandemic, so this sex worker is suing the prick: 'Blatant discrimination'  Sat Dec 05, 2020 8:25 pm | |
| With states and cities across the country forming a patchwork of partial shutdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s one state that’s in a league of its own when it comes to the battle over shuttered businesses: Nevada, where brothels are legal but have been ordered closed since March 17, despite the reopening of other “close contact” business, including spas, salons and massage parlors.
In response to what she sees as an “arbitrary” decision that has left legal sex workers “financially devastated,” Alice Little, an employee at the Moonlite BunnyRanch in Mound House, Nev., who’s considered the top-earning legal sex worker in the U.S., filed a complaint and motion for a preliminary injunction against Nevada’s Gov. Steve Sisolak in the Third Judicial District Court in Lyon County. The lawsuit cites unstated damages and seeks the right for her and other licensed prostitutes to “ply their legal trade” at home or other private locations. The suit alleges that Sisolak has, “without any rational basis, decided to single out brothels.”
On Nov. 19, the court ordered the office of the Nevada attorney general to respond to Little’s legal action within 30 days.
“It would be understandable if the governor kept all close-contact businesses closed. But the fact that massage parlors, estheticians, salons, escort services and other non-essential businesses have been allowed to reopen lead me to believe that the governor’s decision to keep brothels closed is just blatant discrimination against Nevada’s legal sex workers,” Little notes in a press release. “I just can’t let the governor arbitrarily decimate the livelihoods of an entire class of hard-working women. That’s why I decided to take legal action.”
Now Little, who has invited other legal sex workers to sign onto the lawsuit with her, is looking for financial support to keep her lawsuit going — through a GoFundMe campaign that’s so far raised over $4,300.
“As many of you know, legal battles aren’t cheap,” Little noted on the campaign’s website. “This lawsuit has been self-funded up to this point, and now I'm asking for your help to allow me to pursue this case all the way through to a successful victory. The brothel’s closure affects far more than just myself — it affects an entire network of working women and staff who are all suffering financially as a direct result of Governor Sisolak’s refusal to reopen these respected adult businesses — hence the need for legal action.”
Little, who got into the sex-work trade five years ago, tells Yahoo Life about the legal effort: “It feels absolutely insane and surreal and it’s the right thing to do and somebody had to do it.” While she cannot know why Sisolak has insisted only on brothels remaining closed, she speculates about “a few different factors” being at play.
“First, the brothels are few and limited in number when compared to places like casinos, which are numerous, large and well-funded, and can make political contributions, so there’s fiscal motivation. The brothels don’t have any such funding... I imagine we simply weren’t very high on his priority list,” she says. “I’d like to think he is not anti-brothel, but at the same time, I’ve never seen him speak a single word in support... He’s not even acknowledged that we are struggling right now. He very well could have negative feelings in regards to my industry.”
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/nevada-legal-brothels-closed-amid-pandemic-sex-worker-suing-153217382.html
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