Weekly Cover Story: Paying The Bills At Nevada Brothels

Kevin Scanlon

Ciara, 20, earned $8,000 one week, half of which she gets to keep. She supports her boyfriend, who has cancer, and his mother.

So much for the recovery.

Here, for instance, Nikki: She's the sole supporter of two small children and her mother, and the work is important to Nikki. "In the Inland Empire," she laments, "there are no jobs at all. I couldn't even get a job at McDonald's right now."

Snip.

"We've seen over the course of the last couple of years a massive flow of women from all around the country," says Marc Medoff, general manager of the Love Ranch. "It's their first time in the sexual-entertainment business and they're showing up here -- literally on our doorstep sometimes -- for the purpose of seeking work to support their families: their husbands, their children, their parents. It's a zillion-fold increase. When things started to get really bad, in the fall of '07, we started seeing things increase and there's been no let-up."

Read the whole feature here, and view all of Kevin Scanlon's photos in the slideshow, "The Family Prostitute: Portraits of Women Brand-New to the Sex Trade."