They interviewed some of the few legal sex workers in America, and found that to really understand the work, they also needed answers to some basic questions. The following is lightly edited and condensed for clarity. Christina Parreirra her real name , in her early thirties, had a different reason for working in the brothel.
She is a doctoral candidate in sociology at UNLV. They told her only if she worked there too. Following a long talk with her advisor, she agreed. I knew that I wanted to speak to the women. And I decided that I wanted to do it as an insider instead of just, you know, as an outsider.
And I remember instances of being in the brothel and working and there would be, you know, maybe one girl or one or two girls that we would call them the low-ballers. And after a while there would be some annoyance. I mean, the house does not encourage this at all. But amongst us, it was a smaller brothel. It was only four or five girls. I remember there was a girl that I worked with that was really pretty and could have been charging a lot more. But she had no self-esteem. She had no confidence.
And she was charging like the bottom of the barrel. She was actually one of the girls we had a bit of an issue with. You could be making more. So I sat down with her one-on-one.
And I told her. You will make that money, you know? Double that. Triple that. But if you start low, you have nowhere to go but lower. You know? Oh they are not happy. He knew what I was studying, and he thought I was just like living there and, like, going to visit. My mom knows me better than that. So she was a little suspicious and started asking a lot of questions.
