Alan ScherstuhlEach Thursday, your Crap Archivist brings you the finest in forgotten and bewildering crap culled from basements, thrift stores, estate sales and flea markets. I do this for one reason: Knowledge is power.
The Official Guide to the Best Cathouses in Nevada
Date: 2002
Publisher: Straight Arrow Publishing, Boise, Idaho
Discovered at: Out of the Closet Thrift Store, 360 N. Fairfax
The Back Cover Promises: “Unique” and “Informative & Exciting,” but these compliments are not credited to anyone.
Representative Quote:
“It's like a boarding school for girls, only it's not books they're going to be studying. These women work. They sell pleasure and that's all they have to do. They don't have to cook or do the laundry and they don't have to take out the garbage. They only need to satisfy 200,000 men a year sexually.” (page 18)
Like all Americans, you pass your days fantasizing about Nevada's brothels, because you know that there is nothing more satisfying than twenty minutes of antiseptic, no-kissing sex with a woman who has been locked in her cinderblock bedroom for up to three weeks, all in an Unabomber shack in the middle of nowhere that offers free showers to truckers.
All that means that you probably would enjoy a copy of The Offical Guide to the Best Cat Houses in Nevada, written by J.R. Schwartz, the noted Idaho whoremonger presumably named by Mel Brooks.
Here, he discusses the seasonal nature of the sex-for-money business.
“Obviously the busiest times are when the most men are physically aroused. This could occur during the Reno air races, when the Marines are on leave, during the fishing season, any time during the ski season. Erections follow no particular time schedule.”
“When the most men are physically aroused”? You mean, when they first get Cinemax?
So, maybe Schwartz doesn't share many valuable insights. While the cover promises a guide to the “best” Nevada cathouses, Schwartz recommends 33 of them — out of 34 reviewed. And while the cover promises “Everything you want to know about legal prostitution in Nevada,” Schwartz never once discusses how much sex will actually cost.
Still, he writes with evangelical fervor:
“Sexuality is the oil they're bathed in, an unctuosness, eliciting responses and creating desires in the men who are there to spend and enjoy . . . They are the sum total of their parts, many times dissected: They are faces, legs, breasts, and hair; a totality of limbs and appendages; the Gestalt of which men would like to devour.”
Plus, he's generally fascinating. He runs a website about Cuba, where he has called for criminal charges against Dick Cheney, and he crammed his guide to whorehouses so full of filthy craziness that you'll need to wipe down any books shelved beside it.
So, here's the highlights of Schwartz's take on our neighbor state's brothels (or, as he calls them, the “pussy palacio”s “sex farms” “desert sex palace”s) . . . as well as the women who work them (“charity ladies,”
“Angels of Mercy,”
“silken-haired representatives of the fairer sex,”
“Independent contractors.)”
Schwartz On . . .
Terms for Female Sexual Organs
Cunnus, “precious lambpits,” “sweet jellyboxes,” “fun ovens,” “cock garages,” “honey pots with submissive limbs,” “the dark veil,” “The dearest bodily flower”
The Value of Persistance:
Reasons a Prostitute Might Leave the Industry:
“Not getting laid enough to support their positive cash flow program, and cynicism.”
Reasons You Might Visit a Cathouse:
“No future obligations, no crime ridden connotations, no guilt. Disease free legal sex, and fun. And you don't have to take her out to dinner first.”
“Are you a salesman just passing through the area, wanting to try something different?”
Reasons You Might Bring a Guest to a Cathouse:
“Concerned that you don't like the way he's eyeing your ten year-old daughter.”
“You've noticed that your prized pet rabbits are suffering from torn rectums and your neighbor is walking around with a fatous grin on his face, and one hand in his pants!”
“And how about Junior? Is he approaching the age where a little first-hand knowledge and experience will go a long way towards helping him have a healthy outlook on the biological urge? If you and your loved one don't wish to perform in person there are cathouses that allow young men in, as young as fourteen years of age, with parental consent.”
Prostitute Names, or Why the Robertas of the World Should Stick With Roberta:
Kimers, Maudy, Keisha, Coco, Amber, Cat, Lacy, Tonya, Bobbi (x3) Tara Lee, Anancia, Cissy, Lyn (“one n for short n sweet”), Shu Shu, Angel
Terms for Male Sexual Organs:
“Pleasure weapon,”
“Love club,”
“Wank-wank sack bag”
Confounding Ode to Wank-wank Sack Bags:
“Men with pendulous scrotums, turgid penises engorged with blood. As hard as polished steel. Like heat-seeking missiles, cocked and triggered. Immense projectiles, as large as presto logs, smoldering with desire.”
Why Laminated Menus Are Probably a Good Idea:
(From the Calico Club in Battle Mountain, which is the last place you want to be parked the day the folks from Google snap their “Street View” shots.)
On Dinner With Prostitutes at the Now-Defunct Salt Wells Villa, Just East of Fallon:
“Two of them were debating the pros and cons of 'giving head.' Keisha thought it would cause hanging jowls, while Coco was under the impression it would strengthen neck muscles and give one's face a better tonal quality. “
Thoughts on the Prostitues Themselves:
“The woman you have chosen to be with is a member of the piece corps.”
“No slouches or hosebags are allowed in here to work.”
“Most of the girls working [at Nye County's Cherry Patch II] are young, smooth, and sexy, with shapely legs in brightly colored tights, and, to top it off, attractive hairstyles.”
Saddest Description, Brothel:
“Business hours [at My Place in Winnemucca] are from 12 noon until 4 a.m. or whenever the action stops. For souvenirs she's got ball-point pens.”
Saddest Description, Prostitutes:
Out-of-Nowhere Flight of Poetic Fancy:
The Pussycat in Winnemucca is “a laboratory of love, a nest of spicery where instruments of pleasure now play to new music.”
Out-of-Nowhere Poetic Flight That Had Me Searching for “Tourettes” on WebMD:
“Cum by the gallons. Billions of spermatozoa: deliquescent crystalline aliphatic tetramines flagellating up streams of semen actively seeking ovums everywhere.”
Bawdy Pun You Can See Coming From as Far Off as You Might See the Lights of Las Vegas Over the Dark Mojave:
“Although Peter Ogden and the trappers who followed pulled most of the beaver out of the streams years ago a new breed of beaver has supplanted it: The two legged kind! They are alive and well in Battle Mountain's two legal cathouses!”
Alarming Glossary Pages You Should Totally Blow Up By Clicking On:
Sex Acts That Should be in the Glossary:
“Whether it's the old hoo ha, or a whiff of the Spring Wind, these temptresses can accomplish the task. Sex is the common denominator in this cathouse.”
Glossary Entry that Makes Breasts Sound Like Dialogue From Mork & Mindy, Then Groceries, Then Batman Sound Effects, Then TeleTubbies, Then National Parks, and at Last Strip-Mall Gyms:
“Nay Nays:
Milk Cans, Bazooms, Fun Bags, Num-Nums, Moo-Moos, Twin Doves, Snowy Hillock, Teats, Curves”
Glossary Entry That Lends Credence to the Argument that Being Green Isn't Easy:
“Kermit the Frog Style:
Sex with the woman positioned on top, with her knees almost above her shoulders.”
Amusing Redundancy:
Of the Villa Joy in Winnemucca, Schwartz writes, “Open 24 hours a day, they never close.”
Evidence That the '02 Edition Has Not Been “Completely Updated” as the Cover Claims:
“The MX missile system is being developed for the Tonopah region of the state.”
More Evidence that the Book's Updating Was Not Thorough:
“The Shady Lady is the newest brothel in Nevada.”
“Mabel's Whorehouse is the newest and nicest cat house to be built in the state of Nevada.”
“They call it Sharon's Place, Nevada's newest brothel.”
Indications That Schwartz Might Be an Old White Guy:
“Most of his customers [at the Cherry Patch] are from Las Vegas, many are Orientals, and most are high rollers.”
“A real character I met [at the Lazy B Guest Ranch] was Angie, an older black maid who had worked at the Moonlight Ranch 20 years ago. She said with conviction that prostitution was a good idea, because “men don' go roun' rapin' no woman!”
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