Before Maya was a sex worker, she worked in retail. She hated it — long hours on her feet, difficult customers and low pay. Once, while she was making $10 an hour as a sales associate at a women’s clothing store, she had to supervise a group of undocumented immigrants her manager hired to deep clean the entire store.

Sandi Benks has worked at the Love Ranch, a legal, licensed brothel seven miles outside of Carson City, for the past two years. She sees many clients on a regular basis — a relationship she’s been creative in maintaining during the coronavirus pandemic.

Mention the phrase “sex tourism” in conversation and most people will cringe in disgust.

A proposed amendment to a Nye County ordinance that would restrict the hours when legal prostitutes are permitted to leave licensed brothels has renewed a debate about the rights and working conditions of sex workers in Nevada.

Far up South Las Vegas Boulevard, past the glitzy resorts and mega-casinos of the city's strip, you will find an unassuming brick building with a boarded-up fire door at the front.

In 2007, the pornography website Pornhub averaged 1 million visits per day. By 2018 this had increased to 92 million visits per day – or 33.5 billion views over the course of a year.

FOSTA-SESTA is shorthand for two congressional bills: the House’s Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act and the Senate’s Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act of 2017. As the names suggest, they were designed to reduce sex trafficking.

Sheri’s Ranch, one of Nevada’s approximately 20 legal brothels, recently released an infographic breaking down the services its 134 sex workers provided over the course of 2017.