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Nevada Brothel Skirts The Line Between Illegal Advertising And Social Media

Sheri's Ranch pool and cabana. (Courtesy Nellie Bowles)
Sheri's Ranch pool and cabana. (Courtesy Nellie Bowles)

While some techies spent last week inside the elaborate Las Vegas set-up of the International Consumer Electronics Show, others snuck away to Sheri’s Ranch, a legal brothel about 65 miles west of Las Vegas. It calls itself “the unoffical brothel of CES,” and managers report that business is booming, up nearly 70 percent since the start of the convention.

At least part of that increase comes from the ranch’s 75 to 100 sex workers who have cultivated a following on various social media sites, not least of which being Twitter.

The crafted personas and back-and-forth communication with fans and prospective clientele also allows the brothel to skirt the legal ban on advertising its services.

Here & Now’s Robin Young speaks with Nellie Bowles of the tech news site Re/code about what Bowles learned from her visit to Sheri’s Ranch.

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