Forgot Your Password?

New to The Nation? Subscribe

Print subscriber? Activate your online access

.nation-small__b{fill:#fff;}

How Brothel Workers in Nevada Just Made Labor History

The courtesans at Sheri’s Ranch were staring down a horrifying new contract. So they did what workers everywhere do: They got organized.

Jupiter Jetson, right, and Molly Wylder, pose for a photo in front of Sheri’s Ranch, In Pahrump, Nevada, on Thursday, February 12, 2026.

The day after Christmas, Jupiter Jetson got an e-mail from her employers at Sheri’s Ranch, one of the oldest legal brothels in Pahrump, Nevada. It contained a new employment contract that her bosses wanted her and her coworkers to sign as soon as possible. After reading through the terms, Jetson sat down on the floor of her living room and began to cry.

“I immediately knew that unless we figured something out, my career is over, because I can’t sign this,” she recalled thinking to herself. “If they won’t back down, what am I supposed to do?” For the past eight years, she’d worked at Sheri’s as a “courtesan”—the ranch’s term for its employees. She’d built a close working relationship with the brothel’s management, who trusted her and often came to her for her advice. The new contract—a copy of which The Nation has seen—felt like a betrayal of that bond.

It shows management attempting to secure extensive rights to workers’ likenesses as well as their intellectual property, including any “photographs, videos, [or] writing” created during the course of their employment at Sheri’s. The contract also slipped in language that would give Sheri’s management the power of attorney over its employees, which came as an even greater shock.

“Almost every section had something that led back to them owning our [intellectual property], them owning our likeness, them being able to sign our name on documents,” Jetson said. “We had an attorney look at it, who confirmed that we weren’t just overreacting. This was a truly cartoonishly evil contract that they were asking us to sign.”

For people like Jetson, who also models and works in the adult film industry, or Adalind Gray, who recently started a band, the thought that Sheri’s could swoop in to claim the products of their labor is unbearable. “A lot of us are artists,” explained courtesan Paloma Karr, who is also a writer and activist. “We have all sorts of other jobs. The implications are not well outlined on how far they could go, with how predatory they could possibly be.”

“This is how you end up finding out you’re the spokesperson for French fries in Germany, and you didn’t see a dime because you have signed an unlimited license to your photo for no additional compensation or consideration,” Jetson added. “This is not something that only affects people who have IP to protect. If you have a face, if you have an identity, and if you have a future, you have something to protect from this contract.”

Faced with such a disturbing ultimatum from management, the workers at Sheri’s did what workers everywhere do: They got organized.

As soon as Jetson told her about the new contract, Molly Wylder, another longtime Sheri’s employee, hopped online and began mobilizing her coworkers. “Discord was a high-speed, highly effective method for us to get everything together,” she explained. A small server she’d originally set up as a place for workplace chatter rapidly morphed into a fast-moving organizing hub, and as the news spread, the courtesans began to plan their response. They knew that they’d have to........

© The Nation