Markus Prostidude: Male Prostitution at the Shady Lady Ranch
A brothel club in Nevada has broken the ground for males who want to work as prostitutes. The Shady Lady Ranch hired Nevada’s first-ever legal male prostitute in the person of “Markus,” a fit and trim college dropout who briefly worked for porn movies in Los Angeles. He now holds the distinction of being the US’ first legal gigolo.
This is a result of the successful lobbying of the Shady Lady Ranch with the state and the entire US to legalize “prostidudes,” the term for Nevada’s breakthrough sex workers. Markus had a slow first week in his new job. But his first weekend is looking busy already as he rose to become the star of Nevada’s brothel industry.
Markus has also received criticism from female prostitutes for his unwillingness to service male customers. He also caused a ruckus when, in an interview with Details Magazine, he compared his role as the first prostidude to the role of civil rights activist Rosa Parks. Parks made history when she obstinately refused to give up her seat in the bus and move to a seat at the back. Markus has since been advised not to give interviews following this.
In addition to this, competitors of the Shady Lady Ranch have also expressed their disapproval of the hiring, arguing that this will open the industry to unwanted attention and scrutiny from state agencies and officials, and could potentially influence them into making prostitution illegal. There are also concerns about spreading sexually transmitted diseases, and the fact that it may not be possible to inspect female customers as thoroughly as males prior to sex.
At 25, Markus claims he is well-read college dropout from Alabama. He also said he had a stint with the U.S. Marines, before he drove to Los Angeles to make a career out of porn acting but ended up leaving after only two scenes. He failed to find another job, and found himself in a homeless shelter in Santa Monica, California.
Markus was handpicked by Shady Lady madam Bobbi Davis from 10 applicants shortlisted from hundreds of wannabes. Part of the reason why Markus was picked was because he was comfortable with heavy publicity.
In his Details interview, Markus added, “Whichever woman may walk through that door, she’s appreciated. A surrogate lover will love that woman for a whole hour, or however much we charge here, and she’ll leave feeling much more empowered and much more confident in herself.”
Jim Davis, wife of Bobbi Davis, related to The Associated Press that he and his wife realized that granting interviews with Markus could hurt the business. Bobbi himself had to beg off for an interview with the AP. The couple also declined to disclose Markus’ real name, which is typical protection for Nevada’s sex workers.
According to Davis, the Shady Lady Ranch has been getting favorable e-mails from female customers. He is positive that the male prostitute business will pick up after at least a month, considering that it took years for the 17-year-old brothel to stabilize its market for truckers, salesmen and other travelers.
He said, “This is a business—if Bobby didn’t thing she could make money she wouldn’t have done it. Why else would she start something like this? And if she knew what she was getting into, she probably wouldn’t have.”
The Shady Lady Ranch is housed in a compound painted in yellow in a 40-acre land that the Davises originally purchased for $11,000. It lies over 30 miles north of Beatty, a township along the road from Las Vegas to Reno, with a population of less than 1,200. The small brothel features a foyer that attempts to look French, with a pricing menu obviously displayed. The brothel charges $200 for 40 minutes and $300 for an hour.
Inside, there are three connected bedrooms, each decorated differently. One of the bedrooms features a heart-shaped bathtub while the other is Asian-inspired. A new addition in the compound is the detached cottage. It is more like a spacious studio, complete with a small kitchen, a bedroom with a wooden bathtub. The Davises spent $50,000 on the cottage.
This is the same cottage that Markus intends to use.
Competition can’t help but be pessimistic. Arie Mack Moore, owner of the Angel’s Ladies Brothel, located two miles north of Beatty, has augured that the move will not be successful, noting that it is impossible to have both male and female prostitutes housed in one building, or near each other.
Moore hastened to add that his business rose after Markus was hired. Feedback from customers has it that they are deliberately avoiding the Shady Lady Ranch because of Markus.
“Cuddles,” a 22-year-old female prostitute who works for Angel’s Ladies even remarked that Markus’ rejection of gay males has given the Shady Lady Ranch a sexist and discriminatory image. Angel’s Ladies’ female prostitutes also service women.
Cuddles said, “How can you just turn down services because of someone’s preferences? It comes with the territory. It comes with the business.”
To this reaction, the Davises response is that they are not looking at building a strong market among gay males. Markus has previously told Davis that he would not perform for gay males, but they are leaving him to decide if he wants to accept gay males as his customers later.
Davis also expressed his concern about gay homophobic sentiments that seem to run across the country. He calls it “horrible” that everybody is concerned about the possibility of two men having sex. “It’s happening every day in Las Vegas. Not going to happen here, but that’s all the big fear, is gay people.”
George Flint, a pioneer lobbyist working for the Nevada Brothel Owners Association, stated that legalizing male prostitution could give rise to real health concerns. In Nevada’s brothels, male clients are subjected to rigorous inspections and sanitation requirements before sexual intercourse. He can’t see how female customers can be subjected to the same standards.
In addition, there have also been concerns about the impact of the Shady Lady Range to the 24 other brothels in Nevada, six of which are in Nye County.
According to Flint, the brothel industry in Nevada currently amounts to $50 million to $75 million in terms of investment. The Davises’ move, procedures, demands and goals could potentially harm the multimillion dollar industry.
Flint added that the non-member Shady Lady Ranch could enjoy an initial influx of curious female customers, but he doesn’t see this succeeding for the long term.
Flint said Bobby Davis probably had a genuine belief that the idea could fly. “I’m wondering after four or five days and there haven’t been any takers, if she’s beginning to wonder if maybe she was wrong.” He added the move is always open to debate, but if it doesn’t bring any customers to the front door, the Davises would still not have proved anything at the end of the day.
Career Services Office: Truth About How Big Law Firms Hire
During the first few weeks and months of law school, 1Ls are blissfully unaware of the realities of the legal world. All that matters at that point is getting to class and being prepared. There are no worries about improving grades or maintaining grades, because there are no grades to improve upon or maintain. The ugliness that some students can exhibit hasn’t shown itself fully. Jobs are not a concern, because many law schools prohibit full time students from working, and legal employers are not allowed to talk to 1Ls until November of their first year. Except for a select few who have seen through the looking glass, many believe that whatever job they want will be theirs for the taking, and that employers will fight over who gets to hand them $2000 per week in the coming summer.
In light of this naivety, it is no surprise that when the Career Services office hauled my class into school on a Saturday in early November of our first year, attendance was robust. Sure, we were giving up half of a Saturday, but this was the vaunted Career Services office. They were all knowing, all powerful. With just a simple phone call, they could have potential employers in a bidding war over your services. Or so the story went. By sitting through this meeting, we would know just how much we could expect to be earning come May, and just how easy it would be to get those jobs.
Naturally, when so little is known about an entity, stories about it are invented to make up for the lack of real information. How were we supposed to know that Career Services is typically worthless? That we could get better advice from the homeless guy who hangs out around campus? That the only people it can actually help find a job are those people who don’t need help finding jobs in the first place? That spending your Saturday morning counting the number of tiles in your kitchen would be infinitely more productive?
After listening to the Dean of the school and the Dean of Career Services each deliver the exact same fifteen minute long speech, our guest speakers arrived. They included someone from the Prosecutor’s office, a couple of attorneys from small and mid-sized firms around town, and the hiring partner from a large and prestigious firm in a nearby city. The big firm hiring partner stuck out. He wore a $2000 suit, $500 shoes, a $200 tie, and a $100 haircut, while the other collectively looked like the bargain rack at Sears. As the other people took turns speaking, he looked bored, aggravated, annoyed, and eventually, homicidal. I could tell he didn’t belong, and my mind raced as to why he was there. Finally, it was his turn to speak. Most of the students in the room perked up. After all, the big firms, that’s where the money is. This guy is sure to give some insights, right?
I don’t remember exactly what he said, but it was brief, harsh, and completely deflated the hopes and dreams of many in that room. His message boiled down to this: “We don’t hire 1Ls, and even if we did, we wouldn’t hire any of you.”
Many people were shocked and appalled by his candor, while I was refreshed. For the first time, I could see law school for what it was. Of all people, a big firm hiring partner gave me a better perspective on life.
[thanks to poeloq and barely legal via cc]
Neutrogena & Coppertone in Lawsuit: Sunscreen Advertising
Earlier ruling. Plaintiff (Coppertone for convenience) makes Coppertone Sport sunscreen, introduced in 1992, and defendant makes Neutrogena Ultimate Sport sunscreen, introduced in late 2008 and first advertised in 2009. There were false advertising claims and counterclaims; both prevailed in part.
The parties disagreed about whether a sunscreen’s ability to protect against UVA rays is subsumed within the SPF measurement, which definitely measures UVB protection. Another measurement, protection factor A (PFA), can be used to quantify protection against UVA rays.
Coppertone challenged a Neutrogena Ultimate Sport ad, “best line of sport sun protection,” claiming superiority based on “average” combined SPF and UVA scores across the parties’ sport product lines, which compared Neutrogena and Coppertone Sport with the phrase “Best average UVA/UVB protection vs. leading sport lines” next to a chart.
The big problem, in my opinion, was that Coppertone’s line included SPF 15 to SPF 70 products, whereas Neutrogena’s line began at SPF 55, leading to very different averages. The other problems were, Coppertone alleged, that Neutrogena double-counted UVA, since it was already measured by the PFA test, and because Neutrogena’s PFA testing wasn’t sufficient to support the “best line of sun protection” claim.
The court found that the bar graphs constituted an implied establishment claim: a signal that numerical values for UVA and SPF were “derived from some manner of product testing.” Neither party presented the court with enough evidence to analyze Neutrogena’s PFA testing, so the court found that Coppertone hadn’t met its burden to show that the tests were inappropriate/unreliable. Thus, notwithstanding “obvious deficiencies” in Neutrogena’s substantiation, this claim failed. This result is a good reminder that even when an establishment claim is challenged, the plaintiff has the burden of proof on something: to cast sufficient doubt on the quality or relevance of defendant’s studies.
On the motion for preliminary injunction, the court had refused to find literal falsity for the differentials between the combined SPF and UVA bars. Coppertone offers products from SPF 15-SPF 70, average 38.5; Neutrogena offers SPF 55-SPF 70, average 64; and the difference across the lines is 40%. Because the SPF portion of the bars in the ad differed by about 40%, there was no literal falsehood. Likewise, the PFA scores across the entire product lines were approximately correct, showing a near 100% difference in relative heights based on a 30.2 average for Neutrogena and 16.7 for Coppertone.
However, the court found that the bar graph was misleading in other ways. First, using UVA and SPF as separate measures of protection. UVA is a kind of ultraviolet light, not a measurement of skin protection. Neutrogena argued that there was nothing false about using PFA scores to make UVA claims, but Neutrogena didn’t use PFA scores to draw its comparison. Instead, it stacked a UVA value on top of a SPF value. On the motion for preliminary injunction, the court had found that this was an ambiguous message, not unambigously double-counting.
After trial, the court found literal falsity. Due to the predominance of UVB in SPF measurements, SPF is commonly understood to refer to UVB, and the FDA has issued a statement to this effect. But at least 10% of SPF correlates to UVA. The ad is literally false because it provides a separate UVA quantification which is “neither an accurate description of protection nor completely independent of the SPF value.” It conveys, by using different labels, that UVA and SPF are different measurements, and this is “indisputably not so.” Though Coppertone and Neutrogena were both treated the same, the “absence of bias” caused by the double-counting doesn’t eliminate the falsity.
The core of the implied falsity argument was that consumers perceive the ad (which was labeled with brand names, not SPF numbers) to reflect an “apples-to-apples comparison of similarly-labeled sunblocks”—Neutrogena SPF 70k to Coppertone SPF 70k, for example, while in fact the comparison is an average and the number of products compared isn’t disclosed. (I would have been willing to find this message conveyed by necessary implication. It doesn’t make sense to compare one brand’s SPF 35 product to another’s SPF 20—even accepting, as a commenter on my earlier post pointed out, that above a certain level all sunblocks provide the same protection; in fact that position makes the ad even more dubious.)
But because the court saw this message as one conveyed only by implication, Coppertone had to prove consumer reception. Coppertone offered a survey conducted by Gary Ford, who concluded that “consumers perceive that they can get greater protection … and/or durability from Neutrogena than Coppertone after seeing [the Best line ad].” He found a 24% difference between test and control groups. But his testimony was brief and summary-level, and Coppertone redacted the details, apparently in response to Neutrogena’s pretrial objection; thus the court found that Coppertone hadn’t met its burden to prove actual deception.
The counterclaim dealt with a Coppertone Sport ad showing athletes running in the ocean, applying sunscreen, then running/swimming/biking. The voiceover says, “You give your sport 100%–so should your sunscreen. Coppertone Sport® spray and Neutrogena spray provide the same amount of sun protection. Coppertone Sport® gives you better coverage. Waterproof, sweatproof–Coppertone Sport®–100%.” “Better coverage” accompanies an image in which a Coppertone spray user is depicted covered by blue shading, while a Neutrogena spray user is covered by slightly lighter blue shading. Text at the bottom says, “Simulated coverage study results. Among sprays with comparable SPF.” One version of the ad also had a visual where the Coppertone user was labeled “100% sunscreen formula” and the Neutrogena user “28% chemical propellant,” with a voiceover to the same effect.
The court agreed that “better coverage” was an establishment claim not supported by sufficiently reliable tests. To date, Coppertone hasn’t performed an in vivo coverage study on either spray featured in the ad, though it has tested other non-sport-branded products. In that earlier test, Coppertone Ultra-Guard outperformed Neutrogena Fresh Cooling Mist only in density, and there was testimony that density alone provides better coverage, as well as corroborating in vitro evidence.
The court disapproved of running a head-to-head comparative ad without testing the actual products. Coppertone argued that its in vivo study showed that its method of delivery provided better coverage than Neutrogena’s aerosol, regardless of formulation. The court found this conclusion “too sweeping” to be based on a comparison of just one of each party’s products. Neutrogena’s sport spray has a different formulation and different orifice size for its aerosol can than its Fresh Cooling Mist. A J&J scientist (Neutrogena’s parent company) testified that these specific formulation differences made extrapolation of test results impossible, and a consultant with experience in aerosol design made the same point about ingredients and orifice design.
Though they didn’t detail how these differences affected performance or substantiate the claim with scientific evidence, Coppertone’s witness admitted that they might produce different results in vivo. Coppertone’s director of packaging said that there were “too many other factors” to “categorically” state that a small orifice results in a particular spray. The court found this convincing as comporting with the “generally-accepted scientific principle that compositions of different molecular weights tend to have different properties. In this context, some differences in the formed aerosol droplets and their trajectories appear to be more likely than not.”
Even testing the right products, the in vivo test was insufficiently reliable to support a coverage claim. The test had no specific goals for substantiation; it looked at density, evenness and thoroughness, and Coppertone chose density after the fact when that was where Coppertone prevailed. But density doesn’t equal “coverage.” Ultimately, Coppertone used a non-standard protocol (there is no standard one) with no particular goal in mind, and the analysis “was driven by the results obtained by the tests.” (In a footnote, the court stated that it didn’t want to discourage novel protocols; the issue here was not novelty but overall unreliability, “a portion of which” is attributable to the lack of protocol or cited industry support for Coppertone’s methods.)
Given the differences between the products tested and the products in the ad, there was no “true scientific basis” for attributing the Neutrogena Fresh Cooling Mist data to Neutrogena Ultimate Sport. Coppertone “elected not to test the competitive product at the heart of its advertisement and, instead, superimposed data from an in vivo test of another competitive product into its commercial. This type of unsubstantiated ‘scientific’ claim is precisely what the Lanham Act seeks to prevent.”
The court also addressed the “28% chemical propellant” statement in one version of the ad. The court found that the “ultimate import” of the ad was that the Neutrogena sunscreen “as applied on the athlete” was 28% propellant. This was undisputedly false: though the can is 28% propellant by weight, that primarily evaporates when the aerosol is used. The ad “contrasts two sunscreens, not two cans or delivery methods.” The visual—overlaying the words “Neutrogena” and “28% propellant” on the bare chest of an athlete—reinforces the message that 28% is applied to the body. There was no qualifying statement or other clarifying language. This was a literally false message, unambiguously conveyed by necessary implication.
In conclusion, the court commented that these ads were “essentially meaningless and, therefore, of no help to the consuming public who, finally, is paying attention to the health concerns presented by overexposure to the sun.” The consumer was the real loser.
Schering-Plough Healthcare Products, Inc. v. Neutrogena Corp., — F.Supp.2d —-, 2010 WL 960635 (D. Del.)
[thanks to florian and rebecca tushnet via cc]
