In Las Vegas, sin and forgiveness are side by side

by Josh Lew on

It might be called Sin City, but that doesn’t mean that it is a complete place of moral decay (sorry). There are churches of the Catholic denomination located right on the Las Vegas Strip. The most noticeable one is Guardian Angel Cathedral, which located next to the newest of the Wynn casinos. It is actually not preaching fire and brimstone to the tourists who descend upon the city throughout the year. Its main goal is to serve the legions of casino employees, nearly 40% of whom claim to be Roman Catholic. Of course, that probably doesn’t discourage a few down-on-their-luck craps players from lighting a votive candle for good luck.

Las Vegas development guru Steve Wynn offered to construct a new church in return for turning the land where the old one sat into a parking garage for his new project. Church leaders decided not to take Wynn up on his offer, saying that the current church had already been blessed and therefore couldn’t be destroyed. So even in Sin City, you can still get holy, if you want.

[via LA Times]

Strippers in Las Vegas Casinos? Not Yet

by Josh Lew on

Anything goes in Vegas, right? Not quite. Have you ever asked yourself why there are no strip clubs in casinos? Ok, probably not, but it seems odd that with all the adult entertainment in Sin City, there are no such options in major gaming venues. It makes almost perfect sense from a business standpoint. People throw their cash at casinos by gambling. Why not allow them to literally throw their cash at dancers employed by a casino?

Past casino/adult entertainment marriages have been nixed, mostly because of worries about lap dances and other extras that some strip club personnel are known to offer. I don’t know about the inner workings of casinos, but I assume that they don’t want to be investigated for anything like that when there are other profits to be had more easily. (By the way, contrary to popular belief, prostitution is illegal in Las Vegas, though the mayor has been vocal about legalizing it). There are still many adult entertainment venues, just none in major casinos. Until the laws change or someone decides to take a chance, it is probably going to stay that way.

Legalizing prostitution in Las Vegas?

by Iva Skoch on

Many tourists think that prostitution is legal in Las Vegas. It is not, as many learned the hard way. In the rest of Nevada, prostitution is legal.

The mayor of Las Vegas, Oscar Goodman, suggested that Las Vegas should legalize prostitution, claiming that “everyone knows it goes on anyway.” According to the BBC, he is proud of Las Vegas’ image as “Sin City” and happily calls it “an adult playground” and himself “the happiest mayor in the universe”. Before he became mayor, he was the top criminal lawyer to the Las Vegas mafia. He probably got some great references for the mayor job.

His idea is simple: legalizing prostitution and creating a red-light district with a string of “magnificent brothels” in downtown Vegas. We’ll have to wait and see if he’ll actually make it happen.

Shutting down Amsterdam’s debauchery

by Jerry Guo on

Back in September, we brought you the news that one-third of Amsterdam’s red-light district will be shut down and transformed into housing. Now it seems the transformation will be even more drastic than previously thought. A wide swatch of the district will be replaced by “chic apartments, upmarket shops, galleries of high-quality hotels, and restaurants.”

The clean-up apparently has the full backing of the city, right up to the mayor. He said the city doesn’t want to completely ban prostitution; they just want to make it more discreet and limited to a couple of blocks. But it sounds like this could be more than just the usual back-and-forth on prostitution. As part of the plans, Amsterdam wants to “restore a number of historic buildings and reverse the decline of a large central area where brothels, sex clubs, and the coffee shops that sell marijuana line the city’s canals.”

On the upside, now the city wants to devote resources to restoring historic buildings, which is at least better than putting up more drab public housing or such. I may be reading too much into this, but looks like they want to take the Amsterdam out of Amsterdam.

Prostitution in Monkeyland?

by Abha Malpani on

If anyone says that they don’t stop in their tracks when they see animals mating (out of sheer curiosity, of course), they are probably lying.

When I was in India on a school trek, I remember seeing a chameleon getting it on with another and it changed colors in the process! It’s not something you see often, and I personally think it’s fascinating.

But, who would have thought that paying for sex extends to the animal kingdom?

According to the Discovery Channel, evidence has been found that male monkeys “pay” for sex by untangling and cleaning dirt and parasites from the fur of the females. The higher the ratio of male to female monkeys, the more grooming the male monkeys need to do to get their sex-life going. This process can last from a few seconds up to half-an-hour and turns the monkeys on. Scientists are guessing that this is how foreplay in humans developed. Also, it seems that materialism is part of primate social life as well: the higher status monkeys don’t have to work as hard as lower status monkeys have to for sex.

The research was conducted in Indonesia from 2003-2005 where the 243 grooming sessions of long-tailed macaques were analyzed.

Although we evolved from these animals, you hardly imagine that the prostitution and materialism of humans also have roots in our animal ancestors.