In Nevada: the first legal male prostitute... serving women only.

He's the first legal "gigolo" — a legalo? — in the country.

"Whichever woman may walk through that door, she's appreciated," Markus said in his Details interview. "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."

Are women really going to do this? It's $300 an hour at a well-established brothel called Shady Lady.

"It won't be successful," said Arie Mack Moore, owner of the Angel's Ladies Brothel, about two miles north of Beatty. "You can't have both (male and female prostitutes) in the same building or adjacent to each other, in my opinion."

Moore claims his business has picked up since Markus was hired, with customers saying they wanted to avoid the Shady Lady because of Markus.

Hmm. I would think women customers would want to avoid being around male customers. Or wait. If they're both customers, why don't they save $600 and just have sex with each other?

A 22-year-old prostitute at Angel's Ladies named "Cuddles" said Markus' unwillingness to see gay males makes the Shady Lady seem sexist and discriminatory. Her brothel services women.

Ha ha. There is no end to the problems, is there? Isn't almost everybody a big old sexist when it comes to whom they're willing to have sex with? How can that be bad? And it's prostitution! Why are we even criticizing prostitutes for being bad? The whole thing is inherently bad... or at least unconventional. How can you go all PC? It's a prostitute named Cuddles, going all PC. That's quite something.

"How can you just turn down services because of what someone's preferences is? It comes with the territory. It comes with the business," she said.

Business? But Markus said it was love.

George Flint, a longtime lobbyist for the Nevada Brothel Owners Association, said allowing a male prostitute creates legitimate health concerns. Male customers are thoroughly cleaned and inspected for signs of disease before sex at Nevada's brothels, and he doesn't believe the same "fanaticism" is possible when checking female customers.

This is the funniest part, isn't it? Fanaticism isn't possible when checking the lady parts.

Flint said he believed the Shady Lady Ranch... could see a temporary wave of curious female customers, but the experiment will ultimately fail.... "You and I and the rest of the world can sit and debate this damn thing until hell freezes over, but if nobody shows up at her front door, what's it proved?"

Well, it's not a very good experiment, so its failure doesn't mean there's no potential in the gigolo end of the prostitution business. Shady Lady has one guy, and the place is full of female prostitutes and their male clients. I wouldn't call it a failure until you try it with an array of men, not just Markus. And have more of a spa-like, "exclusive" ambiance that is completely oriented to female taste, not some crazy old whorehouse designed for male clientele. Nothing that would call itself "shady." Make it very clean and well-lit. White linen. Work some luxury bathing into the schedule of  "treatments" to handle the "legitimate health concerns" noted above. I'm sure you can think of plenty more good ideas for the design of a (legal) prostitution business that would attract female customers.