Under normal circumstances, the sex workers arriving to their jobs at Sheri’s Ranch, a legal brothel in Pahrump, Nevada, have a predictable routine. Most people’s shifts at the ranch last for at least a week, and the process involves picking out a room that they’ll stay in and work out of for the duration, visiting with a doctor, and some paperwork. The week of Christmas, however, things went very differently. Sheri’s workers showing up say they were presented with a surprising and objectionable new contract that would give the brothel unprecedented control over them, their intellectual property, and their digital likenesses.
“They want everything,” says Jupiter Jetson, a sex worker, model, and adult film actress who’s worked at Sheri’s for eight years.
“Their motivation is to get ahold of our videos and the ability to create AI likenesses.”
Jetson says there had been hints that something might be afoot: in the fall, brothel management started offering what she wryly calls “teaser trailers,” saying things like “There’s a new contract coming, a lot of ladies aren’t going to like it” while at the same time insisting, she says, that “there weren’t any major changes” and framing it as a chance to “tie up some loose ends and fix some clerical errors.” Like many people in adult businesses, Sheri’s Ranch workers—referred to as “courtesans” in Nevada, the only state where prostitution is legal—are classified as independent contractors, but some say they’re treated more like employees, with the ranch controlling basic aspects of their jobs, including how much they charge and what they can wear.
According to three women with experience working at Sheri’s, the new contract made an unprecedented play for their intellectual property, one that they worry could be a bid to make money from their likenesses, including through AI, as well as potentially owning a piece of anything they might create while working at the ranch. The contract, which Mother Jones has viewed, also gives Sheri’s power of attorney over the workers’ intellectual property; as the contract puts it, to “further the prosecution and issuance of patents, copyrights, or other intellectual property protection.” The women say the contract was shown to many arriving workers in what seemed like a deliberately rushed fashion, with someone in management immediately flipping to a back page and asking them to sign without reading it closely.
In addition to the contract, the workers have other longstanding labor issues, including the “limo fees” that they’re required to pay to help transport customers from the Las Vegas strip, and the system of tip splitting—both of which organizers say appear to be legally questionable. But as sex work has become an increasingly digital field, their major concern is the contract’s threat to their ability to protect their image and likeness, especially from potential AI uses. The issue is no longer hypothetical: just this week, major Hollywood players expressed concern and outrage after the Chinese company ByteDance made an AI video featuring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt.
Instead of signing, some of the women began talking among themselves, reading the fine print, and largely deciding that the new language was intolerable. As a result, Sheri’s Ranch workers have launched a unionization drive, forming the United Brothel Workers, a branch of the Communications Workers of America. If successful, they’ll be the country’s first brothel workers’ union to gain employer recognition.
While the workers and the CWA declined to share a specific number, they say they have collected signed union cards from a “heavy supermajority” of the ranch’s sex workers. They’re calling on Sheri’s to recognize the union voluntarily, which seems unlikely: multiple women have been abruptly terminated for what organizers say is protected union activity, including Jetson, who said she was fired via email 24 hours after collecting signed cards in the ranch’s parking lot.
“We live in a spicy panopticon,” Jetson says, referring to the security cameras that cover public areas of the ranch. “There is no covertly organizing a union.” Instead, she says, “we did a lightning strike-style drive to sign the union cards,” where organizers stopped workers coming from their cars to talk about their labor rights. Jetson and another worker involved in the drive, who has also since been dismissed, continued even after learning from a colleague inside that management appeared to be gathering around security camera monitors to watch their efforts.
“We got a lot of union cards” that day, Jetson says. “The brothel got our voluntary notice of recognition on Wednesday,” about 24 hours later, she says. “On Thursday, I was fired at 3:12 PM via email.”
Another worker, Molly Wylder, said she was also fired over email after management appeared to learn that she was helping with the union effort, and before she’d even had a chance to decline to sign. “They just knew what I was doing,” Wylder says. A third worker, Adalind Gray, attempted to sign the contract with a notation she hoped would indicate she was doing so under duress. She says that management refused to accept that, telling her she could leave instead. When she began recording the interaction on her phone—Nevada is a one-party consent state, and the conversation took place in an office that is already monitored by security camera—she says she was told “my contract was no longer on the table.” The CWA has so far filed four unfair labor practice complaints with the National Labor Relations Board on behalf of terminated workers.
Sheri’s Ranch, which is owned by retired car dealership owner and former homicide detective Chuck Lee, didn’t respond to specific questions about the legal concerns raised by the unionizing workers, or about the termination of Jetson and other workers. Instead, Jeremy Lemur, the brothel’s marketing director, provided a statement saying the ranch “has been actively working with independent contractors to revise and improve the existing contract with the goal of making it more workable and agreeable for everyone.” It said the company has been in “ongoing dialogue” with its workers, and that it believes “the final version will be viewed by the independent contractors who choose to work here as fair, balanced, and supportive of their ability to operate their own businesses.”
The statement makes clear that Sheri’s primary concern is that the unionization drive could result in the sex workers being classified as employees instead of independent contractors. As Lemur’s statement adds, “Sheri’s Ranch has long believed that the independent contractor model has served Nevada’s licensed sex industry, and the women who work within it, well for decades. It has allowed independent businesswomen to maintain autonomy, set their own paths, and build success under an established and lawful framework. While we respect that individuals have the right to express differing views, the company remains committed to preserving a structure that has provided opportunity, stability, and economic independence for generations, while continuing to support a safe, professional environment for contractors, clients, and the surrounding community.”
Despite the already intense backlash from management, the organizers forming the United Brothel Workers say that what’s on the line is nothing less than existential—for them and for sex workers at other Nevada brothels.
Alice Little, a legal sex worker at the nearby Chicken Ranch who’s known for advocating for sex worker’s rights, says she, too, recognizes that a union contract at Sheri’s could be seismic for the industry—which is why she’s opposed to the effort. “In my personal opinion, it is the brothels who would benefit from making employees of the independent contractors, not the other way around,” says Little, who I was referred to by Lemur, but who told me that she was not speaking on behalf of brothel owners. Little says she’s concerned that an employee system would allow brothels to impose stricter rules and guidelines on sex workers, including how often they need to work (be “on tour,” in industry parlance). “It would be almost a win for these locations to set a standardized contract and require us to be on tour however often.”
In her view, “It’s in our best interest to negotiate and contract individually and exercise the freedom to change locations,” meaning to quit a brothel if contract terms aren’t acceptable. “That makes a bold statement to a location if you take your business somewhere else. The Chicken Ranch and Sheri’s are within walking distance… It’s incredibly easy to just go work at the brothel next door. There are so many freedoms and options within this industry.”
Similarly, Jetson thinks that the new intellectual rights provisions in the Sheri’s contract are also a bellwether—which is why she and her colleagues are fighting against it.
“If this contract had been successful and they’d been able to roll this out without a peep from us,” Jetson says, “they would’ve taken it to the brothel owners association and we would’ve seen contracts like this in every house in Nevada in the next two years.”
Sheri’s Ranch has previously declared itself AI-skeptical. In a 2025 blog post, Lemur wrote that while AI “is certainly revolutionary and rapidly evolving, the tech raises serious questions about consent, authenticity, and what we trade for convenience.” By contrast, he wrote, Sheri’s “serves as a cultural counterpoint. Here, we provide genuine connection between real people—licensed sex workers who choose their profession and meet clients face-to-face in a safe and regulated environment. From the initial email contact to the sexual encounter, Sheri’s employs no deepfake imagery, no ghostwritten communication, and no deception throughout the customer experience.”
“I could be starring in adult videos that I never agreed to and never consented to.”
But the sex workers who provide those encounters worry the company’s attitude has shifted. Jetson says that in a conversation with the ranch’s madame last year, she “expressed the owners’ desire to get in on what they see as their owed piece of the content we’re making,” apparently meaning the workers’ social media presences, including on platforms like OnlyFans. “Their motivation is to get ahold of our videos and the ability to create AI likenesses.”
“This is how you end up the face of a Japanese lubricant company without ever having signed a document,” Jetson previously told the Associated Press. “This is how you end up finding yourself on a website offering AI companionship without ever seeing a penny.”
“I’ve never filmed pornography,” Wylder says. “But they have plenty of pictures and videos of my body and me walking in and out of the office, myTikTok, photos of me on Twitter before my account was deleted. They could easily make a composite of me, and I could be starring in adult videos that I never agreed to and never consented to.”
The contract has no language suggesting the provision is limited to AI pornography or virtual sex uses, the workers add. “If you write a book, or a recipe for a food blog, or take pictures on vacation and they decide they could get paid selling them to a travel company,” Jetson says the new contract allows them to do that. Gray, a musician, adds, “If I write music for the band I have, I worry they could take a piece.”
While the firings are a real blow to their lives, Jetson says Sheri’s Ranch response to their workers’ complaints about the contract has also left them unsatisfied. “Their approach has been to gaslight us and tell us we’re mistaken about what these clauses mean,” she says, telling the women, for instance, that they “need our power of attorney to share our photos with journalists or make sure we can’t spread lies about the ranch. It’s all complete nonsense.”
Gray, Wylder, and Jetson say they hope to get their jobs returned and be able to work for a professional and fair employer. “We’re fighting for Sheri’s to be a good place to work,” Gray says. “I’m looking forward to going back.”
Jetson, meanwhile, has a message for other sex workers in Nevada watching what’s going on at the ranch from afar. “When informing yourself about what’s going to be the best for you and your rights and your future,” she says, “don’t ask the people who stand to profit from you making a bad choice. I’ve heard so much propaganda, for lack of a better word, that’s been spread far and wide throughout this industry about how ‘employee’ is a four letter word and the end of our rights. In actuality, employees with collective bargaining power have so much more freedom and so many more rights than what is currently known in the brothel system.”
“Don’t ask the owners,” she concludes. “Ask your coworkers.”
This post has been syndicated from Mother Jones, where it was published under this address.