Betty Dodson with Carlin Ross

Better Orgasms. Better World.

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I just came home this morning from Las Vegas: a culture dedicated to the delusion that life should be a 24 hour party of "I'm living the dream."

Yeah, sure.

Early one morning I'm going for a run down the Vegas strip. Up ahead, two people argue about loosing all their money - and who's responsible. Still dressed in last night's clothes, they're taking the bus home - they don't have enough cash for a cab.

She has a beer in her hand. He can barely walk. They scream at one another.

Yep. Living the dream.

Further down the strip, working women scurry home in shorts and bruises, matted hair and worn off makeup.

The harsh light of daybreak is unforgiving to the dream.

Everyday, the promise of easy sex and easy money washes tens of thousands to the shores of the desert strip.

One evening, as I wait for a client, an overly made-up girl in black spandex leggings, six inch heels, and a slinky top approaches me. She's looking at my lips and asking how my night is going. "So, what do you do?" she asks, probing to see how much money I make. I tell her I'm a sex educator.

She looks at me strangely to see if I'm telling the truth. She says her name is Katey, and she tells me she's a real Vegas hotel/street walker - supporting her daughter by hooking - and no pimp. "Pimps are dangerous," she says, "As a sex educator, you should know. Vegas is a dangerous city."

People come to Las Vegas for the promise of something that really can't exist in our repressed culture. It's the steam pipe vent in the Main street called the United States. A vapid attempt to release society's sexual angst and pressure.

Sadly, people on all sides of the Vegas sex industry seem to feel badly about participating in that release.

"I'm really a good person," Katey continues, as if her being involved with sex is inherently bad, dirty, and wrong. "The good man in the sky knows that... I hope."

As she says that, all I can think of is that God is her pimp, coldly watching her but not helping, as she trades time with her body for cash to pay for her daughter's education, as he ruthlessly waits to extract the tax of heaven or hell on Katey.

Like a good pimp, he keeps his bitch on the street, never giving her enough to break out of the business - only enough to keep her enmeshed in the cycle.

"I put myself through college this way too." She smiles a big smile, slightly hiding the fear is in her darting eyes as she looks for undercover police.

The police are her pimps too - extracting a tax for her illegal right to walk the streets and comb the hotels.

Las Vegas offers the promise for easy sex and easy money. It's a supposedly free pass, but at its core is shame, guilt, blame, and fear - that doesn't sell. At least not in Vegas.