Lana West, 25, used to work in sales and marketing, but recently made a major career change. Now a legal sex worker, she claims to earn as much as $30,000 a month at her job at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, far more than she was earning through more traditional means.
She used to be a 'sugar baby', but always believed that this was just a nicer way to say prostitution. "Why hide who you are? When you're being a sugar baby, it's just a euphemism," she told The Sun. "You are a prostitute and you're just calling it something else."
Before quitting her day job to pursue legal sex work, she was working part time as a sugar baby, a role that helped her rake in $40,000 in just five months.
During this period she dated around 40 men, aged between 35 and 60, who would treat her to a fancy lifestyle and pay for her rent too.
"It felt demure and exciting, I was treated well," Lana said.
"Sometimes we would just meet in hotels - and if we got along, we would have sex and then I would get money for it.
"I thought I could meet a guy that's successful, that was serious, who valued my personality. Prostitution is great, I don't have a problem with it."
In January this year she made the move into legal prostitution, which she does while studying for a bachelors degree in business administration on the side
She explained that this way of life is much safer than being a sugar baby, as they have safeguards in place to make sure the clients are regulated:
"I go on many out dates at Bunny Ranch, overnights, weekends, and the whole time my staff knows exactly where I am.
"They've got his licence plate, his ID, phone number, I know that nothing bad is going to happen to me. I feel very safe and secure."
Moonlite BunnyRanch is a legal brothel in Mound House, Nevada - a state where prostitution is permitted. It's the only jurisdiction in the United States where this is legal, though this doesn't spread to every county. Strictly regulated brothels usually operate legally in isolated rural areas, while illegal prostitution is more common in more populated areas like Las Vegas.
Lana believes that opinions are changing, and that it's time for people to stop judging, remarking that "we're in 2018, it's very mainstream". However, that doesn't mean everyone in her personal life is happy about the changes she has made:
"I had a lot of friends where I didn't mean for them to find out, but in the end it's not a big deal.
"My family found out and they are not happy, they don't like it. My dad isn't speaking to me, my sister just sent me a Facebook message saying that she was worried about me, but I said, 'Hey actually I'm fine'.
"My mum still talks to me but she's not happy about it. And they are not religious people, so it was very surprising to me that they were so unhappy.
"But I'll go on with my life. People can say that Bunny Ranch is all about sex, but it's really not. I would say when I was a sugar baby, more of my job was sex!"
We may all have certain expectations of what the life of a sex worker may be like. There may be plenty of people out there who are exploited or mistreated, but some people like Lana are doing it out of choice, and making some serious money out of it too.
