The man who put the dude in prostidude has left the brothel business, but the Shady Lady Ranch vows to press on without him.
Though the Nye County bordello 150 miles northwest of Las Vegas has temporarily stopped servicing women, owner Bobbi Davis said she isn't ready to give up on her groundbreaking foray into legal male prostitution.
"We're just taking a little break," she said.
Markus, the Shady Lady's first stud for hire, called it quits a few weeks ago after drawing fewer than 10 customers. Since then, the workload has been shouldered by a Las Vegas man in his mid-30s who -- Davis swears she's not making this up -- performs under the name "Y. Not."
Davis said the new guy saw about 10 customers of his own before an electrical problem in the bungalow he was using forced the brothel to suspend the service earlier this week.
Davis hopes to put Y. Not back to work in May or June, just as soon as the wiring is fixed.
As for Markus, she said he "went back to do movies," a reference to his previous stint in the adult film business in Southern California.
Asked why he decided to leave, Davis said, "It was a mutual decision."
Markus made history in January when he became Nevada's first licensed male prostitute, but his brief stint at the Shady Lady was something of a disaster.
Before Davis barred him from any further contact with the media, Markus gave an interview to "Details" magazine in which he compared himself to civil rights heroine Rosa Parks.
He was on the job for 10 days before he attracted his first customer, and he only entertained six or seven women after that, Davis said.
One of those customers turned out to be an undercover reporter from the New York Post, who took pictures of Markus and wrote an unflattering, first-person account of her two hours with him.
"I think that was pretty sneaky," Davis said of the Post. "If that's the way they want to do business, that's up to them."
As far as she is concerned, the way the media in general attacked Markus was more than unfair; it was a double-standard.
"Several papers just cremated him. If it was a woman, they never would have gotten away with it," Davis said.
But no one was quite as cruel as the working women from some other Nevada brothels who posted about Markus on the discussion boards of their Web sites. "They were unmerciful," she said.
Even a few the women at the Shady Lady were "bitchy" about having to work alongside a man, Davis said.
"I don't know why. It's not like they're competing for the same customers."
Nevada's licensed prostitutes generally work as independent contractors, but the sex workers at the Shady Lady, men included, have agreed to the same rates: $300 for one hour, $500 for two.
The state's legal bordellos typically don't give out the real names of their prostitutes. Markus and Y. Not could not be located for comment.
The Shady Lady will remain open to its more traditional male clientele while the electrical work is done.
Davis said women catering to men will always be the main thrust of her business, but she's not ready to let go of her headline-grabbing experiment just yet.
"It was always a sideline. It was never the main course," she said. "We're going to try it for a while longer."
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