Skin City: Behind the Scenes of the Las Vegas Sex Industry – A Journalist's X-Rated Guide to Strip Clubs and Erotic Entertainment

by Jack Sheehan

Part exposé, part x-rated travel guide -- the ultimate insider's look at America's adult playground Vegas. It's a place where Midwestern couples become uninhibited swingers, where shy schoolgirls morph into sexy strippers pulling in $1,000 a night, and where randy tourists come to score at more than just blackjack and craps. What happens here, stays here -- and Vegas nightlife is hotter than it's ever been before. In Skin City , journalist and longtime Vegas resident Jack Sheehan goes beyond the bright lights to explore the dark thrills of the city's sex industry. Both lurid and fascinating, here is an unabashed look at the stripping, swinging, hustling, and hooking that have turned a desert gaming metropolis into the world's capital of lascivious entertainment. But more than a no-holds-barred exposé, Sheehan's Skin City offers a connoisseur's catalogue of where to go for readers whose tastes run to the erotic -- with everything from valuable pointers from lap dancers, call girls, and vice cops to porn star Jenna Jameson's list of her favorite Vegas strip clubs.

Genres: Nonfiction, Sexuality, Travel

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Jason Stokes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent look into the deep and very very dirty underside of Vegas.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting overview of another side of life.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Skin City's subtitle is "Behind the Scenes of the Las Vegas Sex Industry." And boy, does it take you behind the scenes and in the front row!

Author Jack Sheehan is a Las Vegas resident and has written other books about the city. In younger days he was a teacher at one of the community colleges. One of his students from back then turned out later to be a major porn star. Yes, he taught drama to Ashlyn Gere! (Side note...we have seen her perform at the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theater in San Francisco...just had to brag about that)(one more side note...one of best films is Put It In the Rear With Gere...or so I have heard! LOL!). He later did an interview with her for a magazine (that was very well received) and he was hooked. The interview does form a chapter in this book.

He starts out with attending the AVN Awards...that is the porn equivalent of the Oscars. His sense of humor sparkles here, with biting sarcasm. As he lists the names of the men nominated for best male performer, with names like John Steele or Pete Hardwood, he wonders if there is a marketing firm that specializes in these names. That just had me laugh out loud.

Sheehan is not too mocking though...he travels a fine line, as he goes into swingers clubs, strip clubs, escort services and every thing tawdry and wonderful about sex in this most sexual of cities. We meet prostitutes and strippers who each disdain what the other does for a living, as well as madams and couples that love to swing (and not in the typical playground). Even the oldest man in porn, Dave Cummings (see what he means about the names) And Sheehan makes them all real people, not just cardboard cutouts. (Side note...Cummings later produced a series called Screw My Wife Please that is still going strong after 50 or so volumes...or so I have heard).

And his sense of humor keeps it all rolling along.

Wow, there really is something for everyone in Vegas. And Sheehan, despite his Catholic guilt, shows it to us full frontal (as well as rear and side views)( maybe even an upside down view).

This was a fun, funny and very interesting book, for anyone with an interest in sexuality and kinkiness. Not that that describes me at all! I'm just saying...

The book was a gift from my friend Paul, for a birthday a few years back. Thank you Paul, it was an inspiration! HA!

[Martina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Obviously, I read a decent amount of trashy books. This one was irresistable given my love of all things Vegas. A REALLY fast read, I barely remember any of it. Held my interest, but nothing substantial. The more interesting chapters were interviews with native Las Vegans who have careers in stripping or porn.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jack Sheehan tries to tackle the world of the Las Vegas Sex Industry in a way that will shed a positive light on the trade in Skin City. While his points are interesting and his look into the world is thorough, this book reads like he wasn't sure what he was trying to write. Half ethnography, half Las Vegas Sex Tour Guide, Skin City is a choppy, yet easy-to-read and intriguing book.

[Aimee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ha! If you want to a new angle on your own view of the sex industry- read this!!! Very interesting facts and knowledge you would have never come across otherwise!

[Maura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was living in Las Vegas at the time I read this and was intrigued by the things it revealed about the underbelly of Sin City. I guess I shouldn't have been though. I learned a lot reading this.

[Rogue Reader · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just couldn't get into it

[Roxanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a behind the scenes of the sex industry. I have been to Las Vegas many tines and a regular person sure does not see this seedy and rauncy side of the town.

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anyone visiting Las Vegas; needs to read this book; very insightfull.......a must read!!!!

[Bianca Basak Dikturk · Rating 2 out of 5]

Scratches the surface of the most popular vices in LV. Interesting holiday reading.

[Vicks]

If you are interested in strippers, this book is a good read.