Chasing pleasure can lead a man to his demise. Yet the entertainment industry is huge. While it is widely known and accepted that the key to self-mastery is discipline, many humans love to succumb to heathenistic desires. Las Vegas, Nevada is a place where such desires are regularly fulfilled.
"There was every reason to believe I was heading for trouble, that I'd pushed my luck a bit far. I'd abused every rule Vegas lived by—burning the locals, abusing the tourists, terrifying the help. The only hope now, I felt, was the possibility that we'd gone to such excess, with our gig, that nobody in a position to bring the hammer down on us could possibly believe it . . . When you bring an act into this town, you want to bring it in heavy. Don't waste any time with cheap shucks and misdemeanors. Go straight for the jugular. Get right into felonies. The mentality of Las Vegas is so grossly atavistic that a really massive crime often slips by unrecognized,” wrote Hunter S. Thompson in his book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Over 42 million people visited Las Vegas in 2015, a city whose regular population is only slightly above 600,000. While unlimited 24-hour gambling is the number one draw to Sin City, there are also 24-hour clubs, bars, and nearby brothels. It's a place people come to lose their inhibitions, their morals, and run “free”. Public intoxication and drinking alcohol on the strip is completely legal (but glass bottles are not). The saying “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” is taken as a literal free pass to many of the people that visit and use the land as their playground as well as their toilet. Even if you aren’t a gambler, the open invitation to sin is usually too overwhelming to turn down.
There are ridiculously sprawling expensive buffets for the gluttons, liquor at every turn for the lushes, and sex being sold everywhere for those who lust, simply allow one of the small middle-aged South American women that saturate the streets of the strip to put a call-girl’s business card in your hand. And almost every type of perversity is embraced, with very little frowned upon. Although the United States is an extremely secular country where sexuality is flaunted, people still come to Las Vegas to escape the formality and morals of everyday life. Which is also why, tourists from more conservative, and traditional countries flock here as well.
"But our trip was different. It was a classic affirmation of everything right and true and decent in the national character. It was a gross, physical salute to the fantastic possibilities of life in this country—but only for those with true grit. And we were chock full of that,” said Thompson.
Las Vegas is always highly glamorized. The bright lights seem to bring an allure uniquely their own. Yet there is a sense of depression in the air on the strip. A mix people coming to party and those locals who survive solely by serving and meeting the tourists’ deranged needs while still many others sleep on the streets. It's a place where people go when their morals need to take a vacation. Where heathenism is embraced and man becomes beast.
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