And so, when the Bunny Ranch opens its doors to the armed forces, it is only doing what so many brothels have done before it. The main difference is that this is happening in America, and it comes with America's safety checks. There are no horrible diseases or fatherless babies coming out of the ranch as so often happened in Vietnam. In May, a 10-person delegation of East Asian academics, government officials and private relief workers researching ways to end global sex trafficking showed up, unannounced, at the ranch. The visit was quickly condemned by the U.S. State Department, but the symbolism was clear: Americans have visited brothels overseas, and now the overseas representatives were visiting the American counterpart.

For servicemen with no overseas brothel to visit, the Bunny Ranch was also the destination of choice. Soldiers waiting in Kuwait only a few months ago -- cooped up under an unforgiving layer of sand, surrounded by only anxiety and the bare necessities -- found their lifeline to sex was through the postal service. They began writing letters to the ranch, some addressed to specific women they might have seen on the HBO special (which ran in December 2002) and others just to the ranch itself. They wrote of sitting by their tanks, hoping to make it out of Iraq alive, pledging to come to the ranch to enjoy their own bodies in one piece. "Imagine how much testosterone these guys got in them, sitting around all wound up," ranch owner Hof says. "They're wound up, these guys, and sex is all these guys care about. It's all young guys care about."

Sunset Thomas, a Bunny Ranch girl and the star of more than 200 adult films, was a frequent recipient of the letters. Of all the people in the world to write to -- mothers, old friends, ex-girlfriends -- some nervous men on the brink of war chose to write Sunset. "I don't know if I'm going to be around tomorrow. I'm going to kick some ass and come back and see you, Sunset," she recalls one of the letters saying. For Thomas, the letters were flattering. In the face of adversity, men often think of freedom. In the face of death, they were thinking of Sunset. "They're over there fighting for my freedom, so I have the freedom to be in porno movies or work in brothels," she says. "I think it's so wonderful. It makes me feel good sometimes. I've been in the business for 11 years, and, hey, it's nice to know there are a lot of guys out there who really appreciate my work."

Hof had his girls write back to the guys, and shipped them a bag of goodies, including vibrating rubber vaginas. When even more guys started writing, the ranch designed the free-sex-for-military promotion, and it quickly snowballed in the media. As of Tuesday, 41 military men and women had come for their prize, including two women who had never been intimate with another woman before. They both took turns with Thomas and then joined in a three-way. Thomas says she never asked the girls why the offer of free sex drove them to such a radical experiment, but she assumes the bombs and bullets had shaken them loose. "Sometimes when you're over there fighting, a lot of crazy shit goes through your head," she says. "I don't know. Maybe they just said, 'I always wanted to be with a chick.'"

No stranger to brothels, Csicsatka also jumped at the chance to visit the ranch. He didn't fight in Iraq or Afghanistan, but he took advantage of the ranch's secondary military offer: 50 percent off for any active military personnel. In all, he dropped nearly $6,000 at the ranch. "I'll just have to save up a little bit more for college," he says with a laugh, but considers it money well spent. He got to experience a brothel in his home country, and was overwhelmed by the amount of options available, like "a kid in a candy store," he says. Plus, he fulfilled a longtime fantasy of his: sex with three girls at once, each of a different ethnicity. That's a "Neapolitan" on the Bunny Ranch menu, and the vanilla in his trio actually goes by the name Vanilla. "I always say to myself, and I believe it, too: 'You only live once,'" he says. "Someday I'll be 80 years old, and I'll be able to tell my grandkids, 'When I was your age, I went to the Bunny Ranch and I had myself a Neapolitan, just like you will, you little kid.'"

Csicsatka has no regrets about his international escapades, and casually tells his friends back home about them all. He's out there for life experience, he says, and there's far more to see than what's on the base. But still, after paying for anonymous women in exotic lands, he says the beauty of American women hasn't faded. When he visited the Bunny Ranch, he spent his downtime just sitting and talking with some of them, asking what their parents think or know of their chosen profession. He says he'll never tell his mother about the day at the ranch.

The military was far from his mind during his visit, but he's delighted by the collusion of the armed services and sultry services. Overseas, it's always about the sex. But here, he says, it's about something more. Something different.

"They're kind of like supporting our military and we support them overseas," he says. "It's good to see that Americans do love us."

Private Life Romance, relationships, and the personal side of Table Talk