# Hotels and prostitutes **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 19, 2010, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotels-and-prostitutes/540008 "2010-05-19T15:27:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotels-and-prostitutes/540008/21 "2010-05-19T19:34:42Z")
> [@Arnold\_Winkelried](#): > > Suck sticks in the mud. That’s another story, and it happened in Gabon, not Cameroon. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotels-and-prostitutes/540008/22 "2010-05-19T19:36:54Z")
I meant to say “Such sticks in the mud”, but your response is intriguing and perhaps you can share _that_ story sometime. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotels-and-prostitutes/540008/23 "2010-05-19T19:47:55Z")
> [@Jet\_Jaguar](#): > > Both. I usually just directed them to the part of town where one may find such services. US1? (Ridgewood) ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotels-and-prostitutes/540008/24 "2010-05-19T20:17:13Z")
> [@Arnold\_Winkelried](#): > > I meant to say “Such sticks in the mud”, but your response is intriguing and perhaps you can share _that_ story sometime. 🙂 It’s a story too painful to go into, but it happened in a swamp in [Monts Doudou National Park](http://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/2061/), at a camp we referred to as Deep Doudou. ---
**Author:** ![Jet\_Jaguar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jet_jaguar/32/3562_2.png) [@Jet\_Jaguar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jet_Jaguar)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotels-and-prostitutes/540008/25 "2010-05-19T20:30:21Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > US1? (Ridgewood) 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotels-and-prostitutes/540008/26 "2010-05-19T20:46:49Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > That’s another story, and it happened in Gabon, not Cameroon. A guy walks into a third world hotel in a war-torn country and asks for a room. Desk Clerk: “That’ll be 50 bucks and that includes a hooker”. Customer :" I don’t want a girl, I just need a room" Desk Clerk: “That’ll be 75 bucks” Customer: “WTF?” Desk Clerk: “Because then we have to find somewhere else for the girl to sleep” ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Poster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Happy\_Poster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Poster)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotels-and-prostitutes/540008/27 "2010-05-19T22:21:59Z")
> [@joebuck20](#): > > My guess is that at high end hotels they’ll just direct you to an escort service. Concierges at those places aren’t in the business of rebuffing well heeled clients. This. Although they won’t be so lazy as to just direct you to an escort service, that rather misses the point of concierge… ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotels-and-prostitutes/540008/28 "2010-05-19T22:34:28Z")
An English colleague once explained to me, that, when visiting the company’s headquarters in Brussels, you should get a room in the hotel on the highest floor possible. His logic was that it gave you more time to haggle down the rate with the prostitute that would inevitably join you as you took the lift to the top. Turns out I never did stay in that particular hotel, so I can’t account for his accuracy, although I don’t know that he had any reason to embellish. Personally, I’ve spent a lot of time traveling for business, and have a hard time coming up with any place that I’ve stayed that had obvious prostitutes in the hotels. I know that there are some hotels in Bangkok where you’ll see a lot of women who are likely to be prostitutes, but mostly they are already with their “boyfriends” for the time. And you mainly see them at the breakfast buffet. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotels-and-prostitutes/540008/29 "2010-05-19T23:24:40Z")
Here in Panama, there is one hotel where the attached casino is a well-known hangout for hookers. The hotel itself, however, seems to vary from time to time whether it will allow the girls to accompany guests to their rooms. Mostly it seems to be OK, but sometimes they do a crackdown and make them go elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Poster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Happy\_Poster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Poster)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotels-and-prostitutes/540008/30 "2010-05-19T23:32:19Z")
> [@ShibbOleth](#): > > Personally, I’ve spent a lot of time traveling for business, and have a hard time coming up with any place that I’ve stayed that had obvious prostitutes in the hotels. I know that there are some hotels in Bangkok where you’ll see a lot of women who are likely to be prostitutes, but mostly they are already with their “boyfriends” for the time. And you mainly see them at the breakfast buffet. An “obvious prostitute” is not a good prostitute. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotels-and-prostitutes/540008/31 "2010-05-19T23:33:56Z")
On one of my trips to Paris I had a lot of stiff muscles after two flights and a long wait between them. I asked the concierge whether someone was available for a massage . . . then it took a while to convince him that I really did need a massage . . . and nothing more. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotels-and-prostitutes/540008/32 "2010-05-19T23:51:39Z")
My ex-BF was a massage therapist (the legit, licensed kind), and for a while he had an on-call gig at a very high-end local hotel to do massages in guest rooms during hours when the health club (where the hotel normally provided legit massage services) wasn’t open. After the 3rd or 4th time he got propositioned by clients (all men), he figured out why the previous incumbent of his position had been fired. He got tired of explaining to the previous guy’s regular clients that he wasn’t in the business of providing happy endings, so he quit. Also, in 1995 I was in Moscow for a few days in grad school as part of a summer study program, and our whole group, maybe 40 undergrad and grad students, was staying in a hotel in a rather non-touristy part of town (presumably because it was cheap). My boyfriend from the previous year, a Russian Fulbright scholar and historian of a subunit of the Russian Federation Academy of Sciences, wanted to head down our way so we could hang out and chat a bit (to make a long story short, it was impossible to get rubles legally outside of Russia then, and we’d landed on the Saturday night of a long holiday weekend, so everything was closed and there was literally no way for me to get money legally so I could, say, get on a bus and go to his place). The hotel security wouldn’t let him upstairs unless he left his ID at the front desk. When I complained, their explanation was “well, what if something happens to you? We need to know where to find him.” Yeah, my historian boyfriend is a hooker…whatever. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2010, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotels-and-prostitutes/540008/33 "2010-05-20T00:01:06Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > It turned out, by the way, that that’s exactly what she invited me to do–just plop down on a couch. How much did she charge you - and wasn’t the lack of privacy a problem? ---
**Author:** ![Apocalypso](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Apocalypso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apocalypso)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2010, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotels-and-prostitutes/540008/34 "2010-05-20T00:14:03Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I stayed at one like that in Doula when I was on a project there. Our team included two other guys about my age, and an older, very distinguished scientist who was the head of a major research organization who I’ll call Gerald. I and the other two guys had rooms on the second floor, and Gerald was on the fourth. > > One evening when we were coming back from dinner, one of the young ladies got up and joined us as we entered the elevator. > > As the door closed, she sidled up to Gerald, and asked him very politely, “Excuse me sir, are you sleeping alone tonight?” > > Gerald turned bright red, and stammered out “But, but, I’m married!” > > Gerald’s new friend looked at him very quizzically, and said, “Your wife, she is here with you?” > > At that point we reached our floor. As the rest of us stepped out, leaving Gerald with the young lady, we could see the sweat popping out on his brow **as he tried to figure out what to say next.** 😃 “What will you do for a dollar?” 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2010, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotels-and-prostitutes/540008/35 "2010-05-20T00:21:40Z")
> [@Angry Lurker](#): > > An “obvious prostitute” is not a good prostitute. Only if they are trying to work a place where they are not allowed to. Otherwise, it pays to advertise.😉 ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2010, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotels-and-prostitutes/540008/36 "2010-05-20T00:23:09Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > How much did she charge you - and wasn’t the lack of privacy a problem? It was free, and I should clarify I didn’t _lay_ on the couch, I just sat and closed my eyes, lightly snoozing for a half hour or so. Okay, well, enough about the nap. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2010, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotels-and-prostitutes/540008/37 "2010-05-20T00:24:14Z")
> [@Eva\_Luna](#): > > The hotel security wouldn’t let him upstairs unless he left his ID at the front desk. When I complained, their explanation was “well, what if something happens to you? We need to know where to find him.” Yeah, my historian boyfriend is a hooker…whatever. What am I missing here? Why are you attributing to them a suspicion that he’s a hooker? What they said doesn’t seem to have anything to do with that… ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2010, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotels-and-prostitutes/540008/38 "2010-05-20T09:45:30Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > On one of my trips to Paris I had a lot of stiff muscles after two flights and a long wait between them. I asked the concierge whether someone was available for a massage . . . then it took a while to convince him that I really did need a massage . . . and nothing more. I once met a bloke in London who had had the same problem after walking around for a couple of days, so he looked up “Massage” in _What’s On_ (could have been _Time Out_). He did not get exactly what he wanted and commented to me that the magazine in question had strange adverts. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2010, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotels-and-prostitutes/540008/39 "2010-05-20T13:42:36Z")
> [@Floater](#): > > I once met a bloke in London who had had the same problem after walking around for a couple of days, so he looked up “Massage” in _What’s On_ (could have been _Time Out_). He did not get exactly what he wanted and commented to me that the magazine in question had strange adverts. 😃 On an unrelated note, my wife and I were visiting Suzhou, China and while buying some stinky tofu from a snack place the guy asked me (or us) “Ma sa ji?” My wife had no idea what he was trying to say until I pointed out that he was speaking English, not Chinese. ---
**Author:** ![simple\_homer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@simple\_homer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simple_homer)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2010, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotels-and-prostitutes/540008/40 "2010-05-20T13:54:28Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > On an unrelated note, my wife and I were visiting Suzhou, China and while buying some stinky tofu from a snack place the guy asked me (or us) “Ma sa ji?” My wife had no idea what he was trying to say until I pointed out that he was speaking English, not Chinese. “Ma sa ji?” means “massage(e) ?” Many times when I have traveled in China, within 5 minutes of checking into a hotel the phone will ring and the only English word is “massagee ?” It does not matter if I am alone or traveling with my girlfriend. Does this also happen to the Chinese, or is it only because I am a foreigner ? Would they also offer this to a Chinese man traveling with his wife or girlfriend ? I always say “no”, but I think I am correct in guessing that it is an offer of a prostitute. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotels-and-prostitutes/540008.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotels-and-prostitutes/540008.md?page=3)