Why are there "Massage Parlors" in the Unites States?

Great Debates
81

I recall some discussion with my stepmother back in the 1990’s where there was some news item about prostitution - she wondered how that even worked? I told her the news article mentioned personal ads, looked at the day’s edition of The Globe and Mail which was/is Canada’s staid business newspaper. The ad we found funny, sticks in my mind, was some lady advertising services for “…boy scout who knows the ropes…”

I did collect some “tart cards” when I was in England in 1991 - very clever things, stuck into every nook and cranny downtown, especially those red phone booths. “For a spanking good time call…” I was especially amazed to find these sort of cards offering massages stuck around our hotel in Dubai a few years ago, of all places. I guess that happens everywhere.

The thing with bosses who refuse to pay overtime, is that in the civilized world, and also in some US states, there is a thing called the Labor Standards Board, and employers who cheat on overtime can be charged and fined and made to pay overtime. The trick is to wait until some is owing, quit, and try to collect. Generally, the employer will find that too many such complaints can have negative ramifications - very different than a worker being threatened physically, or with deportation. A construction boss may hire undocumented workers because the same threat of deportation can be used against them if they ask for their legitimate pay.

As for constitutionality - you can vote, you can give someone money, you can’t pay someone to vote for you. You can copy a book or movie, people can give you money, but you can’t sell a copy of a book or movie you don’t own copyright to. (You cannot even give it away). You can give people rides, they can hand you money, but you cannot make a business of it unless you have a taxi license. You can have a child you can’t care for and give it freely to someone who will take care of them for you, but they cannot buy the child off you. A lot of things become illegal when money changes hands to facilitate it.

the general theory of the constitution is that what is not enumerated as a power of government is a right reserved for the citizen. yet, for example, there is nothing in the constitution that explicitly gives the government, for example, the right to prohibit theft or fraud, or even murder. IANAL, but there is some legal theory (plus common law) I’m guessing that allows the states to prohibit certain activities in the pursuit of peace, order, and good government?

82

It’s legal to give a friend your kidney. It’s legal to accept money from said friend. And yet, combining the two is illegal. Funny ain’t it?

(I absolutely do not advocate for the buying and selling of human organs, just to make that clear.)

83

Legalize prostitution in the US and maybe there will be less of a human-trafficking issue. It would also provide for more careful health monitoring for the sex-worker (and by extension, better health for the johns, too).

Also we no longer would have to use euphemisms for sex-work so a massage parlor could become exactly what it says it is and no more.

84

I’m sensitive to this argument but if you legalize sex work but it’s not clear from places that have tried this experiment that it reduces sex trafficking. If you make it legal, demand skyrockets because Johns are no longer subject to arrest but supply doesn’t seem to increase as quickly, probably because schtupping desperate men who can’t laid is still a pretty unattractive proposition for most women. So, with increasing demand and not-as-quickly increasing supply, there is plenty of room for finding novel ways to traffic and exploit women. These problems aren’t easy.

Also, legal issues aren’t the only reason we have euphemisms for the world’s oldest profession. We will continue to have them as long as some woman doesn’t want to tell her mother what she does for a living and some man doesn’t want to admit that he has to pay for sex.

85

I am not sure this is the case. It’s rather like the argument that if you legalize pot then usage will skyrocket. In CA, CO and the like there’s probably been some increase in pot users but that may mostly be the sparkly newness of a vice made legal and go down over time.

I’d imagine a similar dynamic with legal prostitution. Has it indeed shot way up in Germany or Holland or Belgium or wherever they’ve legalized prostitution? How about in the legal Nevada counties?

Good point about the euphemisms, though.

86

But with that comes its own issues. In Nevada, for example, I have been told (and I really have no experience with it) that for a session with a lady at a legal brothel, you are looking at approximately $1k. At that price, there will still be the illegal market for the cheaper services. Regulation is good, but overregulation will lead to the black market.

As far as the constitutionality argument, the Lawrence case gives the strongest support for it. That was the case that ruled that sodomy laws were unconstitutional and it contains pretty strong language that says that what adults do in private with regards to sex is their own business. The opinion does throw around “non-commercial” a few times but doesn’t justify that distinction in any meaningful way. Yes, many things are legal to give away but illegal to sell, but all of those things have legitimate reasons for doing so, whereas making sex illegal to sell is simply a morals law which Lawrence forbids.

I see this is GQ, so I will leave it at that.

87

Some good looking and even wealthy men like buying prostitutes, even when they have beautiful wives at home. Hugh Grant is an example, as well as Charlie Sheen, David Beckham, and Tiger Woods (the last two allegedly).

88

Honestly not seeing your point

89

I can’t say I’m personally interested in paying for sexual services, but I have always found it very strange that acupuncture places are legal but handjob places aren’t. You can pay someone to stick needles into your body and that’s ok, but you can’t pay them to pull your pud? It just seems very strange.

90

It’s a morals law; nothing more. We used to have those, but my cite to Lawrence calls these into question. Nobody thinks it is immoral or unseemly for someone to stick needles in you, but people do dislike a business that jerks you off.

91

More specifically: in the US Constitution what it says is there will be rights not enumerated and those are retained by the people, and that powers not vested in it to the federal government or denied to states, revert respectively to the states or the people. So the states have always retained what is called general police power to regulate behavior and enforce order to protect life, property, safety and general well-being of the population.

As UltraVires points out, it used to be that this included enforcing not just public but also private morals in sexual matters. Currently there still exists a veneer of a “special case” for prostitution as some sort of “social blight” or as being inherently and indivisibly a form of abusive exploitation. (Interestingly, federal laws passed in 2018 that removed Sec. 230 protection from online sites/pages that “promote or facilitate prostitution”, taking down sites like Backpage, have raised complaints from groups of sex workers who say that has made work less safe or independent.)

And Lamoral, somewhere I am sure someone has thought of an Accupuncture AND “Exotic” Massage shop. For the kinkier customers they’ll just jab the needles in hard and deep.

92

Yes, and as this is GQ, arguments have been made that this is just a court promoting its own value judgment. One could say that fornication, adultery, homosexual sodomy or even heterosexual marriages, at least in some cases, are a result of coercion or causes “social blight” depending on who is looking at it. Likewise, although there are indeed cases where prostitution is caused by coercion, many cases are not, and the coercion can be dealt with by other laws.

It seems odd to uphold all prostitution laws in the wake of Lawrence simply because some women are illegally coerced into that job. Many posters have said that they enjoyed, or at least tolerated that job just as much as any other job you do because you need a paycheck. You might as well outlaw working at McDonalds because some people feel coerced into working that job because Dad will throw them out of the house otherwise.

93

Same in China.
“Special” massage places, clearly offering some kind of sex work (I don’t know whether it’s “happy ending” or more though) are easy enough to find here in Shanghai.
And there is also a middle ground: places that only have normal, non-sexual massages, but couples can go there and do whatever they want in the room afterwards.

But

“Ordinary” head, feet or body massages are super popular in China for people of all ages and genders; there’s easily 50 legit ones for each “special” one.
Don’t come to China expecting a given place to have special service, and you will cause offense if you just hit on a masseuse assuming that kind of service is on the cards.

94

I think George Carlin made the general argument in his skit that it’s illogical to not be able to legally sell something that you can legally give away. I provided an example where most people agree selling something (your internal organs) is not okay (and illegal), even if you can (legally) give them away. Therefore, the argument that giving away something is okay means that selling it is also okay doesn’t hold. This means that, if you want prostitution to be legal, simply saying that since sex and donating money separately is legal is not enough. You have to provide additional arguments or info to determine what makes prostitution different from organ selling and why one, both or neither are or are not okay.

Hopefully my post makes sense now.

95

It occurred to me during a recent discussion about minimum wage that, because volunteer work is perfectly legal, you can be paid $0 to do a job, and you can be paid $minimum wage to do it, but you can’t be paid any amount in between.

96

You can’t just plug random nouns into an analogy like you’re playing Madlibs–“You can safely cut off your hair therefore you can safely cut off your ears”–that’s just not how it works.

“Selling a kidney” is literal; “selling your body” is a metaphor. Presumably you get your body back after the transaction is completed.

97

Reminds me of a story. My (Chinese) wife and I were in Suzhou and we were at a snack stand buying duck heads and/or gizzards. The guy working at the stand said something like “ma sa ji?” and my wife was trying to figure out what he was saying. “Ma” could be numb-flavor and “ji” could be chicken: maybe some kind of Sichuan peppercorn chicken?

I had to explain to her that he was asking if we were looking for a “massage”.

98

The common notion that all Asian massage parlors must be prostitution fronts reminds me of days once long ago when I was browsing a forum supposedly for identifying/rating such places in the area and every single entry was dedicated to being disappointed that “Total Comfort Asian Spa” and “Tokyo Rose Massage” and “Eastern Blossom Massage” and the rest didn’t offer any such services. And stories from disgruntled men who paid and only got a massage and/or yelled at for suggesting more. The very few dissenting opinions that you could indeed get a happy ending at a location were followed by multiple people saying that was bullshit/trolling because they went and got tossed out for asking. Or people saying that they totally did but you needed to go a half dozen times so they’d know you and talk to the right person and say the right phrase or whatever.

The whole thing was an amusing train wreck and left me with the impression that while such places absolutely exist (as seen in police blotters) they might not be as common as “any massage joint with Asian in the name is actually for sex” and might even be a distinct minority. And perhaps a number of Asian massage parlors ride off the impression without intending to offer the service.

99

Can’t this be true for many jobs? That people do work they hate because they don’t have much choice to do anything else? It may be the norm.

100

I forget what comedian said “you got it, you sell it, you still have it. Quite the business.” The other observation was “every woman is sitting on a gold mine…”

The thing with paying for something, vs. freely giving it - when that becomes someone’s livelihood and the way they pay for food and shelter, whether it’s prostitution or working at McD’s, it means the person’s choices are limited; plus they may make bad decisions in order to accept a payment. That is why we have labour standards, minimum wage, workplace safety laws, etc. You cannot waive your right to work around free-floating asbestos or work around molten metal without safety gear nor can an employer offer that. The general concept of Canadian labour law, for example, says that there is usually an imbalance of power in favour of the employer, so they owe a duty of care to be fair and balanced in their interactions with employees. (The only time it changes is when there’s a shortage of skilled workers for that profession) Volunteer work, like “giving it away”, is exactly that - voluntary. With no quid pro quo there’s quo being held over one’s head as a coercion.

The fact that some places in the world feel prostitution, properly regulated, is legal simply proves that laws to the contrary are more based on regulating morality than anything else. There are women who view prostitution as an acceptable means to employment. There are some valid reasons to control the process - removing streetwalkers, health and disease control, etc. (and taxes) There is no technical reason to forbid it outright, and plenty of evidence that, like drugs or alcohol, prohibition does not work.

I recall some article that said even Amsterdam was considering changing its laws because despite the openness of the business, they were finding a large number of the working prostitutes were actually trafficked from eastern Europe; whether by physical persuasion, or the hold passport and “you owe us” method, whatever - it was still a problem.