Question: When is a Massage Parlor not a Massage Parlor?

Answer: When the massages come with a happy ending.

According to the Washington Post, many DC-area businesses that advertise themselves in the newspaper’s Sports section as massage parlors are fronts for prostitution. Often, the “masseuses” are coerced or forced into prostitution by organized criminal sex rings who smuggle the women into the US and then pimp them out in order to “pay off” thousands of dollars in “fees” owed to the smuggling/sex ring.

Here’s an excerpt from an article by Deborah Howell calling on the Post to drop the massage parlor ads:

My inquiries into The Post’s acceptance of these ads began after a Page 1 story on Dec. 15 by Laura Blumenfeld caught my eye. Her story started in a local Korean-run massage parlor, where she talked to both the manager of the club and one of the “johns” who come there for sex. For years, stories in The Post and other newspapers have pointed out that massage parlors are often thinly disguised houses of prostitution. 

Her story told about a national campaign against prostitution by a bipartisan coalition of political, religious, nonprofit and law enforcement groups that successfully pushed for legislation granting state and local police agencies funds to investigate and prosecute brothel owners, pimps and their customers. Their campaign is particularly aimed at stopping the abuse of women who have been coerced by pimps or smugglers.”

Howell cites another Post story by Allan Lengell:

Federal agents broke up a sex-slave trafficking ring along the East Coast that coerced Korean women into working as prostitutes in massage parlors and spas, some in upscale Washington neighborhoods such as Cleveland Park and Glover Park, authorities announced yesterday.

Agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the FBI arrested 31 people Tuesday, including 19 in New York and four in the District. They also raided 18 businesses, including one in Baltimore and five in Washington, three of them downtown. 
 
In all, 23 Korean women in Washington and 44 in New York, Baltimore, New Haven, Conn., and Philadelphia were rounded up and interviewed to determine whether they were involuntarily part of the ring that forced some women into prostitution to pay off tens of thousands of dollars in fees for being smuggled into the United States, authorities said.”

Guys, next time you feel the irrestible need to get an overpriced hand job (or more), take a moment to think about who is going to satisfy that need for you. Chances are she’s a victim of human trafficking forced into prostitution by unscrupulous and brutal criminals who ”break” women by drugging, beating, starving, and gang raping them.

Hopefully this realization will make you think twice before deciding to support this violent and exploitative business.

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