A Dangerous Client Fantasy
It was roughly midnight and for some reason I was still up.
Sitting at my kitchen bar trying to catch-up on emails and social media that I’d not had time for.
It was TGIW for me. “Thank Goodness It’s Wednesday”.
I pile 15-17 clients in on Monday through Wednesday and have the rest of the week to work on my online business academy. Needless to say, I was somewhat blurry-eyed.
My phone buzzed from a text message.
Ugh, I didn’t have the patience to thwart another “I want you to rub my groin pull” moron. It wasn’t a creepo.
It was one of my best friends and colleagues, Michelle. I knew this midnight text had to be an emergency phone call because she’s deaf and totally aware that I go to bed early.
I was about to get crushing news.
In The Shadow Of A Famous ‘Madame’
Up until about two years ago, my fellow Massage Therapist and I would get one or two calls for sexual massage per year in our county of 100K residence.
Then it became an everyday occurrence right after two hush-hush-windows-blacked-out massage places opened up. Apparently whatever they were doing had put Bowling Green, Kentucky on the map for “massage parlors” once again.
My little area of Kentucky is not only famous as the home of the Corvette, the largest cave on the planet and being the home of Bluegrass and Newgrass music; It is infamous as having been the home of the longest-running house of prostitution in America.
For 30+ years, Miss Pauline’s upscale brothel was a top must-do for businessmen, prominent politicians, military men and college students coming from all up and down what we call the ‘I-65 corridor’.
Not surprising since 80% of the US lives within 300 miles of it.
Due to our downtown’s redevelopment project, the house was torn down and individual bricks were sold off with plaques commemorating the establishment for $2,000 a piece. Miss Pauline was known for paying her girls high wages, free medical/dental care and helping them get college degrees. Once she retired, she picked up a different kind of hoe to become the first (non-Amish/Mennonite) organic farmer in Bowling Green.
Please don’t think that I’m trying to glorify Miss Pauline’s selective-exploitation. I’m not and I don’t believe that the creepos calling today even know this bit of history.
Be that as it may, somehow they now believe sex can be had at any massage establishment in Bowling Green; just like when Miss Pauline would set her milk can out on her front porch to let men know she was “open for business”.
Back to the midnight text
Did I Just Open A Massage Parlor?
Michelle’s text: I hope you’re sitting down.
Don’t freak just click this link http://www.rubmaps.com/bowling-green-massage-parlors-ky I’m here if you need to talk.
I clicked the link.
I was suddenly bombarded by an old familiar stomach-churning, black-out rage so intense that I couldn’t breath, scream or cry.
It felt as though every cell in my body turned from its position to flee in a lateral path out of me. I’m describing the quiet PTSD-bomb that goes off when you’ve been utterly violated by a monstrously exploitive excuse of a human being.
I had just been listed as a “massage parlor” and I had a “review” that identified me as a prostitute.
You’ll have to go to the link for yourself and click through to read the review from CalebIV on me. Yes, I pretty much figured out who he was just from doing a little detective work. Idiot! And just to set the record straight, His little fantasy description at the bottom is pure fiction. In order to read the other reviews, you have to pay.
So let me explain this new world of evil to you.
This website, as you can explore, is for the express purpose of training American men in the art of “mongering”.
It was originally called rubhub.com and based out of Sri Lanka for the US market. Men sign up for this site and learn a particular game called ‘mongering’, that will hopefully get them a variety of sexual acts performed by you, the Massage Therapist.
They have a lexicon, training classes and a forum hosted by “Mongo”.
Each individual man decides how long he will stalk a specific Massage Therapist and the tactics he will use. He then reports each session back to the forum and receives encouragement and advice on how to proceed for successfully procuring the desired sex act.
Some of these guys will play for up to 12 months to conquer one Massage Therapist.
Once they succeed, they’re done with you and move on to the next challenge (therapist). If a Massage Therapist is difficult to lead down the proverbial primrose path, that therapist then becomes a hot-ticket challenge for other misogynistic chest-beaters to go after.
Lucky me! My business, has gotten “mongered’ seven times.
Make no mistake, these men seem super legit.
They are seasoned clients who spend big money getting regular massage for their pursuits. Back when I discovered this, you could read the forum feed and the stories these men would tell as they came back from the battlefield.
They don’t use coupons and they book regularly. They even talk about their legit Massage Therapists back home whom they, oddly enough, treat with great respect and don’t monger. One guy said something about “not s****** where you eat?
…ahhhhh such valor
They decide on the number of massage’s they will get prior to their first attempt to coerce you.
Some of these guys will wait months before propositioning you. Their most popular way is to get you to feel sorry for them due to some life or relationship tragedy they’ve had and it really helps if they know you’ve had a similar one. They will loan you books or get you tickets to concerts, etc.
They become your big brother or fun friend.
They might even send you flowers on your birthday. Their complements are profuse as they slowly gain a sense of your moral compass. These men are truly skilled predators; no better or worse than men with lolly-pops and puppies at a park.
The Milk Can Is Back On The Porch
After enjoying nearly half a century without Miss Pauline’s entrepreneurial perfume clinging to my town, it had become painfully obvious that the milk can was back on the porch.
Given the two new massage parlors and being targeted by mongers, I decided to do something about it.
I formed a group of Massage Therapists. We all shared our strikingly similar stories and decided to do a little detective work to see if we could rid our town of the massage parlors.
Our hope was if they left, so would the creeps.
We gathered enough evidence to present to our chief-of-police and he then convinced our county prosecutor to do a sting operation on them. Unfortunately, just like in Miss Pauline’s day when the cops showed up, all the girls were just sitting around knitting.
Well, in this case, just nowhere to be seen and the sign that had read, “Ask us about Tantric Massage” was gone. They had protection, just like Miss Pauline and it didn’t take but about six months of them being in town. So sad.
We’ve accepted that there is not much we can do about the sex trade in our town. We now are focusing our efforts on self protection and better client screening skills. One of our members is talking to our state legislators in hopes of changing how we post our licenses.
Currently we don’t have to do that. She is hoping to get them to force us to have to post our licenses with a current photo. Then there would need to be public education to make consumers aware that if they didn’t see this upon entrance, to steer clear.
That helps protect the public but what about us?
Recently, I’ve seen a lot of buzz on social media as to whether or not Massage Therapists should have protection such as pepper spray, body alarms and firearms.
I totally respect everyone’s choices in self protection. I would say most therapists in my town are protected in one way or another. However, I’ve determined that never letting the creeps in your front door in the first place (creepo abstinence) works best.
In most places total client confidentiality is non-negotiable but if they’ve never been a client and have just let their lascivious intentions be known in a phone call, they are fair game for exposure. The therapists in our group have a communication chain where we share the details of any sexual massage requests from non-clients with each other. We find that if they call one of us, they call all of us. It’s awesome when we talk and find out that they got rejected over and over. These guys will often change their name but the phone number is the same. If they block their number, we just don’t answer, forcing them to leave a message if they dare. Occasionally they are bold enough to give their names, phone numbers and specific sexual request and ask us for a price…gotta love these guys. In these cases, I promptly call our local police force and give them the detail. After all, solicitation for prostitution is a crime.
She is the mother of 3 adult children, stepmom to teenagers and married to a professional saxophone player. She is also the founder of MassageFIX Better Business Academy, teaching non-business savvy Massage Therapists how to have the business they desire most. You can find her on the web at: MassageFIXacademy.com, Facebook/MassagefixBBA & MassageFIX Facebook Group
- A Dangerous Client Fantasy - April 12, 2016
As long as there are men and willing women, there will be indiscriminate sex acts. I for one do not advocate, promote or engage in any type of promiscuous behavior. I think I’m very prudish and beyond the age of “sexy” which has no place in the health and healing community.
Hey Melissa I can totally relate! I didn’t know that history of Bowling Green..Thankyou for sharing! Im sick and tired if these creeps too! I tell them Great thankyou for calling! All your info I’m going to send to my husband at the police department! They usually hang up! Lol!
Ha, Ha, I love it! Thanks for commenting.
Wonderful. You have shared such a nice article with us.
Thanks for the backlink and your podcast, great work.