Inside The $4.5 Billion Erotic Massage Parlor Economy
ILLUSTRATION BY FORBES; PHOTOS BY NAME Lisa J. Goodman/Getty Images
Massages involving sexual acts are everywhere in the United States. But the stories of the women who provide them reveal less about sex trafficking and more about the high price some immigrants pay for a chance at the American Dream.
Just before noon on a Thursday, a police cruiser sits on the corner of 40th Road and Prince Street in Flushing, New York, with its lights whirling. A few paces up 40th, sandwiched among a barber shop, a dumpling restaurant, and a travel agency, is a narrow stairway that leads to an Asian day spa and body work business. Dark and humid inside, a man is getting a foot rub as he leans back in his chair. The woman at his feet whips around as soon as the door opens and asks the guy who walks in, “Massage?”