The Zéro Macho association organized an operation on Saturday in Paris against Asian “massage parlors” which in reality very often hide places of prostitution. There would be between 300 to 400 in the capital.
Massage parlors with overly elaborate “finishes”: for the Zéro Macho association, many of these brands are in fact places of prostitution. The association mobilized on Saturday June 17 in Paris, offering free massages in front of these signs.
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For franceinfo, we entered seven of these salons in Paris: six offered us sexual acts. In one of these rooms, a young woman in undress welcomes us. There is a mattress at the entrance. “It’s 230 euros to make love”, she explains. In most of these salons, there are many different names for this type of “service”: we speak of “naturist”, “royal”, “tantric” or “body-body” massage.
Between 300 and 400 “prostitution parlours”
The Zero Macho association speaks of a “prostitution salon”. Fred Robert is the spokesperson for this collective of men committed to equality between women and men. “These places have a certain number of fairly characteristic points in common”, details Fred Robert. “The shop window is generally opaque with the illuminated ‘Open’ sign. During our little investigation, we were able to see that these are still places of prostitution.” There are no real studies on this subject, but many sources, including judicial ones, agree that there are between 300 to 400 massage parlors of this type in Paris.
Faced with these dozens of places of prostitution, the mayor of the 17th arrondissement (which holds the record in Paris with around fifty salons) wonders. Geoffroy Boulard has the feeling that the police services are not really mobilized on the subject. “I think we should put more resources. This is slavery, women are unacceptable situations. The dignity of the human person is a real subject.”
“For the prefecture of police, which has the protection of the populations, I do not have the impression that it is a priority.”
Geoffrey Boulard, mayor of the 17th arrondissement of Parisat franceinfo
The mayor of the 17th arrondissement specifies that last year, four salons suffered administrative closures for concealed work, but not for prostitution. Last year, at least four networks were dismantled. The Zéro Macho association also wants the law of April 13, 2016 to be applied, which provides for the penalization of clients of prostitutes (they risk a fine of up to 1,500 euros).
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Angry Massage Professionals
This business also annoys many professional masseuses who practice at home or in an institute. All of them explain that not a week goes by without them receiving indecent proposals by telephone or SMS. They denounce the confusion in the minds of some men, for whom massage is synonymous with sexual favour. Some even decide not to massage men anymore. “It’s over, because there is one who did me a dirty trick”explains Samantha, masseuse and sophrologist in the Paris region. “It’s quite hard. I started by massaging his feet and a few minutes later he started making very inappropriate gestures. I said to myself: ‘I’m dreaming!’ He was masturbating, I couldn’t react right away. I explained that here, we can’t do that and since then, I don’t play men anymore.”
It is therefore to avoid reaching this point that the French Federation of Wellness Massage joins the Zéro Macho association in this fight against fake massage parlors with this slogan: “For Father’s Day, give a real massage!“