r/melbourne • u/VelcroGenitals • 1d ago

Not On My Smashed Avo Massage Parlours are everywhere.

How the hell are there so many massage parlours in Melbourne and greater Melbourne? They're everywhere. Are most people getting massages regularly and I'm the odd one out? On multiple strips of shops near me in the eastern suburbs there are two different competing massage shops. All within a 5km radius of each other, and several other massage shops at larger shopping centres. I'm just so curious how this massive industry survives. I don't think I've seen people actually go into half of them before, half only look open ⅓ of the time. It's just an element of Melbourne I've never given any thought and don't really know anyone that gets them or works at them to ask.

Edit: Are people actually taking the piss or are we genuinely saying stone faced that there are several brothels essentially every few Km in the suburbs? That seems crazy to me. Also why the hell aren't Johns just actually going to proper brothels?! Going to deregulated shifty ones doesn't just sound dubious as fuck, it seems genuinely dangerous. And if it's such an open secret that they're all shady rub and tug joints, why TF aren't we closing them down. That's so wildly irresponsible of the govt/police to let the biggest human trafficking industry on earth just run rampant.

Edit 2: The username is a reference to how easy being gender fluid would be for a muppet. Just because my username has genitals in it, doesn't make me an expert on Melbourne prostitution rings. I appreciate the almost irony, but it's just a coincidence.

Edit 3: Why is everyone insisting I'm a bloke?

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u/PuzzleheadedAd849 23h ago

I get that they provide extra services, but I'm not sure this really answers the question. There are still so many of them? I live in regional Gippsland and we have 5 such establishments in the town. There must be a very high percentage of men looking for a happy ending.

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u/Glad_Possibility8012 22h ago

Money laundering. You don't hear about it anymore but Vietnamese organized crime runs the cannabis and heroin trades. Pretty easy to sell some handjobs that never occured to clean some money up.

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u/brockol-ii 21h ago

i’ve only ever bought weed from vietnamese men lol. they really are everywhere.

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u/gugabe 18h ago

Yeah when I lived in Darwin there was like one street that had like 5 or 6 and it was very high traffic. You'd think Darwin'd be the absolute mecca of dodgy handjobs due to FIFOs, other cash-rich industries, gender/age demographics and it seems crazy random regional towns can now sustain the same.

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u/Mariska_Heartattack 20h ago

yes, a good proportion of men are getting relief at massage parlours, safely, consensually. Dont base what you think of sex work on what you see in films and tv, its far far far from the reality. Parlours keep women off the streets, safe from getting murdered.

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u/kittychicken 20h ago

I'm all for the 'women not getting murdered' part obviously, but the other part still perplexes me. It's never crossed my mind, ever, to go to one of those places or seek out sexual services, no matter how lonely or single I've ever been. And I can't imagine many guys I know doing that either though you can never really know.

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u/iwillcomeforyoursoul 19h ago edited 19h ago

I'm not someone who understands any appeal in the recreation on either side. But it's always been a pretty common practise throughout most human societies. And it's somewhat separable from its inherent subjugation of women, depending on the regulation and socioeconomic context

Some people are just able to compartmentalise that stuff, and think of sex in different ways. Some people probably find the taboo itself arousing, or having paid insurance that there's no strings attached.

It usually takes a (relatively) long time to get to know someone before you can have consensual sex with them, and a kind of emotional investment. Maybe they want to explore kinks, or they get very drunk and desparate and miserable or whatever. Maybe they haven't touched another human being in like two years. I find it gross but understandable