massage parlor

[Victor Steinbok]

I've always thought that it was "therapeutic" vs. "pleasure", where
pleasure may or may not be erotic or sexual. So that's four full
options, not just two. On the other hand, if it's not erotic or sexual,
then "pleasure" is mentally therapeutic, right? ;-)

This case is actually quite an interesting case study in elliptical news
coverage. Since the statute is fairly vague, it is not at all clear what
the assemblyman's actual sin was for which he was charged. The closest
that news sources have come is identifying and quoting the statute, but
at no point do they even attempt to explain what it is that he did. And
he was never arrested--it's not even clear that he was present during
the raid when the women were arrested, or was simply cited based on
their testimony (and, presumably, some corroborating evidence). In fact,
we may never known for which conduct he is being charged. Still, this
has no effect on the massage parlor==brothel connection.

     VS-)

PS: A friend of mine lived in Cambridge in a building that housed Ye
Olde English Health Club (not a massage parlor). There were two points
of interest--multiple security cameras at or near the entrance and limos
that showed up daily in the rear parking lot. It was full three years
before the "health club" got raided. I just wanted to make a point that
this is not a 1-to-1 identification.

On 3/9/2011 2:38 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
> At 2:22 PM -0500 3/9/11, Victor Steinbok wrote [inter alia]:
>> Has "massage parlor" as a brothel (or something similar) become so
>> ubiquitous that people can just be claimed to have been arrested for
>> "being at a massage parlor" and everyone understands the underlying
>> event? Or is this simply obvious from the context?
>>
>>      VS-)
> ubiquitous enough to prompt a now relatively hoary (as it were)
> retronym "therapeutic massage" for the kind without, um, happy endings
>
> LH

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