Massage therapists fight misperceptions fueled by arrests of unlicensed workers - Houston...

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Massage parlor


When Sydney Guy went to massage school, her instructors warned her.

Be careful how you present yourself. Don't put your picture in ads. Don't wear suggestive clothing. Never lose your composure.

Even so, the 22-year-old was surprised when a potential client called to ask if he could lick her during a massage. It wasn't the only time she's been hit with an inappropriate request.


"I hung up the phone," she said. "I have plenty of prospective clients call and request things that I don't even want to repeat."

For licensed massage therapists like Guy, unwanted advances by customers with immodest expectations are just one of the negative reverberations from the glut of illicit massage parlors operating as fronts for prostitution in the Houston area. Unlicensed workers also harm perceptions of legitimate businesses, impact their ability to advertise and even make it difficult to lease office space.


"Massage places are not all fronts for human trafficking," said Russell Rust, who heads the Texas chapter of the American Massage Therapy Association. "That gives us a bad name when they uncover massage places performing prostitution."

Houston and Harris County have taken the lead on shutting down unlicensed businesses, with more than a dozen unlicensed massage parlors and spas closed last year in addition to a slew of prostitution arrests. Court actions targeting the storefronts as nuisances have shifted the focus from sex workers to the high-level operators profiting from the businesses.

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Beyond ongoing police efforts, however, there's not a clear solution in sight for professional therapists, though some hope to see better enforcement later this year when licensing regulation moves from the Department of State Health Services to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.

Public perceptions

In the meantime, Houston massage therapists struggle to reconcile their vision of the industry with public perceptions influenced by a steady stream of salacious arrests.

"It disappoints me because people don't take massage therapists seriously," said Kelli McEwen, a Houston-area massage therapist who's been in the business since 2011.

Texas has more than 29,000 licensed massage therapists, who specialize in everything from deep tissue and Swedish massage to aromatherapy and sports massage.

McEwen, 26, started massage in 2011 and moved to Houston the following year. She quickly spotted the warning signs: A client who asked for an "inner thigh" or "prostate" massage. Request for "off-menu items" or "full-service massage." Comments about their wife being out of town.

"Sometimes when you ask them to circle areas of discomfort on their paperwork, they'll circle their genitals," McEwen said.

Becoming a massage therapist requires a good amount of training. After finishing a 500-hour program at an approved massage school covering everything from technique to anatomy and kinesiology, students must pass a background check and a state examination before applying for a state license.

Hard to stand out

Prospective clients, however, don't always distinguish between well-trained therapists and unlicensed workers.

"Let's just say someone goes into a shady parlor and they just want a massage, but they get a horrible $20 massage," said McEwen, who now works at The Pampered Escape Spa. "Now this person is turned off to massage therapy because they think this is a real massage."

Sometimes, the sheer number of shady spots makes it hard to stand out.

"There's so many of them that even if a legit massage therapist wants to open a business they can't open in this plaza or that plaza because there's already a massage place there," she said. "It's limiting where we can go and it's making Houston as a whole not take us seriously."

It's also difficult to advertise on CraigsList and BackPage because the sites are inundated with thinly veiled advertisements for X-rated services.With barriers to building their businesses, some therapists have scaled back their offerings or started looking into other career paths.

"I already am considering leaving the industry," said Alba Sandoval, a 37-year-old who's been practicing massage for five years. "I thought I would do this career another 10 years at least, but now I'm like, maybe another two years to put myself through medical school and then I'm out."

Enforcement issues

Part of the problem is the lax enforcement at the state level, some therapists say.

Currently, DSHS has nine investigators in the Professional Licensing and Certification Unit, which oversees not only massage therapists but also chemical dependency counselors, code enforcement officers, licensed professional counselors, marriage and family therapists, offender education providers, sanitarians, social workers and sex offender treatment providers.

The department only conducts inspections based on complaints. If they discover an unlicensed provider, they send a cease-and-desist letter and tell police. They don't have any legal authority to take disciplinary action against unlicensed facilities, although some places have nuisance abatement laws that allow county attorney's offices to file suit.

TDLR spokesman Jeff Copas said the department's goal is to improve the inspection and investigation processes.

"We're confident that the public will see a marked improvement in all aspects of the massage therapists program once it is transferred to TDLR," he said in an email.

As of now, the department is slated to have 16 investigators stationed across the state to deal with massage therapist oversight, as well as four to eight other programs.

Copas cautioned that it's difficult to compare current staffing levels and duties to TDLR plans, but industry advocates like Rust are optimistic that the net result will be better oversight.

"The rules are already in place, they just need to be enforced," Rust said. "And I think once we move to TDLR we will see that enforcement."

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