Ashrama

The abode of peace, serenity and divinity!

Friday, June 09, 2006

Mushrooming Massage Parlours

Pick any classifieds section (of ANY newspaper) and stroll down to the "Health" section and the number of advertisements for Massage Parlours would bafffle you a lot, as it did to me!!

A few of them, hand-picked for this blog readers :-)

"Unwind yourself. Massage your senses. Awaken your soul"

"Luxurious Female/Male. Massage to relax and rest your body. Keralites for good body work"

"Special relaxation packages available with male/female massagers"

"APPRECIATABLE FEMALE/male. Home/hostel. Free pickup/drop"

Note the stress on Keralites in all the ads and also the Male/Female tag :-) And many ads were poorly worded, for eg. "Appreciatable", "massagers" et al!
My point - Why operate brothels in the name of Ayurvedic massage parlours? Another time to take stock of the situation and legalise brothels and massage parlours - so that such things don't happen in dark! If legalised, we could also prevent exploitation of youth/children who are forced into this profession.

posted by Venkat Ramanan @ 11:57 AM  

12 Comments:

  • At 8:24 AM, Blogger Venkat C said…

    Is it not good in one sense da that we are making progress in a very warped sense atleast?
    - venkataprasad

     

  • At 10:16 AM, Blogger Capt. Anup Murthy said…

    Good to read your blog. Funny thing about the "massage ads" is that they are found everywhere else in the World. I have seen them pasted in telephone booths in London, see them all over the papers here in Singapore where i am currently. There are plenty of such ads in newspapers and mags in the US. Seriously, this has now invaded India it seems. May have misses small cities like mine (Mysore) but won't be too long for this industry to catch up. Legalizing prostitution is an idea that has been floating around for a while. Anyone with such opinions may be seen as "liberal" and "unacceptable" to society etc etc. The right wingers would make a mountain out of this issue and no Government today has the guts to open a debate about this matter. No doubt legalizing this industry may make it safer, better quality of life for the workers, exploitation levels may come down, health standards may go up, what the heck even Government can make money trhough Service Tax. Your proposal is a sane one. I don't think we have rulers who are.

     

  • At 8:35 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Hi
    legalising them.. lol...just an imagination:Then there would be an entertainment tax frm state & service tax at 12.24% frm centre..Man the business wont run then.. Nice blog to read.. keep blogging
    Bye
    Srikanth aka LOGIC

     

  • At 12:01 PM, Blogger Capt. Anup Murthy said…

    If the business runs, the Government makes money as it is successful in Amsterdam where it is legal. If people move away from it because of the taxes, even better, less STD/HIV AIDS infections, less family breakups and better neighbourhoods! I think it is a win-win situation friend.

     

  • At 5:46 PM, Blogger Venkat Ramanan said…

    Fj, Captian Sir and Srikanth, Thanks a lot for your comments!

    As Captain has pointed out, if legalised (which obvioulsy includes 12.24% service tax :-) ), it will help bring out of the dark, the crimes happening in the name of prostitution - illegal women and drugs traficking, child abuse and also help in checking wide prevalence of STDs etc. But, our so called "social values" and "moral police" may not be comfortable in legalising what they perceive as unethical professions! It will take a few more decades before we go there!!

     

  • At 2:02 PM, Blogger Venkat C said…

    Hey Venkat..No more blogs?

     

  • At 12:44 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Massage parlor is a very interesting business. I have to agree that they somewhat exaggerate on their ads that most of the time it comes out to be indescent or inapproriate. Maybe they should ought to be more careful on advertising their services to avoid misunderstandings.

     

  • At 7:58 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Absolutely right. Why this hypocrisy? Prohibition is the rule in Gujarat but it has the worst bootlegging deaths. This is also like those ads where women are there where they have no business to be

     

  • At 5:29 PM, Blogger Arvind said…

    I am not sure if legalising will help protecting kids. Because even legalised industries employ "child labour" which is illegal in India. Right? So enforcement by police rather than legalisation is more important. And I duly welcome legalisation so as to generate employment and increase tax revenues to the Govt. which in turn could be used to provide social security to those in the profession.

     

  • At 6:45 PM, Blogger delhidreams said…

    wat does pullipaya means?

     

  • At 9:54 AM, Blogger d.shankar said…

    very good

     

  • At 2:11 AM, Blogger Unknown said…

    This comment has been removed by the author.

     

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