Massage therapist in fear as sexual requests soar
A massage therapist fears for the safety of herself and her colleagues as sexual requests quadrupled in the first months of the pandemic.
Rebecca, who has been working as a self-employed professional therapist since 2016, told Times of Malta it had, sadly, become normal to receive an average of one message a week asking for sexual services. However, she added, between March and May last year that number went up to four weekly.
While she speculated that the increase had to do with restrictions limiting social interaction and, possibly, the ability to engage in casual sex, she said the reason people were turning to massage centres was clearly because they have started to conflate them with brothels.
“The problem is that people who intend to buy sex as a service go to what is disguised as a massage centre and, then, we fall in the same category,” she said, explaining that the issue had caused her so much anxiety she put off starting work again till a month after the partial lockdown.
The lack of distinction between massage therapy and sex work was not only devaluing her profession but putting her and her colleagues at a greater risk of assault, she explained.
Despite being...