Stay away from Asian massage parlors in TX, baws. They're spying on and recording you

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Intrigued by businesses that operate in the legal shadows, in 2017, a team of Texas Christian University researchers set out to measure how busy Houston’s illicit massage parlors were. For help, they turned to the international spy community.

Once concentrated in seedy neighborhoods, today businesses advertising massages but selling sex are everywhere. They are in strip malls alongside pharmacies and restaurants, in medical buildings and office parks. They have become so woven into the landscape that they are practically invisible.

Texas has more than all but one state, according to the most recent counts. In Houston, there are approximately five for every McDonald’s restaurant.

To measure their traffic, the TCU researchers placed hidden cameras outside more than 30 of them, Sean Crotty, an urban geography professor, recalled. They calculated the businesses serviced about 120 men every hour of every day. In the years since, the number of illicit massage parlors has ballooned.

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Regulators say there is compelling evidence the growth of massage sex businesses in Texas is supported by widespread cheating on the state licensing exam.

In recent years, nearly two-thirds of all Texas massage exams have been taken by Chinese students. While regulators note the number is far disproportionate both to the state’s population and the observed customer base, it alone is not worrisome. In fact, in 2023 Texas began offering its test in Chinese.

What has concerned the licensing agency is the number of Chinese students taking the Texas exam from out of state, specifically in places linked to trafficking. In 2024, out of 3,500 students taking the test, 40 applicants — all Chinese — took it from outside the state.

Last year, the number grew to nearly 1,200, 99% of whom were Chinese. More than three-quarters were in California and New York, a pattern “which suggests coordinated activity, not individual applicant behavior,” the agency said. Alarmed, late last year Texas stopped offering the exam in Chinese. It also stopped offering the test to students in other states.

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