Crime

Is It Racist To Assume Bob Kraft's Massage Parlor Was Obviously A Brothel?

Assuming Asian women working in the massage industry are prostitutes would be a racist assumption... but this may not have been.

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(Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

When Patriots owner Bob Kraft was charged with solicitation of prostitution in connection with a widespread human trafficking sting, a lot of the scrutiny began to focus on trying to figure out why Kraft would do something like this. At the lowest ebb, people pondered “but he has a model for a girlfriend?” or “wasn’t constantly blowing Tom Brady enough?” while the higher order questions were “who doesn’t think $58 is a tell-tale sign of trafficking?” or “didn’t he realize this place was illegitimate?”

It’s the latter statement that found a home in a line from the Above the Law write-up of this story: “Kraft was visiting the ‘Orchids of Asia Day Spa’ which could not sound more like a brothel if it were named ‘Jackoff Junction’….” One reader raised the prospect that there could be racial overtones in the assumption that something in that name alone could signal a business of ill-repute.

I could be wrong on this one but I was under the belief that day spas are legitimate businesses. I am curious as to what part of the Orchids of Asia Day Spa’s name causes it to sound more like a brothel than the name ‘Jackoff Junction.’

While I cannot be sure, it appears as though Mr. Patrice is making a racist connection. Personally, I am not very convinced that the reference to Asia in the spa’s name makes it more akin to a brothel than would referencing the act of masturbation.

This is an important question to ponder because unconscious biases are always worth self-reflection and one of the most pernicious vectors of these biases is through humor. Ultimately, in rehashing my thinking, the word that sparked my spa-brothel connection was actually “Orchids.” When a day spa is called “Massage Envy” or something generically Asian like “Tokyo Spa” there’s nothing overtly suspect. However what, exactly, are the “orchids” in this name? It seems to me that the name directly commodifies the women who work there. They are the “pretty flowers” the customer is intended to consume meaning unless it’s actually a florist, something is amiss.

But it’s not entirely unfair to say the “of Asia” plays a role in inspiring the logical leap underlying the joke. This sort of dehumanizing association with “things” may not be limited to only this world, but it is an outsized element of the Asian fetish as it manifests in the US. It’s far more prevalent to see Asian women referred to as “flowers” or “pearls” as part of a sexual description than women of other ethnicities and so the idea of “Orchids of Asia” for a massage parlor made that connection more glaring. In fact, it’s core to the marketing scheme of these establishments to play on that terminology as something of a shibboleth.

So even if the original ATL joke itself wasn’t directly predicated on a racial connection, this whole discussion does raise the racialized nature of human trafficking prosecution. That those trafficking in Asian women tend to openly signal their work makes them an easier target for law enforcement but can also obscure the public’s understanding of the problem. While there’s certainly a high frequency of trafficking in Asian women, it’s not a crisis exclusive to this demographic. Latin Americans, Eastern Europeans, and even domestic runaways are ensnared in sex trafficking every year as well and, while accurate numbers are hard to pin down, it’s safe to say thousands to tens of thousands of women from all ethnicities are exploited.

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In any event, there are definitely racial overtones to this story and even jokes that are not based on exploiting negative racist assumptions can carry more benignly reflect baggage steeped in the way race is deployed sexually. The original joke is not “racist” but exploring its dimensions can open new avenues of considering the underlying issues involved in this case.

In other words, I think a lot of people would be stunned how much race, class, and gender theory goes into a good “jackoff junction” joke.

Earlier: Nothing Deflates Balls Faster Than A Patriots Prostitution Arrest

HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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