By Oluwatosin Balogun
Amaka refrains from telling people exactly what she does for a living. Her reluctance is not because massage therapy, which she practices, is illegal or anything. In fact, she considers the job like any other that requires competence, patience, and professionalism.
However, identifying yourself as a massage therapist, especially one with erotic options, opens you up to the judgmental instincts of the average Nigerian observer, she confessed to eelive.ng last
week.
Massages and Erotic Massage Until about a decade or so ago, Nigerians only knew spas and massage parlours that offered
traditional massages like Swedish, deep tissue, hot stone, and aromatherapy, among others.
While these forms of massage were associated with relaxation, wellness and physical therapy, whispers of add-on services referred to as “happy endings” existed.
But they remained largely quiet, with most reputable spas denying the provision of such services.
Over the last decade, however, Nigerians have witnessed a growing incursion of bolder massage parlours providing these hitherto veiled services as part of conversational massages or as outright offerings to the delight of an increasing number of patrons.
In major cities like Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt, spas now advertise offerings of erotic massages open to men and women desiring varying measures of pleasure with or without conversational massages.
Investigations by eelive.ng reveal that hundreds of these services now exist as walk-in or mobile spas that take their services to clients’ bedrooms.
These businesses operate under the leadership of entrepreneurs who hire young men and women, train them for two to three weeks, and unleash them onto the world.
These therapists, who are not in short supply given the country’s unemployment, then provide services including the very popular Nuhu, Yoni, and Lingham, among others, to customers.
The sensual massages range from stimulating the genitals of clients to body-to-body techniques and the ultimate happy ending services involving intimacy and extra charges. eelive.
Investigations revealed that the cost of the average erotic massage ranges between sixty and one hundred thousand naira for sessions lasting between thirty and sixty minutes; therapists accept clients’ requests for happy endings with sums ranging from 150k to 200k.
READ ALSO: Michael: Ressurecting the King of Pop!
According to Amaka, one of the therapists who spoke to our correspondent, “we troop out and stay in one single file for every client that comes into the spa.
He looks at us and picks anyone who catches his fancy. The person then follows him into the massage room and gives him the treatment depending on how much he pays.”
When clients prefer to have their massages at home or in their hotel rooms, they call the spa and request images of available therapists and then select anyone whose physical
appearance meets their tastes.
“Some men want plumpy ladies, others want slender ones
while some will request busty girls. Our spa has girls of all shapes and sizes, and so the chosen therapist is sent to the client after they would have paid a deposit.
Female clients also call for therapists, sometimes female, sometimes male or even both, depending on individual preferences.
Many therapists, however, cannot disclose their means of livelihood even to their closest friends. Amaka, who works with an erotic spa in Victoria Island, explained the reluctance to eelive.ng as follows: “When you say I’m a massage therapist, everybody thinks, ‘Yeah, you’re going around sleeping with all your clients. You have sex with all your clients.
You do happy endings with everybody.’ And that’s not how it is,” she said.
She explained further that the situation is worsened by the fact that even employers believe that therapists sleep with all clients and get huge tips otherwise. But the female therapists
who spoke to us say this is not always so.
While they agreed that terms for anything further than a massage are negotiated between the client and therapist with the payment going directly to the therapist, “it is not every client who wants a happy ending.
And even if they all do, you do not want to do that with every man or woman you work on. There must be some form of connection; you cannot just give yourself to everyone because they offer money.”
Bisi, a therapist with a spa in the Lekki area, said. But they do not think that their proprietors see things this way.
“They think we make loads of money from clients and because of that pay us peanuts, which they even end up not paying fully at the end of the month, another massage therapist, Babara, who recently left the spa where she worked in Lekki, told us.
Explaining the circumstances under which she walked out of the spa where she had worked for three months, she said that “my madam behaves like a witch.
We had agreed on a salary of 100k per month, but I never earned that in my entire stay.
She would find one reason or the other to fine us and deduct sometimes as much as 50k from our salary. I decided to leave last month when they paid me 30k at the end of the month! Can you imagine that?”
Amaka has also experienced the salary problem firsthand. She told us that she has worked at three spas in Lagos.
Her first job paid ₦80,000 a month. At another spa, she was promised ₦100,000, but the amount was later reduced to ₦70,000 and, according to her account, even that salary was not always paid as expected.
She believes some employers do this because they assume therapists are already making substantial money from customers.
“My boss feels like anytime you enter a session, you’re coming outside with money,” she said.
But Amaka said that is not necessarily the reality. Not every customer tips, not every client makes additional requests, and not every therapist is willing to accept whatever a customer asks for.
“I feel like working for you, I should get paid well for that kind of job,” she said.
Her experience also points to the informal employment arrangements that can exist in the sector. Her first spa job had no formal contract.
At another establishment, workers filled out a form, but she said the arrangement still did not give her the level of protection she expected.
She recalled another therapist who stopped working after a dispute over unpaid wages.
According to Amaka, the therapist involved the police, and she later heard that the worker was eventually paid.
Workers in the industry may not want their families, friends, or future employers to know; challenging an employer can be difficult. Amaka believes that reluctance to speak publicly can leave some workers particularly vulnerable when disputes arise.
The pervasive poor salary and poor treatment of therapists, which include the tendency to overwork and sleep poorly, becomes more central because most of our respondents said they took on the job in the absence of other opportunities.
Bisi, a university graduate in Business Management, said she took the job because she needed to raise money to start a beauty business after her parents could no longer support her financially. Massage, for her, was not the destination.
It was a way to raise enough money to build something of her own, with the long-term ambition of establishing a lash business and leaving the spa industry behind. But that hasn’t happened in months because of what she described as her boss’s shady nature.
For Esther, the journey was rooted in years of economic hardship. She left home as a teenager and moved between different jobs, including factory work, restaurants and bars, before eventually finding her way into massage therapy.
Her experience reflects another reality of the sector: for some workers, entering the industry is less about preference than the immediate need to earn a living. Aisha, who is a graduate, also found herself under financial pressure.
Family responsibilities eventually became a major factor in her decision to enter the industry. Like the others, she did not describe massage therapy as her dream career.
These therapists have different stories, but they share a common thread: economic pressure.
For women like Amaka and the others interviewed, the massage industry can offer an immediate source of income when conventional employment is difficult to secure. But the
informal nature of the work can also mean fewer guarantees around salaries, contracts, working hours and workplace protections.
Massage therapy is therefore often not a career choice in the traditional sense.
It is a survival strategy, a way to pay bills, support family, raise capital for a business or deal with an immediate financial problem.
For Bisi, the goal remains the beauty business she hopes to establish.
For Esther, the industry came after years of moving from one low-paying job to another. For Aisha, it became one of the options
available while trying to meet family responsibilities.
And for Amaka, the goal is ultimately to leave, especially as it has become difficult to save as she envisaged.
The challenges these ladies face, however, are not only financial. Amaka describes a psychological burden that she believes outsiders rarely see.
“Sometimes I used to crash out, like mad,” she said. She has also seen similar experiences among other women.
The pressure, she explained, can become overwhelming when workers begin thinking about their lives and questioning how they ended up in the industry.
“You’ll be like, ‘Oh, I don’t think I’m supposed to be here. I don’t want to be here.’ And then you start crashing out.”
For Amaka, the emotional strain comes from several directions: the need to earn a living, the way workers are treated and the nature of the job itself. A therapist can enter a room with a
stranger, sometimes with the client undressed, and still be expected to remain professional.
RECOMMENDED ARTICLE:
They don’t see us
The therapist may also have to work with male or female clients regardless of personal preference. “It’s not easy,” she said.
What concerns her particularly is what she sees as a lack
of recognition from management.
“They don’t see us. Even though I will never accept anything less than 150k from a man demanding ‘happy ending,’ that doesn’t happen all the time and you possibly cannot do that with every client you make. But the management doesn’t understand that.
They don’t give us that accolade because it’s not easy.”
Would they accept other options if they present themselves today? The unanimous answer we got was a yes.
“If I have my way, I would never, ever have become a massage therapist,” she said.
Her answer perhaps captures the contradiction surrounding the industry better than anything else in her account.
To customers, the erotic massage business may appear to be about relaxation, luxury, companionship or sexual fantasy.
To operators, it is a commercial enterprise responding to
demand. But for some of the women working inside it, the experience is much more basic: earning enough money to survive and, eventually, building a way out.
Their experiences also challenge the assumption that every woman working in a massage spa has surrendered her personal boundaries.
Amaka told eelive.ng that agreeing to provide massage does not mean agreeing to everything else, even though economic pressure can complicate the choices workers make when low salaries, customer expectations, long hours
and the fear of stigma come together.
That is the part of the industry rarely visible to the customer. Behind closed doors, women try to make a living in an uncertain labour market. Some are graduates.
Some are aspiring entrepreneurs. Some are supporting families. Some simply need somewhere to earn money.
And some, like Amaka, are already thinking about the day they
can finally walk away.
For them, the massage room is not necessarily the destination. For now, it is a place to survive while they work toward something else.
