“Extras, you should talk to the girl,” the woman explains over the phone. “Massage, we offer massage,” she has to clarify.
Men who pay for sex are expected to bring their own condoms, and the women dispose of the condoms after each act.
“We don’t keep them on the premises; that way, if police come, it looks like a massage parlor.”
Rooms are decorated with ugly wallpaper and air-conditioning units. A small personal shower is in one corner, with a chair, a place for the john to hang his clothes and a massage table. Towels are stacked in another corner and there are candles, oil and a clock.
At another location, the so-called massage parlor is undergoing renovations.
Workmen, seemingly oblivious to the sexual encounters taking place in the rooms, are tearing out plaster and putting in new mirrors and air-conditioners. This more upscale look – replete with posted architectural schematics, approved by the municipality – doesn’t seem to increase the price much.
“NIS 200 for massage, NIS 300 for full service [sex],” explains a young woman in her 20s who claims to be from Beersheba.
She began her career in prostitution while in the IDF, working on the weekends, soldiering during the week at an army canteen at a base in the South. She is also from Ukraine.
But not all the girls were Russian. A phone survey indicates about 20 percent are Sabras; the rest are described as “Europeans,” a euphemism for the former Soviet Union; and about 10 percent are Ethiopians, or black women described as “Brazilian.”
One woman characterizes herself as an Arab from Haifa. “I work from noon to 4 a.m., which isn’t normal, but it’s once a week.” She says she can make as much as NIS 1,600 a shift.
Another woman was more negative about the situation. “This is a crap country.
The men are crap; they don’t treat you like a person, they just want the service and to leave. I hate working here, but I have huge bills, I can’t afford my apartment or my cellphone, and I am helping my brother and father pay for things.”
If these women were all addicted to heroin being forced on them by thugs guarding the door, it was not evident.
The premises we visited had no men in them at all. “Sometimes we have a guard at night on Thursdays because the crowd of men can get drunk and violent.”
Some of the women describe having worked at several places. “I used to work in Nahalat Binyamin, but there were no customers.
I worked in Petah Tikva, and then my girlfriends told me about this place.”
Despite the stories of customers primarily being Arab or haredi, it seemed at most places the customers were Israeli Jewish men in their 30s and 40s; none of them were religious. At one all-Russian massage parlor in south Tel Aviv near the beach, most of the customers appeared to be Arab men who had just gotten off work, with a few tourists poking their heads in.
“A lot of French are coming now, so we get tourists also,” details a sex worker, clad in a red tutu and tube top.