[Tagging] (Soapy) Massage Parlour

[Matthijs Melissen]

On 22 September 2014 13:57, johnw <johnw at mac.com> wrote:
> Yea, it's a brothel - but it is avery particular style of brothel in Asia to
> get around the laws , and AFAIK has very different customs than what I
> imagine a more european or australian brothel is. because of the type of
> service that is expected, I don't believe it meshes well with what someone
> going to the red light district in Amsterdam would be expecting from a
> "brothel".

I don't think brothels masking as massage parlours are a typical Asian thing.

I did some Googling, and I found:
http://www.massagewereld.com/en A chain of 'massage parlours' in the
Netherlands, Belgium and Germany
http://www.paradisestudio.co.uk/ An English 'massage parlour'
http://www.happyending.es/ 'Massages' in Spain
The internet suggests the same concept exists in Norway, where
prostitution is illegal.

So it seems this kind of thing is quite widespread.

I would prefer a tagging scheme that works worldwide, and I don't
think the term 'soapland' would be understood in Europe.

In fact, I have the same problem with tagging Gentlemen's Clubs in
England. How do other mappers tag these? From the outside, it's often
hard to decide whether they should be tagged as leisure=social_club
(typically not...), amenity=stripclub, or amenity=brothel. In England,
brothelkeeping is illegal, so tagging them as amenity=brothel without
evidence might again be risky from a legal perspective.

-- Matthijs