Op-Ed: What Were the Atlanta Massage Parlor Murders Really About?

ATLANTA—On Tuesday, March 16, Robert Aaron Long, 21, using a gun he'd purchased that day, went to three massage parlors in the Atlanta area and opened fire, killing eight people and wounding another, most of whom were Asian—and that last fact became the headline that most news reports ran with: "Man Goes on Anti-Asian Rampage." Only later was that "gimme" conclusion challenged, and from everything that's come out since then, there's good reason to believe that whether Long's victims were Asian played a much lesser role in his spree than the fact that most of them were sex workers. Let's consider the facts: • The Cherokee County Sheriff's Office identified those killed in the first shooting as Delaina Ashley Yaun, age 33; Paul Andre Michels, age 54; Xiaojie Yan, age 49; and Daoyou Feng, age 44—three of four were Asian—while all of the rest were Asian as well: Soon Chung Park age 74; Hyun Jung Grant age 51; Sun Cha Kim age 69; and Yong Ae Yue, age 63—none of whom would be described as "spring chickens." But as anyone familiar with the adult industry is well aware, age rarely prevents an actress (sex worker) from appearing in an adult movie—in fact, several actresses of our acquaintance are in their 50s, and even a few are over 60—with "Mothers I'd Like to Fuck" (MILFs) being one of the industry's most popular genres. And not only can MILFs appear in porn, they can also ply their sexual trade in massage parlors, bordellos, swing clubs, dungeons, etc. Unfortunately for the victims here, massage parlors are the only such businesses that advertise openly—and in the case of the three parlors Long targeted, all displayed plenty of neon outside their doors so it'd be hard to miss them in any case. • As Elizabeth Nolan Brown reported on the Reason.com website, "Long allegedly told police he had been a customer of at least two of the businesses, that he was addicted to sex, and that he wanted to eradicate his temptation." • According to his former roommate Tyler Bayless, Long was treated at least twice at an evangelical "sex addiction" clinic named HopeQuest, which advertises its treatment of “sex addiction” and “pornography addiction” in addition to drugs, alcohol and gambling, and is located about a mile from Young's Asian Massage, the first spa that Long shot up. • As The New York Times noted, "'Sex addiction' is not an established psychiatric diagnosis, and there is a debate in the mental health community about how to define and treat compulsive sexual behavior." In fact, so-called "sex addiction" is likely a manifestation of obsessive-compulsive disorder, where the sufferer spends an inordinate amount of time thinking about the object of their obsession, and may act out compulsively regarding that obsession. Such obsessions may present themselves in such activities as avoiding stepping on cracks in the sidewalk, compulsively washing one's hands, even praying—or much, much worse, as was the case here. • According to the New York Post, "Nico Straughan, who went to high school with Long, described him as 'super nice, super Christian' and 'very quiet,' adding that Long walked around the school with a Bible." • Long grew up in a fundamentalist Christian family and attended Crabapple First Baptist Church from a young age. The church, where Long had been baptized, had posted a celebratory video of Long explaining his "journey to finding Jesus," only to take it down once his crimes became known. "The Long family have been members of our church for many years," Crabapple posted on its website. "We watched Aaron grow up and accepted him into church membership when he made his own profession of faith in Jesus Christ." • According to an interview with Samuel Perry, an associate professor of sociology at Oklahoma University who studies sex, race, gender and faith, "The subculture of evangelical purity culture says, 'This is an addiction like heroin is an addiction. You need to be so serious about this violation in your life that you’re willing to go to extremes to avoid it.' And that’s where it gets a little bit worrisome. When the New Testament talks about gouging out your eye and cutting off your hand in order to avoid lust, the implication is 'I need to be willing to do anything to avoid this kind of sin.'" • According to researcher Kelsey Burke, "Young white Protestant men like Long are indeed the most likely group to perceive themselves to be addicted to pornography, even though they use it less frequently than their secular counterparts. These 'addictions' may not be traditionally diagnosable, but the system that pushes them—and in some cases profits from them—is very real. Many of the people behind this system are deeply rooted in the church and believe not only that young men’s sexual desires are pathological but that porn and sex work are an evil temptation that must be criminalized." • According to sex-positive activist Jessica Valenti's recent column in The New York Times, Long "told the police that the women murdered were 'temptations' he needed to 'eliminate.'" • And perhaps most tellingly, according to Newsweek magazine, "The suspect in the Atlanta massage parlor shootings was arrested while he was on his way to Florida to target 'some type of porn industry,' officials have said." So it seems pretty clear at this point that the fact almost all the women Long killed were Asian was less important to him than that they were sex workers ... leading to the San Francisco-based Erotic Service Providers Legal Education and Research Project (ESPLERP) and The Sex Workers Outreach Project Sacramento (SWOPSac) to issue a press release condemning "sex addition" as a justification for the murders. The text of that press release is as follows: The Erotic Service Providers Legal Education and Research Project (ESPLERP) and The Sex Workers Outreach Project Sacramento (SWOPSac) today reject law enforcement’s excuse that the Atlanta Massage Parlor Murders were because Aaron Long, the shooter, “was pretty much fed up and kind of at the end of his rope” due to “sex addiction.” Not only does such rhetoric excuse and dismiss murders of sex workers and those close to the sex work community, it also excuses hate crimes against the Asian population, and the targeting of women. Too often, sex workers and Asian women are a target for both predators and police. In the 2019 massage parlor sting where Patriots owner Robert Kraft was arrested for solicitation, sex workers were the ones who ended up serving time, with long probation terms, while Kraft and most of the patrons walked free. Unfortunately, this is often the outcome when law enforcement interacts with sex workers. For law enforcement and the media to allow Aaron Long to use “sex addiction” as a justification for violence is simply unacceptable. Such rationalization allows Long to evade responsibility and promotes the idea that the perpetrator is just too "turned on" to control themselves—as if sex workers possess some magical power that renders the assailant irresponsible for their actions. This idea is couched in moral supremacy, and victim-blaming, and perpetuates the belief that the person engaging in sex work is somehow responsible for the violence done to them. ESPLERP and SWOP Sacramento are outraged at this idea, which only further encourages violence against sex workers. In the past year alone, over fifty sex workers were murdered, according to SWOP. “Sex workers and Asian immigrants have been the target of hate crimes for far too long,” said Kristen DiAngelo, Executive Director of SWOP Sacramento. “The dismissal of crimes against us, with the justification that it is basically our fault, is nothing more than discrimination and victim blaming. Society will not be safe until we are treated like other people."  “Responsible sexual expression can include paying for sexual pleasure and/or participation,” said Phil Thomas of ESPLERP. “For centuries now, sexual purity has been promoted by so many parts of our society. It's time to recognize that massage parlors are providing a necessary service and decriminalize sex work so the massage parlor workers can obtain protections from workplace violcnce. So long as people are taught to treat sex work as an evil to be eliminated, we will see more events like what happened in Atlanta." ESPLERP calls on Congress to immediately pass a national ban on the criminalization of prostitution and reform the immigration laws so as not to leave so many people’s lives outside of equal protection.