Female masseuse put in rape alarm after consumer refused to put on towel
Ffion Price has put in place rape alarms after a man refused to wear a towel and got an erection whilst she was working.
Ffion makes sure she is safe while working(Image: Tom Wren / SWNS)
A female masseuse has revealed how she has been forced to install alarms to keep herself safe. Ffion Price has put in place rape alarms after a man refused to wear a towel and got an erection whilst she was working.
The 26-year-old said she also receives weekly “inappropriate” messages from men asking for sexual massages and feels the need to protect herself.
Despite seven years of training, Ffion said the indecent male behaviour has affected her so significantly that she fitted a rape alarm in her treatment room, installed CCTV outside the building and no longer accepts male clients when she is working alone.
She has put in place rape alarms(Image: Ffion Price / SWNS)
Ffion, from Abergavenny, Wales, is determined to raise awareness of this reality for massage therapists to educate other women in this field and help them protect themselves. She said: “I have been made to feel vulnerable just when doing my job.
“It is not spoken about enough and I want to change that. I even get messages from men on WhatsApp who are so shameless they don’t bother using fake accounts – meaning I can see their picture with them and their wives and kids and they are still asking for a ‘groin-only’ massage.
“It makes you wonder whether they are travelling away from their partners and children and want to see what is out there. I feel they are exploiting me and I don’t think they care about how it makes us massage therapists feel.”
Ffion recalled wanting to work in the beauty industry since she was a young girl – and began her career at 18 after finishing her A-levels. After finishing college training for three years, Ffion went on to work in a local spa for five years before setting up her own business called ‘Serenity by Ffion’ in 2025 where she wanted to focus solely on massage.
When she was working for an employer, Ffion said the staff were given the option as to whether they wanted to undergo treatments on male and female clients.
She has put in protections for herself(Image: Tom Wren / SWNS)
However, upon setting up her own business, she wanted to be able to help men and women to expand her clientele. Ffion said: “At the time I didn’t want to do men but when I started on my own I obviously wanted the business and didn’t want to turn anyone down.
“The fact is 30 to 40 per cent of my clientele are male and so when people say why don’t you just stop doing men, I feel it is unfair.
“The clients that I do have now that are men are so respectful, so I don’t want to let a small minority of men who are being inappropriate ruin it for the rest of my current clients.
“I am not saying this is all men obviously – but all my negative experiences have been from a man. The problem is I knew the general dangers but did not expect the amount of messages I would start receiving until I went on my own.”
Some of the messages Ffion has received include one man stating he was coming to visit Abergavenny and asking whether she offered any “intimate treatments”.
She admits regularly receiving enquiries on text and in person where men ask if she will undergo a “special glute or groin massage”. Ffion said: “One man asked for a ‘Indian head massage, tantric massage and a happy ending’.
She has shared some of the messages she has received(Image: Ffion Price / SWNS)
“Another even asked if I would perform a ‘nuru massage’ – I had never heard of it before and when I searched online it is extremely inappropriate and includes me and the client being naked covered in oil rubbing against each other.
“They waste my time completely as I have to go out of my way to research. It is absolutely awful, they just have no shame.”
The physical incident which left Ffion particularly shocked and vulnerable saw a young male client enter her practice room, refuse to use a towel and only wear boxes – as well as purposefully move his penis up and down to get her attention.
The young man then tried to move Ffion’s hand towards his genitals, and Ffion admitted she felt so uncomfortable that she finished the treatment – but regrets not asking him to leave sooner.
Even after the man left, Ffion said the gentleman showed no remorse or embarrassment and even tried to book another appointment.
She said: “It was so weird and I felt like I had done something wrong. Obviously I hadn’t but it made me feel so extremely vulnerable and helpless that I did not know what to do.
“I was almost too scared to ask him to leave and just did not expect it at all. The towel refusal should have been a red flag from the start.”
The young massage therapist is urging other women to prepare themselves for this kind of behaviour as well as install safeguarding measures such as installing CCTV outside the room, changing consent forms to explicitly state you do not offer intimate massages and making sure there is someone else in the space if you are seeing a male client
She is also calling for more education to raise awareness of what to expect – including an additional module during college and training courses specifically on this subject.
Ffion said: “I think mainly do your research before you go into this and make sure you’re aware of the pros and cons. We can’t change men’s behaviour and the way they think about us – but if we were given support during training it would make it easier for us to deal with it.
“I’m not suggesting that men can’t control themselves because they can, however having the extra training would be beneficial for those more extreme situations.
“There is hardly anything about safeguarding in the workplace at college and I went into this naive. There are also professional bodies you can join and you should be made aware of this.”
Another solution Ffion has found is being apart of a local Facebook page with other massage therapists in the area – where they share inappropriate messages to warn others and avoid the potential clients.
She said: “It’s awful and horrific we should even have to do this in the first place. But it really does help – you wouldn’t believe the amount of men that just copy and paste a message and send it round to all the massage therapists in the area. It’s important to name and shame and help each other out.”
