Shame buffers and spatial risk-mitigation: Exploring the effects of social stigma on the locational strategies of illicit massage businesses and their customers

Traditional locational analysis in urban retail/business geography begins with the assumption that customers will visit retail locations that are most convenient, and that businesses that locate close to their customers’ residences or workplaces would be preferred to locations farther from those places. This assumption is problematic when applied to economic activities for which social stigma exists. In this article, we examine the influence of social stigma on the locational choices made by customers of illicit massage businesses in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas metropolitan area. We introduce the concept of shame buffers – zones around the places to which each customer is most deeply socially embedded, their home, workplace, and other community spaces, where the customer would not engage in stigmatized behaviors for fear of being observed and facing social shaming. We then examine the validity of the shame-buffer concept by analyzing customers' mobility patterns for both legal and illicit massage businesses in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metropolitan Area (DFW metro).