The truth about massage life.

A day in the life of a massage therapist.

My eyesight is going. My sanity isn’t far behind. My sense of humor vacated the premises years ago, or so it seems if we were estimating this with my feelings. And like everyone else, still we plod and trod along.

For the last couple months, I have been busy in the normal world. I accidentally fell into a civvie job and have been trying to find my place in the microcosm that is a business work space with all its distinct personalities. The fact that this is all women on the work force and makes it an island of estrogen has made it a special adjustment for me.

Is it really binary or a truth about hormones?

Any adult can tell you that when you have a large group that is exclusively made up of a single gender, the social dynamics take on a specific and predictable way of existing.

And you can say what you will, I still believe this is hormonally driven. I don’t care how effeminate a biological male is or how masculine a biological female is, when in the exclusive company of biological “opposite” sex groups, the groups still behave differently than they would in their absence. In short, a working group or team of men will behave slightly differently in an all (biological) male group together than they will if a woman (regardless of how she presents in appearance) is present in the group.

The same is true of women although it is more common to have heavily feminized men in female spaces (hair dresser salons, spas, retail beauty focused stores) without issue than the other way around. And even in those spaces where the non-traditional male is present in female groups, the women interact differently as a result of the presence of them (or their testosterone).

Younger people might argue this point but they also haven’t lived long enough to have the experiences older people have to draw on these observations. So, I have been working with an exclusively female group and I have never wanted a male of any masculine or feminine presentation to be included in a group more than I do now. I just realized that I refuse to give up my SW because I am trying to balance myself and expose myself to an abundance of testosterone b on a more regular and controlled basis before I get estrogen poisoning from my work environment.

The power of the weak.

It may be too late though. I can’t think clearly. I am exhasted all the time. When a female co-worker asks me about my feelings, I get paranoid and close up tighter than someone being asked “innocent questions” by a cop. I find myself looking sideways at known trouble makers on the team and dreaming about ways to encourage them to leave the job.

The owner is a woman and she is a tyrannical, over-grown teenager who screams that she “won’t tolerate drama” in her business environment and then proceeds to feed into it by having team members spy on each other and actively soliciting gossip from them. We have all had our jobs threatened at least twice this week by text. Three times for me if you include veiled threats in casual conversation.

She loves the intoxication that power brings and it is obvious. It doesn’t take much to send her spinning into a petty rage over petty things just because she can do that. I liked her when I started but after all this, even I am thinking about the choices of quitting, sabotaging her business on the way out the door, or simply setting myself up to have a fire retardant way of keeping my clients with me if I ever leave, sooner, OR later. I am not a vindictive, petty or money grubbing person and I hate that this is what she is inspiring in me. I don’t know how people in larger corporate or business environments do it. Maybe it really is just keep your head down, focus on making enough money to buy a life that makes you happy outside of work and don’t waste your time thinking about anything else that isn’t going to make more money to help mute your unhappiness.

Or maybe I just think too much and take all of this way too seriously. As I said before, my sense of humor has been gone so long that I am not sure what is and isn’t supposed to be funny anymore.

Leaving a relationship (or a job) is simple but it isn’t easy.

My clients are the only reason I haven’t quit this job with these awful social politics inside the professional team. I won’t lie. I do good work. I do amazing-where-have-you-been-all-my-life levels of bodywork. My clients express loads of respect for my skills and knowledge because I give them something they haven’t been able to get elsewhere. Real relief or resolution of their physical suffering, an explanation of what is probably the cause of their mystery ailment (that is eluding x-ray, mri and treatments from other professionals) and more than a little education about how their body works and hangs together along the way.

Do you know what I don’t get here? Propositions by random creeps who pursue practitioners in normal. professional, civilian establishments because these characters think they are too good, pure or important to lower themselves into entering the sex work arena with those “other losers” who hire professionals for their needs. Oh no, these guys who target the local independent massage therapist or the Massage Envy staff all have this fantasy of turning Suzy Suburban into their personal hooker service. Unless there is real and solid possibility of public shaming and embarrassment for propositioning the staff, they easily convince themselves and act on the fantasy that I am a candidate for desperation acts of sexual services for their “generous” offers of tips.

One of the reasons I work at this place is because respect for skills and knowledge are always a desirable thing. And NOT having to worry about Creep Show Bob shoving his erection at me in the middle of a massage just because I am working out of a hotel spa or my home office is also a desirable thing. If you weren’t invited to show off your Long Dong Johnson, it is safe to assume that no one wants to see it. Keep it covered up. If a woman wants to see it, she’ll ask.

While I no longer have random Creep Show Bob insulting my intelligence by reducing my skills and knowledge to having less importance than his ability to get a “discrete” hand job for the equivalent of ‘lunch money’ in a place where it is neither offered, nor invited, I am still struggling with gratuitous insulting behavior. Instead, I now have professional peers insulting my intelligence in an effort to secure a dominant position of power over me in social settings on a regular and predictable basis because … groups of women without testerone around… social dynamics… predictable outcomes.

I don’t leave this job for alot of the same reasons you don’t leave your job or marriage. Simple and easy aren’t always the same thing.

About that time I worked at an Asian Spa

I had the unique opportunity to work in an Asian spa today (helping a friend out). She asked me to cover an appt for her. Old, White guy. Swedish massage. Super easy. She said she has seen him before. No problems.

I walk into the room and find him laying face down, naked as a baby, legs wide open with his dick and balls pushed down between them so they are on full display. His sheet to cover him is still folded neatly and on the table next to his leg. A very disgusted “oh Jesus christ” escapes me as I walk over to put the sheet ON him. He looks like an emaciated, pale chicken with the most sad looking, small, soft, saggy genitals you have ever seen and I really didn’t invite him to show me any of that.

My friend is trying to run a legitimate business. She has done the time, paid the money and jumped through the hoops to get her massage license. She is not trying to lose her license for some random, creepy jerk who is assuming all Asian massage therapists are discount whores. She has already reminded me that if he asks, the answer is no. We are a strictly professional office. (As IF I would let these cheap, insulting creeps smell my ass for what they consider a “generous” tip.) I struggle with doing the massage at all. I haven’t even started yet.

I massage the back and every time I work on his thighs (sheet secured in place because I do NOT want to see his dick and balls), he starts humping air, presumably to either make the sheet fall off or to signal he wants something up his ass. I can’t stand watching him air hump the massage bed so I tell him to turn over. He makes a sound of delight and relief and it is obvious he expects that I will now go for the jewels. His body is a literal train wreck of poor self care. He brags about going to all the spas.

Considering how emaciated his legs are, I am sure he uses his food money to go get his dick serviced instead. His feet are twisted and deformed, his knees are the size.of large grapefruits, he has a big belly and skinny legs like a pelican… I reach his arms and I am alarmed.

Huge bruises from medical injections or bumping against things. I think he is most likely on blood thinners, now or recently with arthritis so bad it has visibly deformed ALL his joints. He is a 911 call waiting to happen and I don’t need him having a damn stroke on my watch. Naked old man in Asian spa and I am the one with him ??? No way, buddy. I ask him what kind of arthritis he has and how many medications he is on (leading to ‘are any of these blood thinners?) – and now the condescending, shit attitude reveals itself. He talks down to me.

Because I speak FLUENT English because I grew up here, I don’t politely pretend I don’t understand his sarcasm. He decides he doesn’t want the appt and I approve his decision. This ends with me screaming at my friend in another room in frustrations about his presumptions. He apologized profusely to her and tried to make it sound like he had NO expectation of sexual services at all and didn’t understand why I was being so difficult. (Because apparently, in his mind, Asians are not only whores but stupid) .

If you are reading this and thinking “well, what did you expect? It IS an Asian spa,” I want to ask you to do two things: (1) Google massage envy + sexual assault. Then, (2) ask yourself why it is acceptable in your mind to believe that ALL Asians doing massage are also prostitutes? And all other stereotypes?

If you think someone about to physically put their hands on you asking for some basic health info about you is offensive, you shouldn’t be getting massage (or dental work, or medical exams, or physical therapy…or…) And in this case, this train wreck human being brags about how he goes to ALL the local Asian spas and given his emaciated and bruised, deformed body parts from poor self care, I am confident he also has unknown communicable diseases he isn’t going to reveal either and that’s why he goes after folks who don’t speak enough English to argue with him about his protests about health info and that he (based on how he spoke to me and I speak FLUENT english) sees as people who are beneath him in terms of social value or importance to anyone.

Can you imagine after all the time, money and effort to get a license as a trained massage therapist, you are still dealing with a non-stop parade (literally, a non-stop parade every day) of men who show up expecting you to bust your ass giving a massage AND THEN finishing with the kind of service that will cause you to lose your license permanently, get you arrested and get you deported …all for what is usually a profit of $50-100 USD… just because you are Asian and a woman. Cheap/poor men who have all manner of repulsive qualities or problems most pros wouldn’t go near unless very desperate.

It’s not the desire for sex that is the offense. It is the expectation that someone should expect to be asked for sex in exchange for “couch money” just because they are a certain race – and you have convinced yourself that they will be grateful for the insult.

In less than an hour, that disgusting creep made it a very long day in my life. Moral of story: check your damn prejudices and show respect for folks who made the effort to get the education required to provide you with a service. Noone is going through all this and paying all this money for an education just to service your dick for chump change.

If you want to hire someone, remember – there is a time and a place for everything. Asking for things that are not offered or invited and in spaces that are not especially set aside for those things is never welcome. After all, would you really want someone else’s grandfather to show up at your house for a social event asking anyone or everyone to help rub hemorrhoid cream on his ass for him? Probably not and it is equally offensive no matter what he is asking to be rubbed.

There is a time and place for everything.

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