Homophobia and Thinking Sex in Massage Therapy
Sexuality has no place in massage therapy. Or so we’d like it to be. We can no more leave our gender, sexuality, or identity at the door than we can leave our endocrine system. We are sexual beings and even when it isn’t sexual, it still is in part.
What I mean by that is that we have a lot more tied up in our sexuality than we realize. It falls into a much larger category of gender identity, which includes the roles we identify with men and women and ourselves in relation to them. It encompasses the culture we are part of, religion, and past experience. It colors our attitudes, beliefs, and morals. It is such an integral part of who we each are that it is a little ludicrous to think we can do any kind of holistic treatment without taking it into account.
We need to accept that it is there instead of denying it. Then we can do something about it and make sure that it isn’t the central issue in our sessions. practices, and careers.
Homophobia
In this series, we are talking about this from the perspective of men not wanting massage from other men, as that is much more the issue in our profession.
In practice, you can break this into two categories. At the extreme, you have men who will never get a massage from another man under any circumstances. Don’t waste your time trying to convince these guys, but talk to them anyway. Remember that no man is an island and they have friends and family that they talk to. They may never feel comfortable with getting a massage from you (it’s their issue, not yours), but that doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t feel comfortable recommending someone else to you.
The other category is men who aren’t so adamant about it. They may never have had a massage from a man before, but this is often due to inexperience. Unfortunately, sometimes it is due to a bad prior experience with a male therapist as well. The key with these men is to pay extra attention to their comfort zone and don’t push their limits too much. I’ve had plenty of past clients (male and female) who commented after that I had completely changed their mind about getting massage from a man. Often men in this group will feel more comfortable receiving massage in a more clinical and less of a leisure capacity. Speak to them in terms of functional outcomes to make them feel more comfortable.
Make it easy and safe for your clients (and this goes for working with women as well). For massage rookies, usually disrobing is a point of distress. Tell them that they should only disrobe as far as they’re comfortable or that you can even work on them clothed (the Magic Massager works great for this). Mind your professionalism with a microscope and make sure that there is nothing in your speech, demeanor, or presentation that implies anything sexual about what you do.
Thinking About Sex
This is another common perception about men – that they are constantly thinking about sex. I’m not about to debate here whether this is true or not. I suppose it could be on a subconscious level that affects behavior, but it’s not really all that important.
What is important is that actions speak louder than words. The words are certainly important. Make sure that none of your words give any room for misinterpretation. However, you need to focus all of your attention on making sure that your actions scream professionalism, trust, respect, safety, and client-centeredness while leaving sex out of the equation.
Some women choose not to work with a male therapist simply because they don’t want sex to even be a possible issue, some because they may have experienced abuse in the past, some because they have body image issues and fear that a male will judge them, some because they don’t feel comfortable “letting it all hang out” in front of a man. There can be many legitimate reasons that a woman doesn’t wish to receive massage from a man. Of course, almost all of those reasons could make a person prefer a male as well. Although we strive to reduce gender preference, we will never eliminate it entirely. Understand it, reduce it, and work with it.
How do your friends talk about what you do?
An important thing that I see many MTs overlook is non-client communication. If you let your friends get away with joking around about what you do, you are tacitly condoning their inappropriate attitude. Make sure that you discuss with your friends some of these issues or they will be talking about the same inappropriate things about you to their friends. You have to emphasize and embody what you want your friends to say.
One of the main things I want to get across here is that an MT does not have to appeal to everybody. There are plenty of clients out there and the way the business is trending, there are many more to come. Find your niche and stop trying to be everything to everybody.
In part 4, we’ll take a look at the idea that women are more nurturing and better healers than men…
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