Massage, touch-culture, and boundaries

Massage is good. I say this all the time. Massage has also come up in the lurid details of the Epstein case. Among us there are big fans of massage, people who have massage frequently. There are those of us who haven’t been seen by a massage practitioner often or even ever.

The amount and type of physical contact that is acceptable varies according to culture and circumstance. My main issues with the “massage = Epstein” (something I heard recently) are the following:  1) benevolent, non-sexual touch is something sorely lacking in general and 2) massage can do so much good that it’s a tremendous waste to go a whole life without having at least tried it.

The first point first: I am proud of where I come from. I grew up in Central Illinois, USA surrounded by farms. We went to church every Sunday. We had lots of fun working and playing, talking politics, telling stories, worrying. Good times, bad times. Traditional cis gender roles were very well defined. Hugging, no. That was creepy and weird. I remember only one single occasion when my dad hugged me after the age of two. Sustained touch was either sex or punishment. This sounds awful to me now, but it felt normal to me then. 

Boston 1980s:  the first time I had a full body, Swedish type massage, my body did something really weird. I started to feel faint spasms in the palms of my hands and in my lips. After a few minutes my hands cramped into lobster claws and my lips drew themselves so tight that I couldn’t speak. Lobster-clawing or tetany are involuntary muscle contractions or spasms, probably from over-breathing and hyper-ventilating.  Although my masseuse knew what was happening, it was pretty freaky. This was what my “touch-culture” had installed in my body. My whole physical boundary culture challenged in the space of one hour. Wild!!

Let’s all agree that touch-culture is something to be respected, but I see lots of folks, of any gender who carry lots of well, pain really, in their bodies that has to do with not having been touched. I saw a client a little while ago, a very active man in his late 70s who told me afterwards “That was fantastic. You know what? No one has touched me since my wife died.” My heart breaks as I write this. We obviously shouldn’t touch people that don’t want to be touched. Boundaries are good. But acknowledging that not all touch is bad and being able to open the doors of our minds to touch that is healthy and healing and neither sex nor punishment could do

us all lots of good. 

As a massage practitioner I have a sacred responsibility to provide a safe space for all my clients that is beyond reproach. Professional, caring, intuitive, connected. Especially for my female clients. 

2) Massage can do so much good. It really can. A well-trained massage therapist/practitioner can reach places in your muscles, joints, and fascia that you can’t get to on your own. No matter how much yoga, pilates, cross-fit, Barry’s, you do, having a trained pair of hands that are both sending AND receiving information to your physical entity can do wonders. These bodies carry us around while on the Earth. Easing movement and relieving pain and discomfort are a great investment in our quality of life.  We all deserve to move without pain and discomfort. I believe to my core that this can make the world better. I get it: massage can be easily misunderstood and abused. Touch is not something that fits easily with who we are and where we come from. But massage may be worth a try!