Nakedness and what it evokes is a real issue for bodywork therapists, especially female therapists because of how some clients, men or women, will use the massage session to display sexual behavior.
For this article we are not dealing with how bodywork therapists and massage persons can attempt sexuality with their clients, but only about clients displaying sexuality during the session.
I speak as a former Licensed Marriage, Family and Child Relationships counselor in the State of California, USA. I have done bodywork myself as part of the therapy I do. I have had many years of bodywork done with me, as well as a number of training courses in bodywork therapy.
I speak from counseling massage therapists in my own practice. I also am familiar with psychotherapy for sexual uses, including therapeutic sexual massage that is effective.
Sexual massage is more practiced outside the United States than in the States because of severe sexuality issues and attitudes in the United States differing from Canada and Europe.
Here is a sexual issue example:
A man asks the woman massage therapist over the phone: do you include the genitals in your massage work? This is rather direct. The presenting problem may be more, do you work with sexual problems as part of your massage work?
How is a male or female massage therapist to respond? Is this a sexual come-on? Or is this a cry for help?
A massage therapist comfortable with their own sexuality may be willing to take on a client who does have sexual problems. Many females are upset that they cannot orgasm. Males may easily get erections, but while in a woman be unable to orgasm.
It would be unusual indeed if at least half the people who come in for massage treatment do not have sexual problems. What is the massage body-worker to do?
Some forms of massage do include massaging the naked body of the client, with a towel over the pelvic region or not. Other forms work with light clothing on and consist more of stretching movements.
Rolfing works with the naked body so as to see the alignment. There is hardly a chance in this form to feel pleasure responses because Rolfing itself is to break up muscles and facia that have been emotionally tense for years, and so the work can be extremely painful.
It is rare that a male client will directly attack a female massage therapist, but it is still considered good practice not to give massage to persons you do not know fairly well in places where you have no protection should you need to call for help.
WARNING - It is the generally accepted practice to never work alone with a massage client in a building alone. Always work were there is someone who knows you within calling distance. Work where your live-in partner is at home next room over, or in a building with other therapists or businesses.
Once I did a screaming session with a member of a therapy group in a new place and the motor car salesmen and manager from downstairs came running up and loudly banged on the door. They thought someone was being murdered. We had not told them yet that we did therapy with people!
Of course a male client may not tell you he has sexual problems on the phone, but just come in and then tell you.
ISSUE EXAMPLE - The Man Who Spontaneously Orgasmed
- Was this on purpose? And how should the therapist handle it?
One female massage therapist reported to me about a male client who would get an erection every time and have spontaneous orgasm. She never touched his genitals. She had to have a box of tissues nearby so that he could clean himself up. This was Essalen massage combined with Shiatsu pressure-point massage, which deals especially with freeing blocks in the body.
The male client did not try to have sex with her or get her to touch his genitals. Was this a genuine case of being too orgasmic? What would be the best treatment?
I advised her to instruct her male client to practice full-body awareness as he was being massaged.
Indeed, a chief value for anyone being massaged in many different styles of massage is to relax totally into sensual, bodily awareness. Some fall asleep during this relaxation, which is not necessarily healing for the client but acceptable.
For this male client orgasming he was either impressed with his ability to orgasm spontaneously without touching himself, and needed a female to witness this, or he was indeed a seducer. However, what if he simply was by nature a spontaneous orgasm type male?
Let's deal with seducers first!
Men who fixate on being seducers are only interested in getting a female so open to them through their ways of seduction that they do succeed with having intercourse with her.
Thus some men have developed a seduction technique and try to make it work to perfection on female massage therapists. They are not interested in an ongoing life relationship. They want only seduction and conquest and are willing to pay the massage fees to set up these kinds of situations.
To my knowledge with the female massage therapists I have known, they were never trained through role-playing in how to handle seductive clients.
The massage therapist should keep a massage session always on a professional level with a client, not just for reality reasons of keeping one's license to practice, but to keep the massage situation objective and therapeutic.
With the man who spontaneously orgasmed while his body was being massaged he was emotionally and physically too focused on his erect penis and its ability to display and spray sperm.
So what, we might say. The therapist has to accept many peculiarities with clients, whether it is a massage session or not.
I also counseled the massage therapist to take the first five or ten minutes to talk objectively about the client and his behavior. How does it feel to orgasm here? Are you making it happen? Is it spontaneous? What happens with your own lovers?
These simple questions make the client an object of treatment. They de-potentiate the session of its potential sexuality. The female therapist asserts her professional role as a helper and not a partner. Things are kept within structure. The client is made to feel responsible for his own behavior.
In this real-life example, when my friend, the massage person, made the massage sessions objective as suggested, the man stopped coming. The object to seduce the therapist was no longer possible.
Of course, unconsciously, some do get fixated on seducing mother or father substitutes as a way of 'getting back, getting even,' an unconscious power-play that makes the seducer feel dominant in self-esteem, whether truly so or not.
ISSUE - EXAMPLE - The Man Who Spontaneously Orgasmed During Massage Who Was Not A Professional Seducer
The first edition of this article has in its first year been tremendously popular, and as author I have wondered why. Could it be that there are enough men and some women out there who do spontaneously orgasm while receiving a massage? One concerned man about the first edition of this article thought it implied that someone who spontaneously orgasmed was a seducer.
I thank him for giving his concern and I revise this article here to make it clear that for those who spontaneously orgasm, male or female, IT MAY BE A SOCIAL PROBLEM, BUT IT IS NOT WRONG, NOR EVEN A SEXUAL PROBLEM. NOR SHOULD YOU BE CONSIDERED A SEXUAL SEDUCER OR PERVERT.
Sorry for the implications I made in my original article. And many thanks to the reader who voiced his concern with me.
I would suggest that all massage body-workers have paper tissues, or even clean hand towels available, if a male or female spontaneously orgasms. Approach such a situation with positive feeling, acceptance and awareness.
"Oh, it looks like you have had a spontaneous orgasm. Don't worry about it here. Massage is meant as relaxing, and sometimes this happens, and can happen with most anyone. Would you prefer paper tissue or a hand towel to clean yourself up."
"I feel ashamed to do it in front of you. It just happens . . ."
"We can talk about it if you like. Massage is for knowing your body better and accepting it. Relaxing and letting go is a process of self-awareness and accepting your own body."
"Thanks, I'll take the towel. Maybe if you don't look for a moment."
"Fine."
"Why does it happen?"
"Try not to stay in your head as you receive my massage. To let go means letting go control, and that may mean pleasure feelings start happening, including with your genitals. If you feel an orgasm rising, just say so to me as I massage you, and see what happens. You are learning self-acceptance of your body."
"Does that mean you will massage my genitals?"
"I don't do genital work in directly touching your genitals. But I am certainly not against your having orgasms as part of your process. Are we clear? Or do you have any questions still?"
"Let's get on with it."
FOR THE CLIENT WHO SPONTANEOUSLY ORGASMS
Of course, it is your process that is important, however it happens. But why not pre-select the massage body-workers you work with?
Simply tell them on the phone, or in person is better, that you sometimes spontaneously orgasm and it embarrasses you. Ask that person you are meeting for the first time, how they might handle such a situation with you. Then make your decision on the spot, saying you will try out a session or not. You are buying the service. It is your right and necessity to feel safe with the person you work with.
Tell that person that you feel either safe or unsafe with them. Be honest and straightforward. Reality is best. Reality is healing.
ISSUE - The Massage Therapist's Responsibility
The bodywork therapist is also responsible for the effects of her treatment with any of her clients. A bodywork therapist should not think of themselves as just giving a good massage. The effect on the client is also their responsibility.
Thus I have counseled therapists on the issue: can you as a therapist handle this behavior on the part of a client and work with it to some resolution?
If you are a real therapist of course you want to take on challenges and handle every situation. But can you?
Working on the body is often a temptation to be or feel sexual. Relationships have started up between client and therapist, and always will, such is the human condition.
It is important to keep the therapeutic situation non-sexual, unless you are trained in sexual massage therapy and can practice this form, certainly a developing form in Europe and even America, despite repressive attitudes everywhere.
Thus our advice is to keep defining your boundaries as a massage therapist. It will not be just acting out sexuality that you will sometimes be dealing with. Other clients may be more into anger and you will have to structure your relation to this other great instinct as well.
We have raised some issues here. Instead of giving rigid rules we have explored the issues in terms of their human meaning and trying to be the best massage therapist you can be. You know full well it is more natural than unnatural to face the issues of human sexual feelings and expression inherent to living in a body, your body, and the bodies of your clients.
When faced with unusual or intense situations in your practice, do your best to bring the dynamics into reality.
The Man Who Never Came Back - Some Questions
Remember the man who used spontaneous orgasms to seduce?
Was he then just a seducer, using as his field of available women female massage therapists, some of whom might well be seduced by his genital expression?
He exhibited seductive innuendoes in his conversation.
Or did he simply get the point that maybe he could get over his fascination with his own behavior and seek intimacy with a sexual partner he also ate dinner with, showered with, and slept in bed with.
For in the end much of sexual expression is the expression of the need for bonding and intimacy with another human being. The goal of most massage therapy is not simply bodily expression but body-awareness that is relaxing, pleasurable most of the time, and balanced in its expression, sex, sports, sensual expression, caring, anger expression, whatever.
Sexual Expression
Why do we all mostly seek sexual expression?
Ah, you want to know everything, don't you?
So do I!
Right now I am working with the concept that at essence we are all seeking sexually to have tremendously intensified sexual experiences to know and to maximize our experience of existing.
We exist but we want to know that directly as experience of existing.
But more on that elsewhere!
Feel free to visit our web sites and explore.
View Drs Kaplan-Williams' extraordinary blog at: http://strephonsays.com/blog/2008/11/hello-potential-members
