Male Massage Therapists: Survival of the Fittest

According to surveys by our professional associations, males account for less than 20% of massage therapists. From the personal experiences I’ve had with teaching male students, having male therapists in my own practice, and serving on a state board, I’ve made a few observations. I think males definitely have a harder row to hoe when it comes to making a living in massage therapy.

I’ve employed a couple of male therapists over the years who practiced advanced modalities. I’ve had a therapist who practices Structural Integration traveling from out of town to work at my place for six years. I’ve also in times gone by employed a male who did orthopedic massage. Both of them had a much easier time getting new clients than did the male therapist who didn’t have a specialty.

I live in a small town, and have found that many women don’t feel comfortable getting massage from a male; many women wouldn’t mind getting massaged by a male, but their spouse doesn’t want them to, and a whole lot of homophobic males won’t get a massage from a male.

As for male therapists getting in trouble with the board, in the past four years that I have served our state board, only one woman that I can recall has been brought in for a hearing on an ethics charge, but there are males having disciplinary hearings at nearly every meeting.

There have been several times when I didn’t think a male therapist who had been accused of something was guilty, but I was voted down by other board members. When it’s a sexual offense, I believe there is a tendency to err on the side of caution, and the standard of proof is not what it is in a regular court of law. I also believe there are plenty of women out there who are violating the code of ethics, but a lot of men won’t complain about being offered sex along with their massage.

All that being said, I look at some of the people who are at the top in this profession, and many of them are men. Erik Dalton,Whitney Lowe, James Waslaski, Tom Myers, Benny Vaughan, John Barnes, John Upledger…the list goes on, and if you stack up the women who have that same kind of name recognition, it’s probably about equal–amazing since over 80% of the profession is comprised of women. Maybe there’s a glass ceiling in massage. If you look at their class schedules, a lot of those esteemed fellows are on the road more than they’re at home. We women tend to nest a little more. Somebody has to keep the home fires burning!

I wonder about the percentage of males who leave the profession because they can’t make a living as opposed to the number of females who do that. I feel for them. The males I’m acquainted with who are successful have had a lot of perseverance. I recently had a black gentleman in one of my classes who has been practicing more than 40. I told him I bet he was the first one in North Carolina. I was thrilled he came to my class. After 40 years, you’d think our state board could lighten up on the continuing ed requirement!

To all the male therapists who are trying to contribute to this profession, I salute you. If you really want to do this, I believe you can make your way. Professionalism will eventually overcome outdated perceptions.  Don’t give up too soon.

Peace & Prosperity,

Laura Allen

Massage Legislation: Who’s Helping Us?

Some of us in the rank and file of massage therapy are beginning to feel like we’re fighting a war, with all the unfavorable regulation that is coming down the pike here lately.

In California, AB 1822 is threatening to undo all the work that’s been accomplished there in the past year or so. In Florida, HB 633 is singling massage therapists out in the interest of preventing “human trafficking.”  Although it’s no surprise that Florida has a lot of illegal immigrants, and I can understand requiring any employer to show proof that employees are legal, I don’t see the need to lump “lewdness, assignation, and prostitution” in the same sentence as “massage”. Contractors and farmers use a lot of immigrant labor. Are they being held accountable for the same thing?

When legislation is afoot that stands to crush our rights, who is helping us?

Some massage therapists have the mistaken idea that our state boards are supposed to exist for the benefit of practitioners, but that’s not true. Public boards exist to safeguard the public, and that doesn’t include us. They can’t lobby for therapist rights.

AMTA and ABMP both have government relations representatives, as does the FSMTB and the NCBTMB. I’m acquainted with most of those folks, and they are all good people who want the best for the profession. However, we can hardly expect one or two association representatives to be everywhere at once, to contact every legislator, or to stop something detrimental to us in its tracks.

The fact is, if we don’t help ourselves, we’re not going to get the respect we deserve as professional massage therapists. If the AMTA, ABMP, FSMTB, and NCBTMB send all their GR representatives to Florida to talk to the legislators, that’s a handful of people who will all fit comfortably at my dinner table. They can stand there and say “I represent X number of massage therapists.” I sincerely appreciate their efforts, and sometimes it works, but it just can’t be counted on to have that much impact.

On the other hand, if the 80,000 + therapists in Florida would contact their legislators, that’s enough people to get their attention.  If even a tenth of the therapists in California showed up at a legislative session, that would be a loud voice.

Massage legislation, like any other legislation in America, is often hidden inside some pork-barrel bill that doesn’t have squat to do with massage. If the Federation, AMTA and ABMP didn’t keep on top of legislative actions and disperse that information, most of it would probably go unnoticed until it was a done deal, except by the small number of us who make it a point to keep up with it. That’s a scary thought.

I’m at a loss on what to do. We can’t institute a mandatory draft, to institute interest in the politics of the profession. If we could, I would. We might have come a long way, but in the year 2010, to still have language about prostitution mentioned in the same breath with massage therapy in regulatory bills is a serious sign of how far we still have to go.

Peace & Prosperity,

Laura Allen

A New Day, A New Blog

Welcome to my new blog site! For the past couple of years, I’ve been blogging about the politics of massage on the Massage Magazine website. More recently, I’ve also been contributing to the WIBB (Women in Bodywork Business) blog on the Massage Today website. I finally decided it’s time to put up my own blog, on my own site.

I’m always opinionated, and sometimes controversial. I like to keep up with what’s going on in the political arena of massage, report that, and offer my opinions on it. The issue with that in the past has been that the magazines that host my other blogs accept advertising from the entities I sometimes report on, and it makes them a little uncomfortable when I slam a big advertiser. Of course, the big advertiser doesn’t like it, either.

Having my own blog site will take care of that problem. Now I can be just as offensive as I dang well please, and the magazines can relax, secure in the knowledge that I am not upsetting their advertisers on their playground. And I won’t worry about being censored or being asked to tone down my opinion to make an advertiser happy.

I support freedom of speech, and I don’t mind when people disagree with my opinions. It would be a pretty boring world if we all thought alike. All comments will be welcomed.

There’s also an “About” page here, and a page with my schedule of classes. Thank you for reading my blog!

Peace & Prosperity,

Laura Allen