SO of a massage therapist here, and I’ve had sessions from others as well. I’ve always been asked what my goals for the session were, as well as sensitive areas to avoid. The MT usually told my I could undress to my level of comfort. I choose to be nekkid under the sheet; with a professional no bits will be exposed. Usually I can feel it for the rest of the day.
I don’t find massages to be sexual at all, even when given by someone I’ve done the deed with thousands of times.
I’ve had a professional massage twice, once on a cruise ship, once in the back of a hair salon.
On the ship, Mrs. H and I paid for a couple’s massage on one of our at-sea days. We checked in, a very nice Norwegian man showed me to the men’s changing area and said I could disrobe as much as I was comfortable with, and gave me a cotton bath robe. I went full-monty and wore the robe in, where I was met by Mrs. H, two very nice Philipina women, and some calming music. As we’d paid for a specific type of massage, neither of us told the massage artists what to work on. Afterwords we were both in an exceptionally clam, yet also invigorated, state for, I don’t know, a few hours?
For the back-of-the-salon thing, I was genuinely injured and seeking relief. I’d done something at the point where my neck and shoulder intersect, from tossing & turning in bed. The artist took one look at me and said, “You need a doctor, dude.” Again, I disrobed as much as I was comfortable with, per instructions, and this time just went down to my skivvies. She did spend a little more time working on my problem area but this was also just a regular full-body massage.
For watever it’s worth, the massage helped with my injury somewhat, although I did wind up seeing my doctor about it (muscle relaxers & Naproxen FTW).
Where do you think they intend to put their hands? Anyway, they will not touch any part of you that you tell them not to touch. It is that simple. I wear loose gym shorts, i’m just more comfortable that way.
Back in December, I moved into an office building that has a number of one-person small businesses in it, and it just so happened that a massage therapist was right across the hall. She’s the friendly, outgoing type, and we did some random chitchatting for a few weeks. I eventually asked her about about taking me on as a client because I build up a lot of stress and tension, and I felt comfortable around her. So now I’m scheduling massages with her on a monthly basis, and it’s working out nicely.
I’m not by nature a touchy-feely kind of person with anyone other than mrs. dirtball, but “laying hands in an intimate manner” isn’t really an issue because that’s not the mindset. She remains friendly, but there’s always that atmosphere of professionalism during a session. And I prefer it that way.
She starts out a session with a short little chat about how I’m feeling in general and asks if there are particular areas I’d like to address. She leaves the room for the undressing and subsequent re-dressing, and as others have said, the undressing is just to the extent that I’m comfortable with.
Yes, many times. My sister is a massage therapist, so I’ve gotten a number of massages from her; the wife of a friend of mine is also a massage therapist, and particularly when she was training, and needed a range of subjects to work with, I’d volunteer to help out.
Also, when I was a runner, a decade or so ago, I had problems with tight muscles in my legs, and regularly saw a therapist for massages on them. She had to really work hard on kneading out the muscles, and she would joke about, “I’m going to have to hurt you now” – and, yes, sometimes there was some discomfort in the moment, but when she was able to get knotted muscles to release, it really felt good.
As far as “how naked,” I’d typically be going down to underwear. When I was seeing the therapist on my legs, the policy at that spa was that one undressed in private, laid down on the massage table, and pulled the sheet/drape over oneself, before the therapist entered the room.
A Registered Massage Therapist here is a paramedical professional. It’s a tax deductible service that is covered by private insurance, just like a podiatrist, audiologist, or physical therapist would be.
We used to have someone come to the house once a month and spend an hour on my wife and an hour on me. Now I go if my back is giving me issues.
Way back when I was in OCS, I helped out a few guys in my company by hemming pants or ironing for them in exchange (usually) for a supply of Diet Cokes. But one guy was a former Navy corpsman whose mother had some sort of condition that required massage, so while he wasn’t technically a massage therapist, he did know what he was doing. So I hemmed and ironed his whites, and I got a massage that left me feeling like a puddle of melted butter. While he worked the various muscles, he talked about what he was doing and had me work with him to relax certain areas as he went along.
All I can say is it’s a good thing we didn’t have a fire in the building that night - I think I was too relaxed to move till the next morning.
A couple hundred of them. In the NY metro area, you can find xi gong tui na for rates averaging around $45 for a full hour. They’re culturally associated with hand jobs / ‘happy endings’ but most are not; most have signs on the wall very explicitly saying “turn your phone off and keep your underwear on” or equivalent and warning that asking the masseuse to do anything inappropriate creates a work hazard for them and will get you permabanned.
The intensity and technique they use is highly variable; some use slow gentle presses and some dig in with elbows. Some use a twisting motion or rapid prods to exhaust muscles that are in spasm. On rare occasion some will grasp an overhead beam for stability and walk on your back.
You’re face down covered with a sheet, stripped to your underwear, with your head inside an oval cutout. The sheet is pulled back to uncover only the part of the body current being worked on. The masseuse typically starts off with stretches of the large back muscles then focuses on the muscles of shoulder and surrounding the spine. Then lower back and glutes, and a repeat of the overall stretch they started with. Some move on to forearms and hand and wrist, others switch to leg muscles next. Some work extensively on feet. They’ll usually work a lot on the small muscles of the neck and into the back of the head. Then they’ll ask to you flip over, and put a pillow over the oval cutout for your head. Many will massage your face at this point (which feels really nice after ~ 45 minutes lying face down), doing things with the tissues around the eyes and nose and eyebrows that opens up your breathing and relaxes the face. Then they’ll likely do the thigh quads which they couldn’t get to when you were face down, and the sides of ankles; some prefer to do arms and wrists when you’re face-up like this.
There’s a lot of variation both in how they do it and how well they do it, but when you find someone who does it well (or a place with a lot of skilled people) it’s great.
I have permanent spasms in my upper back and a recurrent pinched thoracic spine nerve from a car accident back in the 1980s, and I’m also prone to what my grandma called “a crick in my neck” and on rare occasion get lower back twinges too.
Sounds like the vast majority of masseuses and masseurs look to the customer to guide how it’s going to go, which is what I was hoping to hear.
Would it be unusual that the entire session is focused on one area, say neck/shoulders? Or is it more common to receive just a general workover (which I imagine might include neck, shoulders, upper back, and lower back).
Also, how long do your sessions usually last (and how much do they cost, if you don’t mind answering)?
My experience is that, if you have a particular body area that you want a massage therapist to work on, they will do this. As I noted above, I used to go to a therapist to work on my legs, but when I first started working with her, she asked me if I wanted her to solely focus on my legs, or if she wanted me to have her also work on my upper body muscles (which I did). So, in our sessions, she’d spend about half of the time on my legs, and the rest of the time on my arms, shoulders, neck, etc.
I would go in for one-hour “deep tissue” massages. It’s been a decade since I had those done, but I just looked at the spa’s website; their current price for one of those is $85.
I get a few massages a year. I suffer from shoulder problems and have found that locating and kneading out the tight muscle will give me quick and lasting relief from extreme shoulder pain.I always enjoy my massages but don’t notice anything that lasts for more than a couple of hours.
I’ve had a lot of massages, often for a particular issue. I’ve certainly had the entire massage focus on my shoulders and surrounding muscles (back, neck, arms) for instance. I’ve also had massages that were focussed on my feet and calves.
It doesn’t always feel good. Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it hurts after, too. But I’ve had a painful massage relieve a problem that has had been bothering me for a week or more. For a while, when i had rotator cuff issues, i went to a massage therapist monthly, as well as doing physical therapy, and both were very helpful.
I tend to like chatty massage therapists, as i get bored, and would rather listen to stories about their kids than to boring music. I think I’m in a minority, and many massage therapists are happy to be silent except to specific comments about what they are doing, what they feel, questions about what you feel, etc.
I usually strip to my underpants, which is usually what they request. They like to put their hands directly on the body part they are working on, but typically leave the rest of you under a sheet, moving the sheet around as they go.
I’ve known some massage therapists socially, and they are typically offended by people who assign sexual connotations to therapeutic massage. My SIL would only work in places that screened out men who requested a “happy ending”. Most of the therapists I’ve had have been women (I’m a woman) but i would be perfectly comfortable with a man. I suppose the first time i was alone in a room with a strange-to-me man, I’d want there to be someone else within shouting distance, but it’s not something i would think about much, or worry about. Just a routine precaution.
Yeah, a LOT. I’ve had sequential frozen shoulders that have finally almost completely resolved but the first one went out in spring of '18 and frozen shoulder is one of the most painful things I’ve ever experienced–and I’ve had a dislocated hip, herniated discs, knee problems and natural childbirth x2 so I kinda know from pain.
My LMT is a large Kinsey scale 6 gay man who specializes in deep tissue work and resolving stubborn issues and he is very good. I’m currently going every two weeks (down from weekly when things were at their worst) and I started going regularly when Shoulder #1 had been in full spate for well over a year. He has been responsible for Shoulder #2 taking considerably less time to resolve. I go for 1.5 hour sessions ($120/session) and we’ve become good friends who talk and laugh all through my sessions. He also works on and is friends with my daughter and grandson too–and I’ve referred all my friends to him as well, he’s just that good. He tells me that he occasionally gets men expecting a happy ending but as a child rape survivor he has very good radar for that and turns down any client who seems to be heading that direction. He is punctilious about draping and I have no qualms about being nekkid under the sheet around him.
I’ve learned a tremendous amount of anatomy and physiology from him over time, being a curious person I ask a lot of questions. It’s been an overwhelmingly positive experience and I will be devastated if he ever goes out of business lol. I’ve been to other practitioners but found most of them to be good enough for relaxation but not so good for actually fixing problems. I’ve had some experience with Thai style massage–that’s done fully clothed and is very athletic in nature, it’s not my preferred style but I do have to admit that one Thai practitioner did finally resolve an issue with my bad hip that had been a problem for decades and hasn’t recurred since she tweaked it. That session was well worth the money!
I was sitting cross-legged, at Woodstock, and we were all packed in like the proverbial sardines.
Suddenly I got a terrible leg cramp and needed to stretch out my leg. I tapped the shoulder of the young lady in front of me and asked if I could stick my leg out into the row in front of me, where she was seated.
Not only did she say yes, she said, “I’m a nurse, would you like me to massage it for you?”
I’m with you there. A cortisone shot and 6 months to get my shoulder back to mostly normal. At my worst, I went through a turnstile and nearly vomited from the pain.
I did a cortisone shot for the first one, which did precisely dick to help it so I didn’t bother with the second one. The pain event I first remember was wrestling a standing hammock frame around, dropped one side and tried to reach out and grab it with the wrong hand. Ended up lying on the ground, tears pouring from my eyes as I stranglescreamed for a good minute. That was real fucking special. It was also fun going to physical therapy and filling out the intake form where it asks what I want to accomplish with PT and I answered “To be able to wipe my own ass and put my hair into a ponytail without screaming.” That sure made me feel good about myself to have such lofty health goals. Yeesh.
I’ve had a couple in my life. It’s never felt sexual, and after the first time it wasn’t awkward. They’ve always been willing to focus on the areas I want and work around any clothing I prefer to leave on. They’re very effective in the short term, but the results rarely carry over to the next day, unfortunately.
I’ve had similarly good results with a TENS unit. Still doesn’t last very long after I stop, but I can buy one for less than the cost of a single massage and use it as much as I want, even while I’m working.