hate on elizabeth hasselbeck...

and support bodyworkers everywhere.

M2 sent me a link this morning, asking me to sign a petition demanding The View apologize to LMTs for slandering our entire profession. I did, of course. I won't ask you all to sign it, since it's written from the point of view of a massage professional, but should you like to register your own displeasure by writing to The View and telling them they suck for implying M2 and I and all our colleagues are whores, I would not dissuade you. Want to see what we're talking about? This.

But the whole thing about Al Gore supposedly trying to get frisky with a therapist reminds me that someone once told me they had worked on him and that he specifically asked that his glutes and his abdomen not be left out. I wish I could remember who said that to me. It obviously wasn't one of my massage school classmates, and I'm fairly sure it wasn't one of our instructors. So it was either someone I took a seminar from or with or someone I worked with at The Evil Massage place.

Anyway, it occurs to me that perhaps that is the kind of thing that would lead to misunderstandings with a therapist who is inexperienced, especially one who didn't go to a good massage school and/or really doesn't know deep tissue work. I do glutes in probably 90% or more of the massages I give, because a.) it feels good and b.) most people need it. If you haven't had an elbow stuck into your piriformis, you haven't lived, yo. And when I've done it on people I haven't worked on before, I am always surprised at the number of people who've had lots of bodywork who tell me no one's ever done their glutes before and OMG why not? 'cause that was really helpful. In other words, there are a whole lot of massage therapists out there neglecting that part of the body, apparently, and if you haven't been taught to do it as a regular part of a treatment, maybe you do think it's somehow weird and inappropriate for a client of the opposite sex to ask for it. Abdominal work, on the other hand, is something I rarely do, even though I know how and am fine with doing it, because that weirds out most clients. Most people don't like their bellies touched, even if it would be good for them. It's a vulnerable area, plus people have all kinds of shame issues about exposing theirs. So, again, if it weirds you out as a therapist, too, having someone specifically ask for it might make you uncomfortable.

None of this rules out that Al Gore isn't just a skeezebag who made an inappropriate advance, of course. You know how American politicians are. But it just made me wonder. People are capable of misconstruing other people's intentions.

But, in any case, you know you hate those women on The View anyway. Don't you want to tell them they're ignorant just for me and M2?

xoxo