Key Points

• The intimacy and personal connection of massage and bodywork can play a large part in the ability to nourish, comfort, and heal.

• As practitioners, if we aren’t on the receiving end of physical intimacy often enough, we’re vulnerable to seeking nourishment solely through giving, or, inadvertently, looking to our clients to meet our own intimacy needs.

We all know that sexuality is firmly outside the ethical boundaries of therapeutic massage. Yet, because massage or bodywork can be intimate, physical, personal, and pleasurable, it can bring up feelings of closeness, longing, or attraction. This can happen to our clients or, even with the best of intentions, ourselves. It’s natural to feel all the emotions of closeness when we’re close. 

Most of the time, clear boundaries and intentions keep these very human feelings from being problematic. But in our (appropriate) clarity and carefulness as practitioners, intimacy itself is not a baby we want to throw out with the boundaries-bathwater; the intimacy and personal connection of massage can be a large part of its power to nourish, comfort, and heal. And, as practitioners, we need intimacy as well. Could we get even better at acknowledging the power of closeness while staying crystal clear about the boundaries between our work and other kinds of intimacy? And, as we get better at giving comfort, can the pleasure that gives us leave room for us to be the recipient of such care as well? 

Dr. Betty Martin, author of the book The Art of Receiving and Giving, is well known in sex education, sex therapy, and related fields for her influential Wheel of Consent model. As a former chiropractor who now teaches and writes about intimacy, consent, and touch, she has a helpful perspective on these well-traveled topics. 

This excerpt from a longer conversation (which you can listen to in Episode 80 of The Thinking Practitioner podcast) has been lightly edited for clarity. 

Til Luchau: As bodyworkers, what vulnerabilities do you see us having by virtue of our role, or the position we’re in? How does our role set up for confusion?

Betty Martin: I think a couple of ways. One is that for most people, touch and sex are conflated. So, any time touch is anywhere in the room, as a client, my mind goes to, “OK, sex is also in the room.” It’s really important to deconflate those because they’re not the same. But for many people, as soon as touch is about to happen, they get a little aroused, which is fine because they get over it. I think there’s that confusion for people—clients mostly. They have a wonderful experience on your table and then they think they’re in love with you. That happens. I’m guilty of that. 

I think another part of it is the natural power imbalance. Anytime you’re seeing a practitioner, whether it’s a physician, teacher, professor, or bodyworker, you’re going to hold them up to a certain . . . 

TL: Pedestal-like stature?

BM: . . . pedestal or something. It’s also the fact that if I’m on the table, you do have certain power over me—just in the very tangible, physical way.

TL: The physical modeling of the situation.

BM: Yes. There’s the power imbalance that is inherent. There’s also the power imbalance that is all in my head as the client. They make a potent combination. So, if you as a practitioner have any degree of questioning of your boundaries, or you think, “I’m cute,” or have any little chink in the armor, I’m going to jump right in. That is a risk of this work. I imagine all your practitioners are well aware of that. I imagine they’ve all been schooled in not going there.

TL: Hopefully, yes.

BM: It’s very important that you don’t go there because the client is extremely vulnerable in multiple ways.

TL: Yes. That’s describing the state that happens for the client of looking up physically in the room and seeing our wonderfulness because of the context. And then from the practitioner side, there’s the trap of believing it. Or not just necessarily believing it, but of believing only that. Saying, “OK, so yeah, maybe I am pretty great,” or whatever.

BM: “Look at this cool stuff I’m doing to you. Aren’t I cool?”

TL: That’s right. “Look how good you feel afterward.”

BM: I imagine most of us have been there. Fortunately, to some degree, our work is largely very pleasant. We enjoy our work. We love our work. So, it makes it easy to draw some satisfaction from our work. It’s easy to eroticize that satisfaction a little bit. Hopefully, we don’t do it. Hopefully, if it does happen, it’s extremely rare. Schedule a relaxation massage regularly so your tank is full and you don’t need your clients to fill up your tank of worthiness, of sensuality, of “I’m a good person,” and “I deserve to live on the planet at this time.” All those meanings that we draw from our work. I imagine many of your people can relate to this. 

If you don’t work for a while, your hands get hungry. You are like, “Oh, I just want to get my hands on somebody, because it’s just so satisfying and it feels so good and it’s connecting.” If you don’t have a source of sensual enjoyment and physical enjoyment—not necessarily sexual, but just physical and sensual enjoyment—it’s going to be very easy to drink that in with your clients. That doesn’t work.

TL: We have professional continuing education requirements. It would be the wrong thing to do, but it makes me think we also need professional pleasure requirements.

BM: Yes. Right. 

TL: “How many hours of pleasure have you managed to accomplish this year?”

BM: It’s great that you’re having a good time with your sweetie, but you need pleasure and enjoyment that is only for you. I learned this when I was in my chiropractic days. If I didn’t get a massage every week or two, I was ragged emotionally—just ragged. It had nothing to do with sex. I needed an opportunity to be tended to and cared for the way I was caring for other people. Of course, we need that. If it’s physical and sensory, all the better.

TL: That resonates with me. For sure, we should get our intimacy needs met, but we should also ask ourselves, “Am I always touching for someone else’s benefit?” There’s lots of pleasure and benefit that I get from that . . . but it’s so easy as a caregiver, as a helper, to be getting all our satisfaction from that giving act.

BM: Yeah, it’s not the same. I mean, it’s great that it’s satisfying. That’s one of the joys of this work. In my chiropractic days, it was very satisfying work. It was great. But it’s not the same. Get on the table.

TL: As an ethical act.

BM: As an ethical act, get on the table and put it in your calendar so that it happens regularly and you don’t have to figure it out and make an appointment that’s different all the time.

TL: Nice.

BM: Every Tuesday at 2:00 p.m., I am on the table.

Closing Thoughts

Although most all of us know we “should” receive more work, we bodywork-givers are notoriously infrequent bodywork-receivers. This is in line with research showing that others in helping professions practice far less self-care than the average population.¹ And, in the practitioner-credentialing program at Advanced-Trainings.com, receiving the requisite two sessions are frequently the last requirement candidates get around to fulfilling. But following Betty Martin’s advice, let’s see if it helps to think of getting some massage or bodywork as a way to keep our own tank of worthiness topped up and our own intimacy-quotient fulfilled. 

Note

1. Steven Reta. Stress in America Survey (Presentation). American Psychological Association. (Jan 11, 2012). www.slideshare.net/StevenReta/stress-in-america.

Learn More

• Episode 80 of The Thinking Practitioner podcast bit.ly/TTPEp80 

• Betty Martin, The Art of Receiving and Giving, wheelofconsentbook.com

• Betty Martin’s trainings: School of Consent, schoolofconsent.org