From: richard@octel.com (Richard Karasik)
Newsgroups: alt.backrubs
Subject: Re: Sex in Backrubs
Date: 8 Sep 92 18:49:34 GMT
Organization: Octel Communications Inc., Milpitas Ca.

In article <cstollen.7529@meltdown.chi.il.us> cstollen@meltdown.chi.il.us (Carolyn Stollen) writes:
>Oh no.. what is the source of this perennial issue.
  I think perhaps you have hit the nail on ze head. It is a perennial
  issue. Massage therapists in San Jose have to undergo an extensive screening
  by the police department (no less). The source is perhaps 
  worth looking at. Perhaps if touch and sensuality were not so inextricably
  linked to sexuality there would be no confusion between massage and
  anything else in anyone's mind. As it is - it is. Here at Octel, touching
  anyone on the neck and shoulders can be considered grounds for sexual harassment!!
   (indiscreet phrasing if I could think of any!!!)

   THis as a policy SUCKS -but is very safe from the corporate pov.

   SO it is an issue -there is no need to lament that or bitch about why is the
   world unjust or any of that. It is an issue, and needs to be faced squarely 

>The base of it seems to be, if you touch me then you arouse
>my genitals and I want to be made love to (discrete phrasing)
>now and by you.
   
	 I know many people "wired" this way - the point is to discern or discover
	 that soon enough to be of use in rejecting possible clients you don't
	 want entanglements with. Instead I hear a lament in your writing
	 as to "oh crap why does it ALWAYS have to be this way"? FIrst it aint always,
	 and second lamenting never solved anything.
>
>NONONONONO!  This is a weird culture that has their nervous
>system hooked up so that the crotch is directly connected to
>all of your skin.  (Except when a football player hits another
>on his ass?)  Give it a break.  Consider this attitude both
>rude and a disease to be cured.
   Indeed - althoooo with that many connections, and most men wouldn't be able to
   put on a silk shirt without wearing depends! :)
>
>It could come from the attitude that a man should be able 
>socially force a woman to either NOT touch a man at all (highly
>unlikely) or once she has, be practically obligated to sleep
>(discrete phrasing) with him.
    Here's where we start differing. Where do you get this notion?
	Is it your personal experience? Do you think that it is particularly 
	male dominant related -or perhaps dominating energy vis a vis submissive energy
	or -against just dont give a rats ass energy. 

	IE do you consider rapacious europeans coming to the new world
	dominating indiginous cultures a "male" thing? If you do then 
	we have a polite disagreement which could probably escalate
	to something ruly horrendous if either of us had the inclination.
	ALthought the Church had a lot to do with it and it was male dominated,
	has no one noticed that indiginous Americans were all quite spiritual
	and were not male dominated? So to call this a male thing - in my 
	thinking sucks.

>We all lose by the manipulative
>structures that men of the Male Culture (and we all participate
>in it from time to time, "all men, both male and female" as one
>of the framers of the US Constitution wrote) have thought that
>benefitted them.

   And we all lose by this kind of fuzzy thinking. To confuse men with
   anything other than men puts too much stigmata on all. But it's far
   easier to think that way than to think at all. The same is true no matter
   what term you use. Ie men, women, Japanese, Blacks, etc etc.

   These are not male manipulative structures -otherwise there would
   be no women getting ahead anywhere (to hear you talk). There are indeed
   structures in place, but they are structures of dominance, power
   and manipulation -maybe you should ask yourself why some people
   get sucked into and play those structures much better than others
   and perhaps most importantly -why aren't you one of them?
>
>I have done professional massage and quit.  American men cannot
>(or do not, if you like the choice-vernacular) honor what I say
>are my limits.  When I say "I do not do anything sexual." 
   
   Bullpookey (polite phrasing). The fact that you have to immediately say
   something like that indicates the following;
	 1. You think that everyone :=) that comes to you has sex (possibly
		with you) on their (tiny little - editorial comment)  minds.

     2.	Massage and sex certainly seem to be inextricably linked in your
	    mind. Perhaps not the way you would want them linked, but linked they are
		even in the excessive protestations -that link gains a stronger hold
		than in simply massaging or sexing. IE it seems that you have 
		somewhere collapsed the distinction -or fuzzied it up.
	
	I did professional massage too - I hav done professional work for over 25 years
	and have had men women, and ?? choose to want to make something more of it.

	I say that because I asserted my right as a caregiver to not indulge and 
	that I was successful, and understood. I didn't bitch, or complain, or suggest
	by tone, posture or touch how gross and disgusting I thought my clients were,
	I didnt lament the fates that brought me such assholes, I didnt do any of the
	stuff that it seems you did -yet I got heard.

	SO - I think the real issue is can you assert yourself to get heard in the way
	that you want, or are you constantly discounted in life. Look around and
	see if that might be the case in other areas - not massage related -perhaps
	work or relationship related.

>think that is clear.  Then they made appointments and pressed.

 The fact that they pressed means you didn't get heard the way that you wanted to.
 There is a way to learn how to do that short of an anti-personnel nuke
 or a baseball bat.

  I think that you are pissed off at seemingly having no personal power in some
  situations that it is important for you to learn how to have it in. It is
  far to easy to lay it off on men -man bashing is an in thing in the 90's.

>I lost respect for these men and this culture.  European men
>might say, oh I am sorry, that is what I was looking for.  Then
>I would polightly recommend another person to him, who was more
>suited to what he wanted.  It isnt a moral issue.  It is an
>issue of personal respect and choice.
>
   What is your thing with Europeans -where in hell do you think we
   all originally came from -including those to whom sex was
   a work of the devil ... Europe for the most part. The kind gentle people
   that were here are the ones that got screwed (yea also some of the ones that
   were not so kind -never piss off an Iriquois!! :))

>I dont believe that we women are respected.  And if you p
   I think the issue is that you don't feel that you are respected.
   What is it about you that you want others to respect?
>that YOU are the exception and that you do.  Hmm, every con man
   Respect and sex have little to do with one another -which is why
   anyone can claim respect for you while attempting and end run -as it were :=}
>claims that he aint.  You might even believe it till the chips
>are down and you get an advantage by exercising male power.
>You know the culture; you know the language.
      Could you elaborate on this .... Fertile ground
	  for a discussion.
>
>I am not judging.  I am describing.  I am not even offering a
>suggestion for change in this.
      
	  Everyone judges -that's how they learn how to eat raisins
	  instead of rabbit shit. My sense is that this is what you
	  have conditionned yourself to see -ie you claim to be a fair witness
	  yet I hear too much diatribe about women's condition
	  (not your own) to do anything except discount 80% of what you've said as
	  invective and rhetoric.
>
>I am suggesting that if one has SUCH a problem being afraid of
>water then you would work on it by gradual desensitization.
>The same with creating such a barrier to a male touch that 
>you cannot experience it.  Perhaps you cannot give tenderness
>if you dont feel the dominant one.  Perhaps you cant give 
>tenderness at all and think it is the role of the other one,
>errr, the female one.  

  Perhaps it is not in this realm at all. Perhaps one needs gradual sensitization
  to the notion that if it weren't for this incredibly strong attraction to 
  sexual gratification, there may still only be 2 amoebas (ok 1 amoeba)
  floating around in the primordial ooze, and it might still be primordial.
  So if sex is so strong -how can you professionally disengage from it in a way 
  as to convey that to yur clients 100% -not 99% but 100%. How can you expect
  someone who is not in the profession to disengage from it 100%. I think
  the practitioner has to take the lead, and not by just words
  " uhh I dont do the uhhh you know uhhh sexual kind of thinggymabob massage
  duhhhh" .

  Much of what one learns in martial arts points to the real notion of victim
  energy -- (this is enough for a whole other thread -so lets not beat it up here)
  Victims have victim energy. They can bitch about how it shoudln't be so, and why
  aint life fair, and isnt there a pill I could take -BUT aint nothing for them to
  do to startt from a place where that might be the case and learn learn learn
  learn learn - perhaps they will find out it aint really victim energy -but its
  something, and it really doesn't JUSTIFY having "sharks" come after you, it
  just makes it more likely that they willl do their "shark" thing in your 
  presence!!!
>
>As an intermediate help, say you just are not willing to do
>massage with men.  Try working on your tenderness by being
>with infants and small children.  You must have a friend with
>a child or could find one.  Learn to touch and not be afraid.

    Small male childs excepted of course since sexuality isnt
	really experienced until you are 21 and can phone up for a massage
	right (nasty leer with a wry twist!!)

	One comment stays with me - If you look at your past when was
	the touch not so healing, and perhaps fear provoking. Perhaps when you
	could not assert yourself and needed to have someone that could
	stand up for you -disappear. Ah well. :<
>Take a healing course where you touch but dont move but you
>do connect your energies.  

     And just whre do you think it all starts if not here. healers are
	 no better equipped emotionally to deal with innuendo than others.
	 THey are perhaps MORE shocked that anything weird should occur.
>
>Hmm, this just slipped in as a place for an ad.  I teach this
>kind of work.  I am a Reiki Master and can teach and initiate
>people in Reiki Level I and Reiki Level II.  Ya'll come!

	This is good work - I have experienced it many time and
	like it - go give it a try! I do regenesis -which is another
	type of energy balancing work -altho probably with many similar roots
	(except the Hawaiian)
>
>Rub your hands together and feel the energies between them.
>Learn to move in slow ways.  Practice relaxing between movements.
>Fall from the waist... and lift.  Play slow boring music.
>Feel sensual all by yourself.  Abstain from masterbating for
>a week.  Rub oil on your own body.  Learn your muscles.

   Ok to what end ... THis is all good practice -but several different disciplines
   advocate several of these at different times .. IE in an attempt to gain control
   (HAH) or an attempt to distinguish or what ?
>
>Develop your sexual side in your life but for Mother Earth's
>Sake develop your other side too.  (It has been established 
>by scientific determination that each human being has 
>precisely 81 sides.  Explore them all.)

	Hmm I hope there is a big :) in here somewhere. Either that
	or you just lost me in lala land. (which is fair I suppose :)
>
>Grins to all of you.
>Harmony
>
   Ok cookie -have a go at that -and we'll talk some more later.
   RIchard
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Newsgroups: alt.backrubs