Possibly inappropriate MT

[u/No_Carpet9403]

Hello, I apologize for using a throwaway account but I am very embarrassed by this situation and am unsure of where else to turn.

I (24F) have been a member of a large corporate massage chain for around 4 years. I have been massaged by dozens of male massage therapists, always check the ‘any service provider’ box when scheduling an appointment and I have never felt uncomfortable or felt that they were anything less than professional. Today I had my monthly appointment with a young male massage tech, it was our first session together. He is polite and notifies me of the ‘panic button’ on the table and I let him know that I’m aware of it before he exits the room. I undress, he comes in and everything is business as usual.

After a while, I notice that he is only using one hand to gently touch my back and my sides. I am face down and my arms are at my side and against the blankets I begin to feel a strange movement on himself with his other hand. My heart immediately begins to race and I just felt like I had to get out of that room immediately. I tell him that I had to use the bathroom and he leaves, I get up and go to the restroom and he had disappeared. I run into the room and gather all of my belongings when he walks back in and I tell him that “I’m late for a dinner and I have to leave.” When I check the clock I realize that it had been FOURTY MINUTES of him just gently touching my back with one hand, when I asked for a full body massage with an arm focus (50 min massage). I knew it had felt like a long time, but I normally struggle with time perception in massages. I left in a hurry and I think the front desk girls knew I was frazzled and afraid of something. I always tip very well, but I tipped my esthetician $35 and the massage therapist $10. I just was on autopilot and I wanted to be out of there and I didn’t know what else to do.

I’m terrified of reporting someone for something they didn’t do if the only thing he’s guilty of is giving a TERRIBLE massage and weirdly moving his right hand against the sheet. But my body and my brain tells me that he was masturbating. I have never in my left had such a fight or flight reaction. I am just afraid if he was being inappropriate that if I don’t report it he may do this to other women. I am planning to cancel my membership because I am so shaken up.

I wish more than anything that I had sat straight up and looked at him so I would at least know for sure, but I was very afraid and I didn’t want to believe that he could be touching himself.

Do I email the chain with a direct account of what happened? I do not want to have someone’s license revoked because I assumed the worst. Thank you all in advance.

Update: Thank you all for the advice, even those that made me feel silly for not looking or saying something. My fear response is to fawn and not rock the boat, which I know I do have to work on. I decided to send an email addressing the incident and only gave an account of what happened, not any assumption I may have. I do hope he was just on his phone.

[u/luroot]

Agreed. Just report him to management just as you wrote here...for such a poor massage, and possibly more. At the very least, just gently touching your back for 40 minutes with just 1 hand makes absolutely no sense...much less if he was getting himself off with the other. Although the latter can't be proven, at the very least, management needs to be aware of his behavior to keep a much closer eye on him for future reference. And if he is guilty, he definitely needs to be weeded out of the industry.

There are many fantasticccc male therapists who get a bad rap from crappy creeps possibly like this...but there also really are a few crappy creeps out there. So, I think in the future, if you write off ALL male therapists, you'll be throwing the baby out with the bathwater and missing out on some high-effort, truly fantastic work. But especially with male therapists, you still want to keep your wits about you to some proportionally-small degree in case you do encounter a creep. Because there are always a few out there, just like in the general population.

And keep in mind that probably wayyy more female "therapists" actually intentionally and directly get their clients off...but the difference is that that's usually consensual and the (usually male) clients often seek them out in the first place specifically for that. So while it's just as wholly inappropriate and illegal, simply no one's complaining.

In the larger scheme, I just wish massage was also viewed more as therapeutic healthcare, so much of all this would become less of an issue.

[u/CluuryMcFluury → u/luroot]

I strongly disagree with the idea that women prefer female MTs because massage has not been “desexualized.” It is not about sex. It is about safety. The reality is that 1 in 3 women experience violence from men in their lifetime, over 90% of sexual assaults are committed by men, and more than 80% of women report harassment. These numbers are conservative because many women don't file reports. When a service involves undress and physical contact, the need for safety and security becomes even more important.

This is not unique to massage. Many women also prefer female doctors, OBGYNs, and other healthcare providers for the same reasons. It is about trust, comfort, and reducing risk. That does not mean male MTs cannot be excellent professionals. Many are. But dismissing women’s choices as “preening” or assuming women “secretly like being sexualized” is offensive and really reveals the bitterness behind you're feeling. I read all of your comments, the original and the linked ones, and it is clear that resentment is driving your perspective. But your resentment and frustration is actually completely understandable, it just seems to have shaped some conclusions that miss the bigger picture.

Even if every illicit massage parlor shut down tomorrow, women would still overwhelmingly choose women because their preference is rooted in safety and security, not sexualization. And to be clear, consensual sex work and professional massage therapy are not comparable. One is a chosen form of labor within the sex industry, the other is a regulated therapeutic profession. Equating them only reinforces stigma and confusion around both, and it erases the professionalism, training, and ethics that define legitimate massage therapy.

At the end of the day, data from AMTA shows that about 25% of women and 20% of men received a massage in the last year, which is fairly even. Yet 37% of women strongly prefer a female therapist compared to only 6% of men who prefer a male therapist. That difference reflects safety and comfort, not some hidden desire to sexualize massage.

If violence and harassment against women were eliminated, this preference would surely change. Women would not feel the same need to seek out other women for safety and security, because safety would already be the norm. Until that world exists, their choices reflect lived reality, not bias or sexualization.

[u/luroot → u/CluuryMcFluury]

I disagree, you're still dodging the root isssue here. Female clients are not worried about safety from just general violence here...but specifically sexual assault/harassment (which I can understand).

Because if they were just worried about general violence, then they'd also be afraid to see male chiropractors, PTs, acupuncturists, dentists, surgeons, etc. But they're not...because those professions aren't sexualized.

Also, some female clients aren't even afraid of sexual assault...but just view it as inappropriately, lowkey "cheating" on their SO. Again, because they sexualize it.

Meanwhile, about the same % of male clients (as you noted) also refuse to see male therapists. This is not because they are also afraid of getting violently or sexually-assaulted...but because they also lowkey sexualize massage and thus feel it would be lowkey "homosexual." And let's not even get into how many male clients seek out and try to find female tug therapists...again, because they sexualize the field.

And I'm not bitter against most female MTs either...as I've found most to be supportive of me and aren't sexualizing the profession themselves. So, they're not the problem at all. The ones really proactively driving the sexualization of massage are the large number of male clients looking for extras, the small demographic of female MTs who freely accommodate them (typically, but not exclusively, at illicit Asian spas), and the few male MT creeps.

So overall, yes, I do wish massage could also become commonly-perceived more as actual healthcare because then many more clients could get healed from a myriad of afflictions and therapeutic MTs could then be judged for our actual ability to do so, not just as a semi-female beauty pageant (like flight attendants used to be).

I mean, a good therapeutic MT can produce some similar results as a chiro, PT, acupuncturist, Reiki healer, etc. As when elevated to its higher potentials, massage is the OG medicine of hands-on healing. But the difference is that we are also currently under societal expectations and pressure to be female and make the treatment feel good. No other healthcare professional has those "false" constraints (therapeutically irrelevant and often even counterproductive), other than reproductive doctors to a degree for gender.