How to Advocate for the Massage Therapy Profession

Do you find massage therapy a helpful tool in your personal wellness journey?

If so, we need your help with some simple public relations tasks.

In the past I’ve asked clients and followers to use their voices through email to support or oppose legislative efforts. I think it’s wrong when unfair proposals have been made by people who don’t know much about our profession but still want to legislate us. Usually these people are trying to legislate according to their perceptions of the massage therapy industry without educating themselves. This article is going to be related, but a little bit different.

Recently, within the past six months or so the cultural climate concerning women and women’s rights in the U.S. has shifted. And with these shifts, certain individuals in our community have become emboldened to ask for services that legitimate, professional, licensed massage therapists do not offer.

Used to, I’d get a phone call from someone testing the waters or an inappropriate text message once or twice a year. In 2025, inappropriate phone calls and text messages seem to have become an almost weekly occurrence. Then in December, men began boldly walking into my establishment and asking for illegal services in person.

The audacity!

They couch requests behind code words and Asian-sounding modality names, I suppose so they have plausible deniability in case someone calls them on their bullshit. But we all know what they’re asking for.

I’m not one to shame people, but I need you to know what’s going on. And, if you’re willing, give you some pointers on how you can help raise awareness about the professionalism of our industry and eventually avoid having to deal with these folks. Most of them are harmless, but try a simple search online for “massage violence.” The results are terrifying.

Anyway, on to what you can do…

Speak up about your massage therapy experience

If you use massage therapy as a tool in your wellness strategy, tell people. Use words like “therapy,” “maintenance,” and “quality of life.” Tell folks how massage therapy helps you manage stress, pain, and sleep issues. Whatever your massage therapist improves for you, let people know.

Use the right words

Gently educate your friends on the correct use of massage-related terms.

Masseuse/Masseur is an antiquated term (except in France). Common and acceptable terms are massage therapist or bodyworker. The differences are subtle and mostly interchangeable.

Massage parlor is another outdated term that carries a lot of baggage. The correct terms might be massage establishment, massage studio, spa, day spa, wellness co-op, etc. Ask your massage therapist how to professionally and/or respectfully refer to their business.

Massage table is the preferred term in the United States. Sometimes in other countries you will see the table called a couch, but that’s not common here. There is an epidemic of laypeople and professionals in our industry who still call it a bed and will argue with you about the term. Professional massage therapy isn’t received or performed on a bed except in very specific circumstances where the client cannot get out of the bed to get onto a massage table.

While not specifically a term, you might be presented with concerns about having to get naked. To these you can explain that you’re always covered by a sheet or blanket (what we call a drape) and never inappropriately exposed. It’s actually in our laws and standards that clients must be appropriately covered during their treatments.

Don’t tolerate gossip and misinformation

Gossip and speculation can kill a therpists career

If you’ve run into a gossipy situation where people are speculating on what kinds of services (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) are being offered, you can hit them with a, “Have you reported that massage therapist to the Massage Therapy Board?” That usually shuts down this kind of speculation because most people know they’re just being mean when they say these kinds of things. When you start pulling legislative oversight into the conversation most people move on. They’re probably not going to like you for doing it, because mean people sometimes enjoy being mean.

If they don’t know there is a massage therapy board or that the services they’re alluding to are illegal, they now know there’s some sort of regulation involved just from the question. They should also be able to infer from your question that legitimate massage consumers assume those offering illegal services are reported and removed from their massage therapy positions. Public safety is a valid concern in the massage therapy community after all.

Those who want to call your bluff and say they’re going to report someone (even though they’re just speculating) won’t actually be able to unless they have had a personal experience with the particular therapist they’re speculating about. So, no matter what the speculator was going on about you have now pointed out that they need to put a sock in it and perhaps next time they’ll think twice about slandering someone.

Oh, and you could also use the, “That’s slander. You need to be careful how you talk about allied health professionals.” It’s direct and aggressive, but sometimes that’s what’s called for. Speculation has destroyed more than a few therapist’s careers.

What about if you’ve run into someone who believes massage therapy causes uncontrollable urges in people (usually men)?

In this case, I would refer you to the real, lived experiences of gay men who seem to be able to control their urges even when in locker rooms with men in various stages of undress. This problem of uncontrollable urges only seems to apply to straight men when it comes to women and children. This is a personal problem for the person experiencing these urges. They need to grow up and learn to control themselves. See patriarchal privilege…

If you have the unfortunate luck to be talking to a person who experiences uncontrollable urges, you want to encourage them to stay away from the massage therapy industry. These are not ideal clients for your massage therapist.

What about if you’ve run into someone who believes massage therapy summons demons?

Yes, I’ve had people say this to me. It’s hard to take them seriously, but if pressed I usually respond with something along the lines of having never seen any proof of it. In this day and age most people walk around with photo/video capabilities in their pockets so how come we’ve never seen a massage that produced a demon out of thin air? And believe me, if someone was on my table and a demon came out, I’d be grabbing proof. Wouldn’t you?

You might also find this article I wrote about critical thinking helpful.

Locker room talk & happy ending jokes aren’t funny

Can you imagine how you would feel if after years of college and entering a chosen profession someone started making jokes and treating you like a s*x worker? It’s really degrading and insulting. And it’s just adding insult to injury when your chosen profession is one of healing.

How do we combat this? I tend to tell people that they’re talking about professionals who spend thousands of dollars on education and meeting national and state requirements to be able to offer a valuable service to our community.

Sometimes I explain that massage therapy is a legitimate allied health discipline that helps millions of people every year. Then I’d back it up with a personal experience.

Most of us would never insinuate these things about doctors, nurses, PTs, OTs, or other healthcare professionals. Though I have recently been made aware of an ongoing epidemic of sexual harassment in the nursing field.

Quick History Break

Did you know that massage therapy used to be a part of a nurse’s education and standard of care? Massage skills (comfort care) fell out of nursing’s area of expertise as medical care was formalized and began utilizing manufactured medications instead of the plant medicines and herbal and folk knowledge that sustained our species for thousands of generations.

In addition to the rejection of historical knowledge, medicine demanded a higher level of education to do hands-on, soft tissue work and then restriced medical schools and physiotherapy education to men. This effectively pushed out the women healers who had carried at least half of the folk medicine and knowledge from the beginning of time. To firmly hammer the nail into the coffin, legislation then made it illegal in many places for folk healers to practice. As we’re rediscovering with most professions that shut women out, there’s a lot of patriarchy and consumerism tied up in the history of massage therapy, nursing and medicine.

Anyway…

I know it can sometimes be difficult to swim upstream when you meet people with big, loud opinions. But I hope this article will help you have more thoughtful and factual conversations about massage therapy in general. I hope it also gives you a few interesting facts you can put in your pocket to use as conversation starters at your next dinner party.

If you have questions or suggestions, you can leave a comment or contact me directly. And, as always, ensure your safety before you bump chests with a bully. We appreciate your support, but we don’t need anyone getting hurt over this.

Other Helpful Resources

Witches, Midwives and Nurses: A History of Women Healers by Ehrenreich & English
Things I Should Have Learned in Massage School
Polaris Project
A Client’s Bill of Rights
Things I Hate to See: Issues in Massage Therapy