Tag Archives: massage

“Have you ever had to massage anyone… gross?”

I hate this question. I really, really hate this question. And as a massage therapy student, I get it fairly regularly, even among my “progressive”/”crunchy” friend set. I also hear from prospective massage students that this is a question they get bombarded with from skeptical people.

Here’s why I hate it:

It assumes there’s such a thing as a “gross” person, or a “gross” body.

I will admit that an unwashed body¹ can be pretty… off-putting. But relatively clean bodies? There’s no such thing as an inherently gross body or gross person.

I mean this in all seriousness: every body I have ever seen on my table is beautiful. I am continually awed by the variety and beauty of the human form that I get to experience every time I give a massage. All the things that society says are gross or disgusting in the body are nothing more than disgusting prejudices — bodies that are “too fat” or “too thin” or “misshapen” or the “wrong color” or “too hairy” or whatever else kyriarchy has dictated is to be hated today — they are not what I see when I look at the bodies on my table. I see people — of all shapes, and sizes, and abilities, and colors, and hairiness — and they all floor me, always, with how similar they are, and simultaneously how different. How beautiful they all are, whether they’re in pain or fit or adequately functional or however else they may be.

I don’t know that all massage therapists feel this way² but it’s the way I feel, and it is both cause and effect of my training and career path. I won’t say I haven’t encountered any prejudice in the classroom, but there have been abundant messages of body acceptance and positivity.

And that is how it should be: massage, at its best, is one place where we can relax completely — both our muscles and the walls we erect to protect ourselves. I hate this question because it violates that sanctity, and promotes the very prejudices I work so hard to keep my space free of.

By which I do NOT mean a clean-but-sweaty or showered-last-night or smells-like-human body — though if you’re coming for massage, it’d be really nice to have bathed since your last workout — but rather mean built-up gunk. Which, actually, I have not yet encountered in a massage setting. ↩
Though I will say I have never worked with a massage therapist from whom I felt any amount of body shame. ↩

10 Comments | Posted on 25 May 2010 by Arwyn | Category: Body, Kyriarchy | Tags: Fat is a feminist issue, massage, woo woo

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Backpocalypse 2010: Or, my silence explained

You know that fabulous class I was gushing over in my last post?

Yeah, Day Three fucked my back up. Or rather, my back, injured long long ago when I was twelve, decided it had had enough and wasn’t going to take it any more, and I wasn’t going to give yet another massage, I was just going to lie on the floor and cry for an hour.

That day? Also the first of my cycle. And the spasm came while I was trying to put on my pants, so I was on the floor wearing only a nursing tank and my bright red undies¹. So, that was fun².

On the other hand, if you’re going to have a great big physical and emotional break down, there are worse places to do it than a room full of nurturing women half of whom are doulas (some wonderfully radical) and all of whom are massage therapists or massage students.³

This has happened to me before⁴, and it will likely happen to me again, although I’m working on preventing it. But this has me thinking a lot about privilege⁵, and access to medical care, and sick days, and disability, and, oh, lots of things.

Like there’s this: since it happened, I’ve seen a massage therapist, a physical therapist, and the chiropractor twice. The latter two are almost entirely covered by my insurance, and the former offers me a student discount (which I can only be because I had good enough credit to have taken out a massive loan to cover my schooling — it’s really true that the more you make, the less you spend).

And there’s this: The Man took two days off, took a super long lunch to get me to an appointment the third day, and has a job that allows him to work from home once a week so he was around again to help me out today. He’s salaried, has abundant⁶ sick and vacation days, and is in a class of work that allows for flexible hours and minimum oversight.

And this: when I am not up to writing, when I am not up to taking out my own damn sponge, I can do nothing but sit around and pop NSAIDs and ice my back and go to body work appointments and bitch about #backpocalypse2010 on Twitter. I lose some readers and some momentum, I miss a week of The Boychick’s Bookshelf and am five days late on a monthly menstrual post⁷: I do not lose my job, I do not worry about paying my rent, I do not grit my teeth and soldier through and further damage myself to avoid those things.

And then there’s how hard it is to ask for help, the socially imposed conditioning to apologize for being hurt⁸ that I’ve struggled with, the allowances I am given because this is presumed to be temporary, the language used to describe the incapacity⁹ that is today only for me and every day for others, the suggestions that it’s my own fault for not taking better care of myself, the voices¹⁰ saying that if I’m so damaged what am I doing trying to be a massage therapist… there’s rather more going on than I can identify, much less analyze. Especially as the ice pack melts and my hips start tingling and my back starts twitching and my bed starts calling — loudly, in the form of snores from my child and texts from my lover.

But I haven’t forgotten you¹¹, and soon I’ll be back with another Boychick’s Bookshelf (and there may be a collaboration there to announce soon — stay tuned!), and a review of Flow (oh so mixed), and whatever else I can eke out time for (ideas I never lack — time to follow through, often). And I promise it’ll be a little less apocalyptic¹², and a lot more topical.

And, I was trying out my new menstrual sponge for the first time, and when I got home couldn’t even wipe myself much less reach it, so The Man had to go sponge spelunking for me, and apparently it’s not exactly easy to get out, especially when it’s been in for rather longer than it was supposed to’ve because I collapsed on the floor and had other things on my mind. ↩
This is sarcasm. ↩
I’d still recommend just not doing it, though. ↩
The spasm, not the perfect storm of spasm, pregnancy massage class, and Day One menstrual sucktastitude, and dear Goddess can that please be a once-in-a-lifetime event? ↩
Raise your hand if you’re surprised. ↩
Comparatively, for the US of A. ↩
Am. Not. Pregnant. ↩
Seriously, how fucked up is that? How many men do you know who apologize for hurting? At worst, I’ve heard guys say that they let down the team if they’re injured and pulled off the field, and men surely have to contend with a culture that says they’re only valued for what they can do/how much money they can earn — but to fall to their knees and have the second words to come out of their mouth (after “FUCK!”, of course) be I’m sorry?? We women have got to rid ourselves of this idea that we’re supposed to apologize for existing. ↩
See, that’s problematic language. ↩
Mostly in my own head, admittedly. ↩
Or my beautiful FD Footnotes, how I love and overuse thee. ↩
And less annotated. ↩

13 Comments | Posted on 21 May 2010 by Arwyn | Category: Body, Kyriarchy, Life, the Universe, and Everything | Tags: class privilege, disability, excuses, massage, Menstruation, Meta, owie, Privilege, school

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Massage thoughts

I’m in the midst of a maternity massage series — two three-day-weekends in a row, for a total of 44 class hours — and am utterly knackered. I’ve had so many thoughts, so many posts I would’ve given a toe¹ to be able to sit down and get out, but have had to get back to class, to get even more inspiration for more posts I don’t have time to write.

So in lieu of one of those posts, some thoughts:

I love what I do so, so much. Seriously. I get to touch people and make them feel good, I get to rub pregnant bellies and (eventually) get paid for it. How much better can it get?
Silver or burgundy vines, raised rivers of wounds survived, bands of muscle, dimpled flesh, hair soft and sparse or springy and abundant or all but undetectable: all bellies are beautiful.
There’s got to be a way to celebrate birth and pregnancy without being cissexist and ableist and misogynist (which is to say, without essentializing women to walking uteri, ignoring women who don’t or won’t or can’t bear children). I’ve yet to see it done, but my optimistic nature believes it must be possible.
How the US routinely treats women and babies in birth should be criminal. It’s not about hospital or home, medicated or not — no matter how a woman² chooses to birth, she and the baby(s) she births deserve dignity, honor, and respect. One should never have to choose between medical assistance (whether needed or wanted, it doesn’t matter) and kind, physiologically appropriate treatment.
The way educational videos talk about ovulation and conception and pregnancy would be laughable, if it weren’t so ingrained in our society and so reflective of deeper, far less humorous attitudes: the site of ovulation is a “wound”, the egg is so fragile and “has only 24 hours to fulfill its fate, or it DIES” and it “waits” for the “vital ingredient” (sperm), which has its own “trek” to “penetrate” the egg — and if all that “fails”, then the uterus “sloughs” its lining. I could go on…
Best compliment received ever: “Thank you for having grace with me.”
Waking up four hours earlier than usual three days in a row sucks — but it’s all a bit more bearable when one knows one gets a massage that day. Massage school is the best.
I’m sure I’m forgetting things. But see aforementioned four-hour-earlier-than-usual wake ups.

As drained as I am physically, my spirit is soaring. I wish I could gift some of this to all of you — touch, and camaraderie, and joy in vocation, and that yummy post-massage blissed out head space. It’s too good to keep all to myself.

May you have reason to smile, today and every day.

I’m trying to tone down my hyperbole. How’s it working? ↩
Or man. ↩

16 Comments | Posted on 15 May 2010 by Arwyn | Category: Body | Tags: excuses, massage, school, sleep

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Muscle: Studentum burntoutus profundus

Origin: proximal massage education facility.

Insertion: inferior surface of bedding covers.

Actions: tearing of the hair, mastication of the jaw, and systemic collapse via exhaustion.

To shorten this muscle, continue cramming relentlessly. To lengthen, intermittently apply chai latte and laughter.

Approximately 2% of you are laughing now: to you, who have survived kinesiology in medical or massage school (or too many years of Latin or Classical Greek club), my sympathies, and admiration at your survival¹.

Tonight we went over the take home final and did the practical in kines upper. Tomorrow is the practical for massage upper — during which I at least get to give and receive a massage, even if observed for 1/3 of it. And next week is the final round of finals (har har), after which this quarter is d.o.n.e.

Next quarter I’m taking off of weekly classes, and focusing on the maternity massage certification. (Pregnant and in the greater Portland, OR area? Contact me in May. Free student massage(s). I’m completely serious.) Even with that, I should graduate by the end of 2010. And should be holding my license this time next year.

Hold me.

Also, I scheduled an appointment — finally, a whole quarter later — for next week to speak up about the abysmal ableism I experienced (endured) in Pathology. Apparently the curriculum has since been redesigned, and the redesign finalized for Path I, but I might still be able to influence Path II (which I will take in the summer — I’ll have old Path I and new Path II). So I’m partly kicking myself for not speaking up earlier, partly crossing my fingers that the overhaul has negated the need for my upcoming meeting with the curriculum coordinator, and partly shaking in my Birks at the thought of having that conversation.

Really hold me.

And send chai, and laughter. This studentum wants to last longer.

In truth, I find kinesiology — and Anatomy & Physiology — fairly easy, certainly compared to how much some others struggle in them, but I am feeling a bit burntoutus this quarter, and won’t be sad to see it end. ↩

9 Comments | Posted on 10 March 2010 by Arwyn | Category: Body, Life, the Universe, and Everything | Tags: feminists don't laugh, massage, Mental Health, Meta, school

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Open thread: On first periods

My monthly menstrual musings may have misled many of my much-beloved readers. I was not always as forthright as I am now — to put it mildly — and my willingness to talk about menstruation here, and elsewhere online and other feminist-dominated spaces¹, doesn’t mean I don’t (or rather, didn’t when it was applicable) buy menstrual products only along with a bunch of other groceries. (Or, ahem, send The Man out for them.)

And I’d love to tell you the story of my first period, my first years of periods really, of wadded up toilet paper and stains-upon-stains and clogging the toilet trying to flush super-size pads so my damn dog wouldn’t mortify me by eating them and strewing the little bloody bits all up and down the hall again — and I will, eventually, but right now I’m cramping and lightheaded and quite tired and really just want to go curl up in bed rather than revisit all that. (Couldn’t abdominal massage have been covered THIS week in class instead of next? Didn’t they know I was going to need that??)

So instead, this is an open thread: What do you remember about your first period, or those early years of menstruating? If you — by virtue of being trans or a late bloomer or having some medical condition or etc — didn’t start menstruating when seemingly everyone else did, what were your thoughts? How aware were you that some girls/women had their periods and you didn’t? (Cis men and trans men are also welcome to share about first periods, your own or a sister’s, or your first awareness of your mother’s, or however you became aware of menstruation in a concrete way.) Link drops to stories you’ve written elsewhere are of course welcome.

(As reward for participating — only click after you comment! — here’s an interesting post over at Bitch, in defense of the period. Read the comments, too, which address some flaws in the post.)

What do you mean the whole internet isn’t 90% women and almost entirely social-justice oriented? Where have you been hanging out online, and what’s wrong with it? ↩