I've only had two professional massages in my life. During the "non-professional" ones that I have received from Mike, I have given out happy groans in response to his hitting the right sore spots. I have noticed that these "happy groans" can sometimes bear a striking resemblance to noises that are made during another activity in which couples partake.
During my professional massages, I have stayed completely quiet (no groaning or moaning) for fear of those noises coming out and sounding sexual in nature. While a massage is supposed to be relaxing, I have noticed that my anxiety rises as the massage progresses because I'm afraid that the masseuse might think she's doing something wrong, given my complete silence. To me, groans given out during massages are sort of the equivalent of clapping...or a sort of "throaty encouragement", if you will.
My questions are as follows:
(1) For those of you who have had massages, do you groan and moan as if it was a loved one giving you the massage or do you stay silent?
(2) Is there a happy medium somewhere in between...perhaps a light groan every couple of minutes?
(3) For those of you who give massages (Angie...I'm looking at you here :) ), do you have clients who groan to the point of making you uncomfortable?
(1) When I have a massage I keep pretty quiet. If the therapist finds a particularly good spot, I might say 'phew, that's sore' or 'wow, that's a good spot'. Not much of a groaner myself.
ReplyDelete(2) I don`t think there is anything wrong with expressing yourself vocally. I don`t know if I would yell, and moan at the top of my lungs, but I don`t think that a professional therapist would be creeped out by a bit of moaning. I think it comes down to communication too. If my client is making noises that I am not sure whether I am hurting them, or they are enjoying it, I would ask if the pressure is okay, or if I had hit a sore spot, etc.
I wouldn't worry about keeping quiet during a massage either. I have clients who come in, lay down and go straight to sleep and I don't hear from them at all throughout the treatment. I also have some that are quite chatty. I think as long as there is proper communication about pressure, and the client knows that they are free to express when something is sore, or whether they want more/less pressure everything is fine.
(3) I have never had a client who has made me feel uncomfortable, HOWEVER, my coworker at my old office had a regular client (once/week for 90 minutes!) who was a super moaner. And loud....she got used to it, and it wasn't sexual (though it sometimes sounded inappropriate through the walls), but I could hear it, and so could my clients from across the hall. I had to explain a couple of times to my clients that there is a very vocal client in the next room, so if you hear something strange, he's just enjoying his massage. Kind of glad I don't have to listen to him anymore :P
And FYI, there is a difference between a masseuse and a registered massage therapist. If you went to see a masseuse, you wouldn't have to worry about making sexual noises....because that's what they do.....
Thanks, Angie! And I definitely won't be mixing up masseuse and massage therapist again!!
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