For massage therapists: Spotting a pervert

Hi, my fellow MTs. I realized I hadn't spoken with you in a while. Sometimes I do get a little consumed with all this chiropractic stuff, but I never forget where I came from. (I can't call massage my "roots" because I did choose chiropractic first, before considering becoming a therapist, but I digress...)

To make it up to you, I thought I'd spend some assembly time (yep, that's me--way in the back at the top with the laptop while yet one more rah-rah motivator yaps on about their experience...not that the miracles don't happen--they most certainly do, but speakers like these are hardly the norm--we need someone a little more realistic, something we can actually use, but I digress again...)

Time to cut to the chase. I logged onto a massage therapy-centered internet forum for the first time in a while, and I found a topic that is somehow like the Buddha - it gets revived again and again, never actually going away. For a fleeting moment, I asked myself while we're still discussing this topic, subconsciously assuming that everyone had already experienced a perv in their office by now. I kept forgetting about all the new grads, or the veteran solo practitioners who had yet to experience one of these little bundles of joy. We keep discussing it because we keep dealing with it. We keep dealing with it because we keep having to.

I've had my share of being exposed to perverts throughout the years, but for every one that ended up in my space, there were many more that I had screened out in the initial phone interview. Truth be told, most pervs that I encountered were at places where someone else handled the phone and scheduling; in my own practice, where I did my own screening, I encountered far fewer slimebags.

It all starts with your business name. Avoid words like "Swedish" in the actual business name because it can be akin to the "Swedish Institute" chain that offered above and beyond therapeutic massage and they even had some slimy radio ads. They finally got busted and shut down a few years back, but you don't want any potential perv calling you thinking they've made a comeback. "Magic Hands" and "Amazing Fingers" are probably also not phrases you want to use. Some pure-intentioned, well-meaning, creativity-lacking therapists latch onto such cliches, but unless you want a bunch of panting dogs leaving messages on your voice mail at 2am wondering if you're available right now, it's probably not a good idea.

Be conscious about what you say when advertising yourself, because advertising how most of these people are going to find you. (Your current clients, decent people, are usually not going to refer anyone dubious to you, even unconsciously. I say usually, because there are exceptions to this.) Any place you express yourself or describe your work, you have to accentuate the therapeutic aspect. Avoid phrases like "feather light" or "light touch" or "root chakra balancing" or "tantra", even if it's white or right-hand tantra or chakra work, because these phrases are often barely-plausible pseudo-legitimate code phrases for Other Services. If you're in a licensed state and it doesn't jeopardize your safety to do so, you may want to include your state license # on all advertising or listings. If you do pain management/relief or pre-natal or pediatric work, by all means, say so! Nothing kills a potential pervert's libido like the thought of pregnancy massage.

A side note: be aware of not only what you say in your ads, but where you advertise. Craig's list can be good or bad. It can be good, because not everyone who browses Craig's list is a pervert; some are actually looking for a legit massage and you'll get great exposure. However, there are a ton of slimy people on there, looking for anything and everything. If you advertise here, you'll definitely receive some call volume--but are those calls from people you'd want?

Ah, yes--the calls. I fielded a gazillion calls my first year, many of them from people with a dubious agenda. Looking back now it's because I listed on a website that had a mix of legit (the lion's share) and Not legit (a noticeable minority) therapists and I listed my modalities, including "feather light" lymphatic drainage and "myofascial release". I was completely legit, but I didn't know better. Many people thought lymphatic drainage sounded barbaric and painful and I wanted to emphasis the utter gentleness aspect of it, and sometimes it does indeed feel like a feather. But it perked up the pervs ears. Myofascial release is quite legit, too--even clinical--but the prospective pervs saw the "release" part and looked no further.

So how do you spot one on the phone? I admit, you don't have the in-person opportunity to get a feel for the slimy creepy vibe yet, so how can one tell? Listen. Listen carefully, to what they're saying and to what they're not saying. At the beginning, pervs are often quiet and embarrassed, sheepish or sly, or they talk real fast. Some don't want to leave a message but will call 4-5 times in a row. Some will call at all hours of the night. Often, they don't volunteer their name or they mumble when giving it to you. Sometimes they ask a lot of questions, especially pertaining to what areas you will and will not work, whether or not you work glutes, hamstrings, adductor muscles, abdominal muscles, or groin area, or whether or not you do prostate massage. Many times, they'll ask about draping - what you use for draping, whether it's a sheet or a towel, what size or thickness the drape is, whether or not it's required, or what the draping boundary is (i.e. what will you leave exposed and what must be covered up). Many will try to keep you on the phone as long as they can, with the sole purpose of feeling you out, no pun intended. They want to see if you'll eventually leak any clues or key underground phrases that let them know you offer extras. Your best defense is to screen, screen, screen. And keep the focus on all things therapeutic. Don't let them forget about the Therapy in Massage Therapy.

I worked out of our home during my first couple years in private practice, and when a prospective male client had passed the phone screening, I still didn't let my guard down. When it came time to schedule an unfamiliar male, I either scheduled him for a time when my husband would be home, or if he was going to be at work, I at least turned on the TV, radio, or kitchen light to make it look and sound like someone was home. Heck, I even went and opened or closed some doors in such a way that the client would hear it. I also avoided same-day appointments whenever possible.

When it comes to outcalls, there's no foolproof way to be 100% safe. You can screen them on the phone and trust your gut (which I would advocate anyway--ALWAYS go with your gut instinct!) but there's not much you can do short of taking someone else with you. Often, I did. But often, I didn't. I just trusted that I would be safe. I stuck to certain outcall hours (nothing too late, nothing on weekend evenings) and I worked on females or couples whenever possible, especially if there were children in the household, and if I was visiting the home of someone unfamiliar, I made sure to call my husband upon arrival and when I was physically pulling out of their driveway. During the massage, I always kept my cellphone and keys in my scrub shirt pocket in case I needed to make a getaway.

While there is a great potential for danger in the massage therapy field, very little danger actually exists. There are many more situations where something could happen, and very few situations where something actually does. That said, there have been some tragedies. But hopefully, I've been able to help minimize the actual risk with the tips above.

Live like you were dying

I have to begrudgingly admit: clinic camp was actually cool. There. I said it. It was revealing. It was challenging. It was life-changing. It was everything I thought it would fall short of trying to be. We laughed. We cried. We cared. We dared. We shared. (Gosh, this is starting to sound like my high school's motto back before public schools got swept into the business of adopting taglines.)

I always got mildly irritated at the people who coyly kept all the details a secret, but now I know why they did, and I'm going to stay the course as well, because I'd like those behind me to go through it with the same vague information and the same clean slate and semi-open mind. I wouldn't want to cheat anyone else out of that experience. So sorry, if you came here looking for some inside dirt, I'm not spilling the beans. :)

Suffice it to say that yes, there is physical activity. Just when I thought I couldn't go any further, I somehow found the energy (or maybe it was pure empty adrenaline) to go one more step. Muscle groups I didn't know I had ached. There isn't quite the new-agey feel-good propaganda I was told there would be, or maybe it just didn't possess as much Cheese Factor as I was told it would. We poured our hearts out. We spilled our guts. We dared to do things that we were originally brainstorming for exit strategies to get out of, and it was worth it.

My change-of-heart arrived shortly after we did. I decided well, I'm here. I have no choice in the matter. People say this sort of shit changes lives, but you only get out of it what you put into it. Well, I'm game. So bring it.

I left a slightly changed person, altered on some level I was hoping to access this weekend. We had climbed the legendary Pole--a 30-foot log that might as well have been 30 miles--with a full-body harness clipped to a thick rope. We were to jump from the pole, although the jump would only last about a human body length. I have to say that I had no plans to do this at first. Three things finally convinced me. First, I watched a classmate with many physical problems including MS, climb the pole and jump, even from 3/4 of the way up. Then my husband, who is legally blind, made the jump, from the very top. Both did just fine and said I should do it. The second thing was, my staff doctor was very matter-of-fact and treated the situation as though I had planned to do it, mentioning the order in which we would go up, as if it were a done deal. I didn't want to let him down or resist that. The third and final thing was the clincher, though; I didn't want to leave that camp knowing there was something I chickened out on doing. I didn't want there to be something that I didn't even try and thus would never know. I also didn't want to reach a point five or ten years from now and doubt myself, never having conquered that flaw, and regretfully wonder if I had sabotaged myself for years to come by not taking a simple step. I wanted to have participated fully and to use everything about the entire weekend to my advantage. I left no stone unturned.

Before ascending, we were to announce to the group what flaw, imperfection, insecurity, doubt, or whatever else that was holding us back, that we were going to leave behind as we jumped. Mine was my self-insecurity. I already knew it was significant when I found myself making my statement through tears, which continued as I climbed the pole. I still remember climbing for what seemed forever, breathing hard, telling myself to keep breathing and to not ever look down, but to keep looking up. Everything's going to be OK if I don't look down, keep looking up. I got almost to the top but I couldn't bring myself to stand on the very top of the pole. I was at the last and next-to-last rungs. I thought about looking down but I refused to do so and instead looked just straight ahead, as I was told. I said screw it and jumped from there.

The next couple of days held some emotional transformation, as people took the mike and gave recognition to those who provided inspiration over the weekend, or they gave each other kudos for helping each other out, often during hard times, during the past couple years, or they apologized or cleared the air with anyone they were having a conflict with, whether those people were classmates or not. I felt, welling up within me, a sense of duty to apologize to the class for not being as nice as I could, for being so negative all the time. I was sorry for not reaching out to people or offering to help out more than I did. I blubbered my apology to 125 through tears and I don't know how I managed but I did and I felt a lot better.

I don't know exactly what changed, but I know that since this weekend, I've talked to more people more comfortably and more warmly, from a different place in my heart, and in a different tone. I still struggle with the same nervousness of how am I gonna get through clinic, and how am I going to express what I want to say in these presentations, but now I somehow know that I'll get through it, and that if I operate from the heart, for the good of the patient, the numbers will come.

And if that wasn't enough to speak volumes to me, our sermon topic at the Unitarian church yesterday was about our deep individual calling, how we're called to do things with our lives, and how events lead into each other until, strung together, they reveal a path that led us to a destination we were supposed to reach; it was exactly meant for us. It was amazing.

Part of the service focuses on the congregation, and we're invited to take the mike and share with the rest a joy and/or a sorrow. Jay shared both a joy and a sorrow that day. The joy was the transformation that happened at camp, and the sorrow was that a longtime friend in his circle of friends up north died suddenly of a heart attack earlier in the week.

Speaking of those who have passed on, it's my grandfather's birthday today. He would've been 87. As far as I'm concerned, he is anyway.

what girls want

Can we please, just once, have a holiday that has not been completely hijacked by the marketing vampires, turned inside out and into a hollowed-out skeleton of its true meaning? Don't get me wrong, I'm totally on-board with the idea of a day of love. It's especially useful to remind those challenged in the area of expressing love--at least once a year, anyway. But where on earth did we get this idea that the intensity of feelings for someone is somehow directly proportional to the amount of currency we're willing to part with? I mean, does a woman really need another diamond ring just because it's Valentine's Day? And I understand that some people are in a position to buy their loved ones cars as a Valentine's gift, but how can they convey such an idea in a regular off-air commercial broadcast to the masses--with a straight face, no less? And for the love of God, I do not need flowers. Seriously, please do not spend 40 bucks on something that while beautiful, lasts less than a week. Those funds can get a lot more mileage elsewhere.

Nah, what makes this girl tick isn't a car, a dozen roses, or even a diamond ring; rather, much like Christmas, it's all about the thought and the caring that goes into planning the evening. It doesn't have to cost much; in fact, it shouldn't. A romantic walk in the sunset, a reasonably-priced dinner in some ambient, out-of-the-way place with great food and friendly servers, watching movies like "Sleepless In Seattle" and "She's All That" back-to-back, a candlelit intimacy session musically backdropped by contemporary world music from India or the Middle East, jamming together on drums and keyboards, or a good 4-hour low-lit topic-spanning conversation on the couch. If you must get me a gift, make it something practical, like a pendant, a unique article of clothing (nothing kinky), some neat essential oils or fragrances, computer supplies, a cool book or DVD, or if you feel more romantic and less practical, a couple-hour package at a good spa, or write me a poem or a song. Dinner and a movie. Maybe a box of good chocolate.

Really, that's it. You don't have to win a real girl over with expensive material things. Be there in spirit. Use your imagination. Care about your loved one. And by all means, forget the card. Better yet, make one yourself, even if you pirate cartoonish, themed clipart off of Google and print it out on a bubblejet. The fact is, you took the initiative to think of it and the time to make it.

Even better, treat every day like it's Valentine's Day!

p2p part deux - fyi

For the record, I will reiterate, yet once again, that I am not a Nazi. I feel like one of the few scattered sane voices in Rocky Mountain-like isolation, hollering out into the cyberdin. At least, that's what some of these FYI items feel like to me (although that doesn't stop me from posting them because they so badly need to be said). Other items are more benign, to be filed under the "just so you know" category--little helpful bits of trivia, in case they ever come in handy.

* Do feel free to pm me. Please understand that I'm rarely around and when I am, it's usually a quick in-and-out. I take 5 minutes here and 10 minutes there to run new searches, queue up a few downloads, browse those in my queue to see if I should add anyone to my list for having a cool collection or ban anyone because they're either not sharing or they're sharing too little. I do try to reply to messages when I get in, although if your message consists of "hi" or "r u there?" or "can you add me" (the 2 exceptions to the latter being if you're a fellow slsk roommate--more on this later--or you have a kick-ass or large collection), or to whine about your spot in queue (hint: don't do this!) On occasion, I'm around long enough to be up for a good conversation, but usually I'm not so much the chatty type. Although I've held some long and awesome conversations with some just because we've hit it off, and I'm more likely to be chattier with those people.

* Follow the Golden Rule. I'm sorry, because I know that sometimes I'm talking to the wrong crowd, but if you're a leecher, listen up. I cannot for the life of me get inside the heads of those who try to take from others without sharing anything themselves. I mean, I simply cannot understand this. At what point did the whole "file-SHARING program" get lost on these people? It's like they only understand half a concept at any given point in time. (And we give these people a license to drive and a spot on a voter registration list. No wonder the world is in the state it's in!) It's the simple Golden Rule, folks. Every religion, faith, or philosophy, whether major or minor, whether organized or not, contains some version of this concept. Whether you believe in karma, hell, purgatory, judgment, nirvana, moksha, or something in between, the Golden Rule is for you.

"I've heard the excuses everybody uses", and I call bullshit. "But I'm a casual user." Then go get the files from other casual users. My clientele are more hardcore about their collections. "I have no/little harddrive space." This's my favorite one. Please. Then where are you planning to put the CDs you plan to leech from me? Not only that, but if I can run down to my local computer store and pop $149 while drowning in medical student loan debt, so can you. And by the way, the $149 got me an entire terabyte. You don't have to spend that much if you don't need quite that much space. So save the experience of looking like a complete asshat and bag the sob stories. They don't become anyone.

* Adding people to my list is a call that's mine alone to make, without a message from you prompting me to do so, but there are 2 exceptions. First, if you have a large, quality, organized collection (it need not be as big as mine, but 15k-20k files or more of really tasty stuff is a good start), then you can pm me to be added. By "files" I mean mp3, flac, or movie formats, not m4a or any other "secure" file format no one can do anything with. I also don't count incomplete files. Again, useless. And by organized I mean full albums, not the atrocious Itunes concept of generating 100,000 folders, each with a single track or two in them. The full releases should be organized; the system is up to you, but each album should preferably get its own folder. And needless to say, everything should be named properly.

The other exception is when you belong to a chatroom that I am also camped out in. As a general rule, I try to add all fellow roommates to my list (unless they're not sharing anything). If you attempt to download from me and your download doesn't start right away, that means I don't have you on my list yet. Either you're new to the room or I am, or it's an oversight. Just pm me, tell me what room you know me from, and ask to be added.

* I'm having a few bandwidth/transfer-handling problems since I migrated to Windows XP (from Windows 2000 Pro) about a month ago. If it seems like your downloads sit on "initializing" for a long time without doing anything or they fail more often, it's not your imagination. I apologize for this. Yes, I have configured the client properly, and all the ports I know about are open. I don't know what else is causing it and I know enough about computers to use the programs but not to administer anything. That's my husband's job, and he's in med school with me, so let's just say his time is limited, too! But I'm aware of the problem, although I don't know what else to do about it. All I can say is, the download will process eventually, even if it waits a couple of days. If you need the files more urgently, I suggest you seek out alternate sources.

* Shit or get off the pot. When someone queues files that they're not actually ready to download when their turn comes around, it takes up my queue space (ramping up the number in queue, making it appear larger than it is), and it eats up my RAM. That might not matter to some, but the fact is, the program spontaneously gives me a nonsensical error and shuts down whenever it consumes too much memory, and this has indeed happened. When it does, it takes me a looong time to get everything back up and running again, because the program has to re-scan through literally over 100,000 files, and that takes a lot of time, even with the amount of memory I have. So...if you're not ready to download for whateve reason (be in bandwidth limits or whatever), DON'T QUEUE THE FILES. If I see your files go inactive when your turn comes up more than twice, I will have to ban you to prevent my own system from shutting down.

* Follow your own rules. This should go completely without saying, as it is such a "duh" concept, but there are people who impose rules on others, for example "1 cd at a time" or "40 tracks at a time", which is totally fine, but then they in turn go queue up a whole lot more from someone else! Please. Although I don't live and die by any explicit limits, per se, I do expect that one would have the common decency to comply with their own rules. For the cheap seats, if you impose a 2-cd limit or a 100-track or a 100-megabyte limit on those who download from you, you must not queue more than that from me at one time, either. If you do, I will remove the selected downloads in excess of your own rules from my queue, plus maybe a bit more for punity's sake. If you re-queue, I'll keep re-deleting, until the first batch is finished downloading. If your queues are ridiculously out of line, I might tire of the situation and eliminate the problem entirely, if you know what I mean. We both know that's fair.

* Speaking of fairness, I don't play bandwidth games, and I don't appreciate those who do. I complete understand, and can empathize with, the ever increasingly-draconian limits imposed by ISPs on their customers, often allowing just a certain amount of bandwidth per day. I also understand that their customers often have no other ISP choice. I know that this forces some of you to put limits on your upload slots or speeds, to ensure that you don't exceed your daily limit. That is completely fine; do what you have to do. I'd rather you do that and be able to stay logged on, than not have you as part of the community. But then, do be fair; if you actively limit your upload to 2k per second, don't suck off others at neutrino speed while the Canadian post office puts your speed to shame.

I need to add a caveat to that: bandwidth is a funny thing. I've had people ask me why I download off them at 45k per second, while they can only get speeds of 10k/sec off of me. The truth is, I don't know. My ISP has no daily limit, but it does limit my outgoing bandwidth to about 55-60k; I set my max at about 50k, to leave some bandwidth left over for things like showing up in peoples' searches so that they can find me, or so that people have a better chance of browsing my files. Please know that the 50k is shared between all who are downloading from me at once. Since I have a lot of user slots open, this can mean that there are smaller slices of the pie for each person, but that each person does get to download without having to wait long. If you're getting 10k/sec from me and I'm getting 50 from you, then chances are there are others trying to download from me at the same time, and I'm the only one in your queue, or you have more outgoing bandwidth than I do. I'm not being a hypocritical douchebag, I promise.

* I'm happy to make recommendations, upon request. My forte is in helping those brand-new to the ambient/dub/chillout or contemporary lounge scenes. I can also help with the shoegaze and older alternative or synthpop genres. However, I don't know enough about punk, ska, goa, metal, hip-hop, house, deep house, trance, or techno to compare and contrast. And I don't do speed metal or death metal at all.

* If, after all this, you're still game for a good time (filesharing, pervs) don't worry; I won't let you down. What you'll find is a treasure trove of over 100,000 mp3 files of decent quality, organized into individual complete cds, in nearly every genre with a few exceptions. People find the organization method easy to navigate and they love the selection and depth/completeness of the collection. However, I can be tough to browse, especially during peak internet traffic hours. Be patient when browsing, be considerate while queuing, and be patient while waiting. More often than not, it's worth it.

she's a yo-yo

Simply put, I have bipolar disorder. While the discovery is a relatively recent event, it only makes sense after an 18-year history of questions and loose ends that occasionally bobbed to the surface for a fleeting moment before quickly re-submerging. It's not just that there were long periods of time that I got by just fine without anti-depressants, it's that I did so with a suspicious lack of a need for sleep, especially for a teenager, and a tremendous amount of energy. I was quite the little insomniac, staying up all night (and even getting through the next day), often twice a week.

See, I was diagnosed with major clinical depression but unbeknownst to everyone at the time, that was only half the story. I never did really have all the traditional symptoms. Sure, I felt hopeless, useless, and sad, and I had aches and pains and a general feeling of constant malaise for a while, but then that gave way to utter restlessness and I had this mild on-top-of-the-world feeling...at least, until the others in my life got in the way. I resented the people involved for dampening the vibe.

Since, of course, clinical depression is simply a Prozac or Zoloft deficiency and our family let the drug lords with stethoscopes have their way in those days, I had my stint with both drugs, starting with the former. Sure, it lifted me a few levels, but then the progress tapered off. I paid a price for the little boost; my creativity diminished, and when it did occasionally manifest, it was often forced and the fruit was lame. Within a year, I took the initiative to take myself off the meds. Withdrawal symptoms suck, even if they're mild. Trust me, it's not cool to be 14, frantically en route to the restroom because you're about to lose control of your bowels.

Nobody recognized I had bipolar disorder for a couple reasons. First, for men, it's the mania that hits first, whereas for women, it's the depression that hits first. We're diagnosed, drugged with artificial happy pills, and everyone stops there, never giving it another thought. Another reason is that those in the field have divided bipolar sufferers into different subclass. Many people don't consider bipolar disorder because they don't have manic periods intense enough to cause them to mortgage their house to the horse racetrack or melt the credit card at the local mall. The truth is that now, one of the subclasses recognizes a tendency toward hypomania--where the manic periods are less pronouced--in between regular depressive episodes. Alternatively, the manic periods may not bring about a euphoric mood; instead, the bipolar person may be glaringly, almost-unreasonably irritable. In my own case, the reasons I didn't the bipolar classification is all those mentioned above, plus the fact that my own cycles between highs and lows are longer than most and I never "rapid-cycle" (where manic and depressive periods last a mere 3 months or so). So no one put two and two together.

Bipolar disorder can be what's known as a wastebasket diagnosis or the Syndrome Du Jour and so everyone gets hit with the label out of convenience. However, some people truly fit this label. Just ask Edgar Allan Poe or Kristin Hersh of Throwing Muses.

I don't even remember how I arrived at the notion that I might actually be bipolar instead and to confirm it through research, but it hit me couple of weeks ago. I was able to track an 18-year history of bipolar disorder, and it often didn't even matter whether or not I was on any medication. Sure, my depressive periods were less pronounced and I could both think and function a little more rationally, but honestly, diet modification goes a lot further than medication. For me and many others, drugs don't do anything special that eating the right foods can't accomplish, and plenty of us actually get better mileage from simple dietary changes than from anything from a pharmacy.

Meds don't make you happy. They don't solve your problems. They just make you apathetic, so that you don't care about that which bummed you out before. They remove your passion, your true personality, and in some cases, your lust for life. They can take you out of the dumps, but they do so by making you numb and moulding you into a shadow of who you truly are. I've come away from my 11-year experience with them with a feeling of contempt. Do I still experience long, sometimes-intense and occasionally-debilitating downer periods? Sure. But, at least I'm feeling something. I care about something. I experience life through my own senses and with my own mind, and all of life's trials and blessings, even when the blessings are hard to come by, and when they do, I have a greater appreciation for them. Not to mention that the eponymous song by Jazz Butcher (aka The Jazz Butcher Conspiracy) kicks ass. :)