I've been thinking about this for a couple days and debating whether I ought to post. So here goes!

I'm a female massage therapist. In school, being very professional was emphasized constantly. Part of that is making sure that a client cannot infer anything sexual from your behavior, speech, etc. And of course how to deal with a client trying to get a happy ending or what not. I was taught to not even comment on tattoos or anything related to a client's body outside of musculature. And I stand by that 100%. I've only had one issue with a male client and I think it had to do more with a communication issue (he didn't speak any English).

All of that leads to an interesting conversation with a male massage therapist (mt) last week. The receptionist mentioned that a trainee thought the male mt was cute (but he is married, etc). This leads to finding out that many of his female clients tell the front desk how attractive they think he is. He even had a couples massage (2 sisters) that for the entire hour kept talking about how good looking he is and how they so "enjoyed" being massaged by him.
I mentioned how much of a double standard that is. If a male client so much as commented on my looks or sexualized the massage on ANY way - the massage would be over and he would need to find a new MT. He said that he had never really thought of it that way. And at most it just embarrassed him. In every massage magazine, forum, and so forth it is emphasized on how a man should act toward a female massage therapist. But I've never read anything about how women should approach their male massage therapist.

Part of me feels like it is an overreaction on my part (if he doesn't care that much, why should I? ). But I thought it was an interesting example of a double standard that is perhaps overlooked.