But to reiterate a point that Pit has made - the willingness and presumption of many to insinuate that licensed massage therapists should be viewed as virtual sex workers without standing and automatically to be dismissed is nauseating
I've been debating about posting this memory ever since the DW stories dropped. It goes back 2 decades. This was my invitation.
__________
I took a call to play a series of engagements in Detroit. It was a Motown Soul/Gospel/R&B/Jazz review. A major project- lucrative enough that I took a week off from my main job to be a part of Music History. Several reading sessions, 3 intensive rehearsals, followed by 3 days of studio recording sessions and 2 concerts at the Fox Theater. When you spend that much time with the same folks, strangers become colleagues. Some colleagues become friends.
I met a young violist that week. Her uncle was the Jazz legend, Sir Roland Hannah. We're chatting during rehearsal break, and she tells me that viola was a love that she didn't want to pursue full-time, because of her uncle's stories of how grueling The Life can be. Instead, she loved playing only the gigs that she wanted to.
I ask her: "So- if you don't play The Life.... what do you do?"
"I'm a licensed Deep-tissue Massage Therapist."
"Wow. I've never met a masseuse before..."
"-And you still haven't. I apply medical manipulation to specific muscle groups. I'm a health care worker. A masseuse wears a bikini-"I innocently (no- ignorantly) walked into that exchange, because I was oblivious of a distinction.
I'm no longer innocent or ignorant.
The distinction defines the difference.
