the terms "massage therapy" and "massage therapist

the number of harassment calls massage Most of the massage therapists I knew who were in favor of being regulated when the law in my state was still being debated were of the opinion that having a license would legitimize the field. Yes, massage has been a legitimate practice for millennia and doesn't need the government seal of approval to verify that. Yet anyone who thinks there aren't people out there who are still confused, misguided, or worse about what

is must be living in a very different world than most of us. The idea was that having a legal definition of what massage was and a list of approved providers would stop people using massage as a front for other activities. I agreed at the time that enough press about what massage really is might reduce the number of harassment calls massage therapists receive. Sadly, the local TV news stations were more interested in publicizing the massage parlors that were shut down for being fronts for prostitution. While those working at these places could be charged with "impersonating a massage therapist," the stories very, very rarely mentioned that there was a law, let alone that the law required massage therapists (our legal title, and that's fodder for another subject entirely) to have completed a certain number of hours of training. Certainly the stations had no interest in specifying that licensed massage providers do not engage in a wide variety of acts, including operating outside our scope of practice. Examples of what we don't do range from the prostitution they loved to broadcast to entering into the medical territory of diagnosis. Perhaps I'm wrong on this, but I can't imagine anyone would expect a sex worker to tell them if their spine was out of alignment. Acknowledging that many of us working outside of the most clinical of settings still offered clinical work apparently didn't fit into the three and a half minutes set aside for such stories. That the vast majority of us are practicing what is, admittedly, an old profession, but is hardly the oldest profession wasn't racy enough to sell advertising. Once again,hiiitiier I've digressed. I now have the option to allow my license to lapse, if I so choose. What passes for licensing where the majority of my practice is boils down to title protection for the terms "massage therapy" and "massage therapist." If I or any massage provider drops the "T" word in any form, we are free to practice at will…at least for the time being. That said, personally I have no intention of allowing my license to lapse. It's easier to stay current than to reapply later, and I do enjoy the security (real or perceived, it matters not to me) of being able to say "I'm a licensed healthcare provider…how dare you ask me to engage in sexual activity!" Besides, I worked hard in my initial training, in studying for the national certification exam (another topic in and of itself,) in continuing education classes, and in building and maintaining my practice. Those of us who make it in this field do, regardless of what some ads for training programs I've been told about imply.