I realized yesterday that I’m a sexist. Well, more accurately, I realized that when it comes to my own body image I’m a sexist.<\/p>\n
One of the best, most decadent pleasures that modern American life has to offer is the ready availability of the full body massage thanks to the proliferation of licensed massage therapists. I can, without a doubt, recommend a massage as the first step on the road to ameliorating some of modern life’s most horrible effects (stress from sitting at a computer all day and night, traffic stress, parking lot stress, moron on cell phone who isn’t paying attention stress).<\/p>\n
A good massage therapist will tell you to strip down as far as you’re comfortable. I started my experience with LMT’s nearly ten years ago with one of the most centered, most calmingly spiritual women I’ve ever met. It may just have been me but I have a feeling that even people standing next to her on the subway felt slightly better without knowing why. This, of course, got me immediately comfortable.<\/p>\n
After she decided that she wanted to center her practice around her corporate clients, hotels, law firms, and spas, I started working, on the recommendation of a very good friend, with another LMT. She, too, was a very calm, very centered person. Unfortunately, she decided after many years here that this just wasn’t where she wanted to be and that the wilds New England were calling.<\/p>\n
So, for two years I’ve been searching for a massage therapist who meets my criteria. Getting a massage is about more than relaxing tight muscles, joints, and ligaments. It’s also about rejuvenating the spirit. On the recommendation of a good friend I went to visit a new LMT yesterday. Frankly, I didn’t expect much beyond relaxed muscles. It turns out that this man my friend recommended shares the same calming, spiritual qualities my other, female massage therapists had. The difference in the experience was me.<\/p>\n
Lying on the table, having a physical experience that absolutely was not sexual I found myself worried about how my body looked. Ridiculous when you consider that an LMT sees dozens of semi-naked people a week. And yet, there it was, concern about those hereditary pads of fat on my hips that no matter how much I diet and exercise I can’t get rid of. And just why did I never have this worry when my LMT was a woman? Is it because years upon years of going to PE class and to the gym have conditioned me to not care what my body looks like in front of another woman? I don’t think so given the massive amounts of worry I’ve had every time I’ve gotten naked with a new girlfriend for the first time.<\/p>\n
Is it that American society so conditions women to care what men think of their bodies that even someone like me who is so far divorced from the body standards of mainstream society reflexively responds? Or is it some misguided idea about the nature of women and acceptance (trust me, women can be cruel when it comes to judging other women)? <\/p>\n
No answers…just another thought that comes unbidden.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I realized yesterday that I’m a sexist. Well, more accurately, I realized that when it comes to my own body image I’m a sexist. One of the best, most decadent pleasures that modern American life has to offer is the ready availability of the full body massage thanks to the proliferation of licensed massage therapists. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-thoughts","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homemaderavioli.com\/woodstock\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homemaderavioli.com\/woodstock\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homemaderavioli.com\/woodstock\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homemaderavioli.com\/woodstock\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homemaderavioli.com\/woodstock\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.homemaderavioli.com\/woodstock\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homemaderavioli.com\/woodstock\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homemaderavioli.com\/woodstock\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homemaderavioli.com\/woodstock\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}