Hope Springs Eternal

Today I had a chance to visit a "boutique" spa for a massage at Genesis Bodywork.

As I mentioned before, it seems like most MTs work either in spas/salons/hotels or privately out of their home and the ones that practice privately don't have websites. I found a place in a near-by suburb (think Rosslyn or Bethesda) that had DC-level pricing ($80 / hour) and booked an hour session for today.

I asked the owner over the phone what "boutique spa" meant. He admitted that it simply meant they were smaller than the bigger name spas. They were set up in a house and primarily offered massage and a few bodycare options like waxing.

They seem to still feel that they have to make you think "fancy". But the house was a simple house and the decor was lovely and not overdone. In fact, they used a similar color scheme to that used at Eye Street Massage in downtown DC -- tans, browns, greens, etc. Asian-ish.

Rather than covering with sheets, they use towels here. Couple problems with that.

• They aren't extra-big towels. So, if you've seen me, you know I kinda stick out on the two sides. Not horribly but it makes me feel a little exposed.


• It's really tough to secure the draping when working high on the leg. I'd asked for hip flexor work, which made for a challenge for my MT.


• A towel won't cover you shoulders-to-feet so I ended up with a second towel over my feet/lower legs but there was still a bit of gap.


• Since you need multiple towels (and they are nice thick towels) for a session, you aren't saving anything on laundry with towels. One or two under you. One or two on top of you. A smaller one as a facerest cover. Per session. It's gotta add up.

So.....not a fan of the towel approach.

After the session, I had a chat with the owner about one aspect of the local massage scene I've been curious about. Prostitution is legal in Queensland. I explained about how DC legislators (and others) often try to get "at" the prostitution trade through the massage therapy regulations and asked if, with legal prostitution, they had any problems with "happy ending" kinda clients.

He said he rarely gets those kind of calls. When he does, it's usually someone with a foreign accent asking for something like "body to body" massage. He wondered why men still do that.

I gave him my standard answer: hope springs eternal! :)

He also said they encounter what he called a "Mr. Creepy" from time to time, but again pretty rare. I guess they are, truly, unavoidable.

I feel like I'm beginning to get a clearer picture of the massage therapy world here in Queensland Australia. The more I learn, the more I'll write.