Teaching couple’s massage IS his business. How Denis Merkas converts those so-called “macho” types who think giving their lover a massage is only for getting “down to business.”
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Being a male massage therapist, there’s plenty of jokes you need to live with and expect throughout your career. I’m sure you’re already aware that the massage industry has its clinical, therapeutic side and a more colorful side to it, too.
… as someone who has spent 15 years perfecting his craft, it’s pretty insulting to be labelled some sort of pervert.
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I’m strictly a clinical therapist. No blurred lines here. But that doesn’t stop the ribbing.
There’s the nudge-nudge, wink-wink that comes my way from randoms I meet at parties or networking events. People continually make suggestive comments about not only me as a person, but the kind of business I run and the sorts of things my employees must get up to behind closed doors.
I realise they’re just trying to be funny, but as someone who has spent 15 years perfecting his craft, it’s pretty insulting to be labelled some sort of pervert. I usually just brush it off. Until recently, when things went too far.
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My main gig now is teaching couples how to massage each other. Not surprisingly, this only seems to serve to further incite lewd comments.
In one searingly awful moment earlier this year, I pitched my new couples massage videos to the wrong website and the wrong target market (a mistake I won’t be repeating) and copped the wrath of The Internet Trolls:
“How many guys will be viewing this workshop under duress, but on the promise that if they do they will get their BJ?”
“The motivation of fairly certain root is the only thing that would make most guys sit through this.”
“That idealised couply, couply stuff may be OK in Byron Bay, but the honest truth as a guy is that I will only play along with crap like this up to and until it turns into a root.”
Charming, gentlemen.
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I started teaching couples how to massage each other for just reason: Because I truly believe it can bring relationships closer.
Massage has been proven to dramatically increase intimacy and build immense trust in romantic relationships. When you massage your partner, they – and you – will experience a flood of dopamine and endorphins.
The important distinction to make here is that a massage is a massage, non-sexual touch. We draw a line right there.
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These feel-good hormones work to bond you closely to each other, relax you both and create a warm and loving space in your relationship.
The only reason you should ever offer to massage your partner is because you want to do something nice for them. End of story.
I won’t lie, massage between couples (alone… behind closed doors… perhaps with candles and romantic music…) can get pretty hot. Sex is a common by-product of such a massage, and that’s a Very Good Thing.
My wife and I have even taken to calling it pre-foreplay foreplay. Done right, it may just get you both into the mood to take it further.
The important distinction to make here is that a massage is a massage, non-sexual touch. We draw a line right there.
If you are giving your partner a massage and they want to move it into a little something-something more, they will give you some very clear signs on that.
If not, then it remains just a massage and you will have done something nice for your partner to make them smile. And that should be more than enough. If you’re really smart about it, you won’t ask for a single thing in return.
Even if your partner offers to massage you afterwards, politely decline. Drop a kiss on their cheek and let them know they can repay the favour another time.
The suggestion by these awful comments from the depths of the internet that sex is the only reason any self-respecting man would want to massage their wife is so outdated and misguided that you have to laugh.
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Sure, not everyone is automatically into massage as a concept, but the willingness to give it a go as a shared experience with your partner is half the job done.
One particular guy that sticks in my mind walked into my massage seminar room one day in a terrible mood. “I’m missing the football for this,” he told me. He was a huge, bulky unit with hands like dinner plates. I had my work cut out for me.
Luckily, my face-to-face time teaching couples means that I encounter the real life men – and women – who really do care enough for their partners to want to give them a great experience.
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By the end of the course, after I’d walked everyone through the basics of applying oil, warming up muscles and working knots and spent some one-on-one time with him putting those great massage hands to good use on his wife’s shoulders, he was a convert. He gave me a huge hug on the way out, promising to send all his mates from the fire station my way. He and his wife left with their arms around each other. The football was suddenly not quite so important as the encounter he’d just had with his partner.
These are the moments my wife and I love to watch during our live massage courses – couples start to relax and we can literally see them start to connect. A sneaky kiss mid-massage routine, a little hug as they swap over in the chair from massagee to massager, playful banter and giggling as they work out their technique. And we know it only gets better from there once they’re home alone practicing.
Luckily, my face-to-face time teaching couples means that I encounter the real life men – and women – who really do care enough for their partners to want to give them a great experience.
I’ve seen men who seek out my courses so they can massage their pregnant wives. Men who want to be able to provide some relief for their partner’s sore, stressed shoulders. Men who want to use massage as a way to spend quality time together at home. Men who know how much it would mean to their wives to engage in some non-sexual, gentle touch at home.
If that sounds like you, I take my metaphorical hat off to you, kind sir! This is what good men are made of and how men act in loving relationships. (And to hell with the trolls.)
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Photo: Flickr/Nick Webb