Radical feminism is never modified to suit the individual, or to encompass some latest trend. Nor can you get to pick and choose which bits of radical feminism you follow, it’s an all or nothing deal – whilst there are anti-porn libfems out there, they are not radical feminists, which becomes clear in their analysis and approach.
So, is Tantric Massage prostitution or not?
The short answer is yes, it is part of the prostitution industry, even if some individuals participate in a kind of ‘prostitution-lite’ way. Even within the Tantric Massage sector there is variation with regards to services (ie if the masseur is nude or clothed) but at the ‘heavy’ end of the scale, there is negligible difference to regular prostitution services – that is the confirmation that Tantric Massage is part of the prostitution sector.
Googling ‘tantric massage’ yielded the first result[1], my bolding and notes in square brackets:
We offer discreet massage services in our cosy apartment in Central London or out call to your hotel.
You can choose one of the following:
– Sensual Tantric Massage [seems to be the standard service]
– Tantric Pampering Massage
– Unique Yoni Massage [massage of the vulva]All our sessions include:
– Nude body-to-body sensual massage
– Breathing techniques
– Lingham massage [massage of the penis]
– Prostate massage [massage of the prostate area]
The only time the word ‘discreet’ is ever used is for upmarket prostitution. The masseur is nude as standard, with obvious nude body rubbing. The site goes on to say:
You will be relaxed and pampered by one of our gorgeous Goddess. You will surrender to a form of pleasure that you will not be accustomed to. You will be able to be stimulated to the ‘highest’ point and taught how to pick your sexual energy while holding back the urge to ejaculate.
At the end of each session, our beautiful Goddess will blow your mind away, you will experience a full body pleasure, that you will be able to feel for hours and hours later.
Clearly the site provides only female masseurs (“goddesses”) and the clientele is male (“urge to ejaculate”). I am not exactly sure what the ‘mind blowing’ end of session is all about, but that could be open to interpretation. Clearly, orgasm, or more precisely, male orgasm, is a guaranteed or expected part of the service. They do not provide male masseurs, so this service is clearly for heterosexual males only.
Our Unique Yoni session is very intimate ritual.In tantra,Yoni is the worshipped sacred part of the female body,which must be treated with care and respect. The Yoni massage is a sensuous form of bodywork that can connect receiver to their inner sensual nature resulting in a feeling of satisfaction. The idea is to honor and respect feminine nature of divine Goddess.
Take this session with one of our gorgeous Goddess and your loved one will benefit from it.
Whilst the Yoni Massage on the menu sounded like it was for female clients, it is not, this refers to male client touching of the female masseur – as clarified in the last line. I think it safe to assume there are other ‘extras’ not listed on the menu.
The second Google result would not load, so I went to the third[2]. This site is even more blatant with a Playboy ‘favicon’ (website icon) and photo of the topless woman making the ‘shhhh’ sign in the header. Discrete, again! The page has a pricelist for the services, but focusing on the ‘Sensual Massage’ as probably the default Tantric Massage without extras, the prices are as following:
60 minutes: £120
90 minutes: £170
2 hours: £210
So how do those prices compare to regular massage, that does not involve (male) orgasm? I picked the first London-based (for accurate price comparison) from a directory listing site. The result was this one[3] – I am not linking directly to them in case they freak out that I am inferring that their standard massage services are connected to prostitution. The rates seem the same for whatever massage they are offering:
Deep Tissue Massage £60.00 (1 hour)
Deep Tissue Massage £85.00 (1.5 hours)
Deep Tissue Massage £110.00 (2 hours)
Basically, the Tantric Massage is twice or almost-twice the price of a regular massage. The orgasm factor is double regular massage, that is a nice little profit ‘creamed’ on the top of a regular massage. Sorry for the pun, I still await the supposedly mandatory sense of humour bypass that radfems are supposed to get.
There is a Tantric Masseur that insists that Tantric Massage is not part of the sex industry[4]:
Let me clear a few things up:
During the massage, I remain clothed while my client is unclothed, just like in any other massage.
I touch the client but the client does not touch me, just like in any other massage.
I never have intercourse sex or oral sex with my clients. There is no kissing or anything like that.
Tantric massage is a legitimate form of therapy.
Whilst this particular woman may remain clothed, obviously many others do not. Whilst her clients do not touch her, other Tantric Masseurs do allow that (the “Yoni Massage”). Whilst she may not have PIV or oral sex with her clients, I think it is a given that others do.
Is Tantric Massage a legitimate form of therapy?
It sounds good ‘on paper’, but frankly, unless you are doing ‘sex therapy’ (which in itself is fairly questionable) then why do the massage part at all? Both massage and ‘sex therapy’ are of the body, but the language of Tantric is dressed up in the spiritual (chakras etc) and body/spiritual ‘alignment’ or correction.
Other Spiritual Healers who work with chakras and restoring the balance or correction of the chakras rarely even touch the body. Most techniques involve waving the Healers hand over the particular chakra in a circular motion, or a from-body-to-away linear motion – which either does not touch the body, or only briefly/lightly touches the body. It is after all, meant to be a ‘spiritual’ form of treatment/healing.
Image from, and more about chakras, here[5].
The traditional colours of the chakras are in order of the visible light spectrum (rainbow), and the higher chakras are considered more enlightened. The base or root chakra is only one of the seven, and not by any means the most important. So the whole Tantric thing, that basically focuses just on the one chakra is in itself quite suspect.
Next is the hands off/on rule. There is no Spiritual Healer that would align the base/root chakra by masturbating the penis (or vulva), that is not a method of alignment, that is quite simply, masturbation – a physical act, not a spiritual act. Tantric is nothing more than a sales pitch for upmarket hand jobs. Considering all the other ‘extras’ and variations popularly offered in the Tantric Massage field, variations that are more closely aligned with acts of prostitution than massage or spiritual healing, Tantric has more in common with acts of prostitution than with acts of healing.
“Concerned” women have asked me if I’m “O’kay” and worried that I’m in “danger.”
I’ve been doing this for three years, working out of my home, and never once has a client ever become violent with me or threatened me or anything of that nature. Yes, there have been times when clients have tried to pay me extra for “extras,” and I have just have to explain to them that I don’t do that. But that doesn’t happen very often. I also get prank phone calls from time to time, but what do you expect?
“Yes, there have been times when clients have tried to pay me extra for “extras,” and I have just have to explain to them that I don’t do that.”
Considering that many other Tantric Masseurs offer those extras, then it is not at all surprising.
“I also get prank phone calls from time to time”
From whom? I gather from those (probably males) that assume you are a standard prostitute with the ‘code’ of massage being offered. That is actually the old euphemism for brothel – massage parlour. Someone with a John mentality is automatically going to think that.
“I’ve been doing this for three years, working out of my home, and never once has a client ever become violent with me or threatened me or anything of that nature.”
Good fortune and regular clientele. Plus this is the up-market, lighter end of the prostitution scale. But there must be times where a new client is taken on, one who secretly wants those extras, feels entitled to those extras, and will turn violent when he doesn’t get those extras. It only takes the one to kill you or rape you. If you somehow think that you have superior psychic abilities to predict an abuser/murderer, then read this and this. In excess of 90% of abused women would swear he was a nice guy in the beginning, and it was only after a long time that he ‘changed’. Or the prostituted women that thought the John was ok, but he ended up raping/beating/stealing from her. Or the rape victim who dated/trusted some dude that ended up raping her. Are all these other women completely stupid – what makes you so much smarter or knowledgeable than they are? That is what you are calling all these other women, when you state that you can screen clients. And you work from home, presumably alone, with no panic button. One day, one time. That’s all it takes, and you may not be around to extol the virtues of Tantric Massage.
Radfems are not against, nor do they look down upon the women working in prostitution, but they do worry about these women’s safety. Men turn violent when they don’t get what they want, or don’t get the sex they think they are entitled to.
Tantric Massage is prostitution-lite (at best, and it seems that most of the time it is prostitution-regular with massage). Trying to convince radfems that it is otherwise, or some higher spiritual thing, is a complete waste of time.
This post is a more or less collective response from radfems to the concept of Tantric Massage, and for the continual attacks we have been receiving from “MM”. It is not an attack on you personally, but we will not endorse your delusion that it is not part of prostitution. BTW, posting links to radfem sites on pimp/john sites is abusive, and is the reason your blog was removed from RFR.
* * * * *
[1] tantric-massage-london.co.uk/sensual-tantric-massage.html
[2] hedonistic-massage.co.uk/prices-body-to-body-massage-london
[3] blossomandbliss.co.uk/
[4] planet-mantis.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/tantric-massage-is-not-prostitution.html
[5] everywherealways.wordpress.com/2012/03/15/have-you-checked-your-chakras-lately/
Radfem Groundhog Day 
What’s the difference between ‘tantric massage’ and ‘spiritual healing’ wherein the healer works with client’s chakas? Repeating Radfem Groundhog Day’s excellent article wherein this is stated – ‘
Other Spiritual Healers who work with chakras and restoring the balance or correction of the chakras rarely even touch the body.’ But Tantric Massage is solely about male clients’ sexual body parts because that is what Tantric Massage is all about – catering to men’s sexuality.
Deep Tissue massage work is a method wherein the masseur does not come into contact with genitals of client and this includes male and female clients. Deep Tissue Masseur does not undress for the (male) client’s titillation and neither does the (male) client lie down exposing his totally naked body.
Tantric Massage is as author of this article states – ‘prostitution lite at best’ and at worst is euphemism for prostitution wherein male buyer fools himself he is not purchasing a female body for his personal use/abuse but is supposedly accessing therapy to heighten or restore his sexual feelings of pleasure. Sounds like prostitution to me!
Prostitution Industry was created by men for men’s sexual benefit and remember MM the issue is not about you – it is how men and their male supremacist system justify prostitution by constantly creating new ways of ensuring male sexual access to the female body. Men were never concerned about women’s safety but apparently radical feminists stating we are very much concerned with prostituted women’s safety is twisted around wherein the ludicrous claim is made that we are supposedly holding prostituted women accountable and invisibilising the real perpetrators. Namely men. Likewise we are supposedly blaming women who do undertake Tantric Massage whereas in fact we see through the lies men claim about Tantric Massage and we know men continue to proclaim their innate male right of sexual access to any female – even if the woman is undertaking Tantric Massage.
Tantric Massage is commonly viewed by men who do purchase women involved in prostitution as a euphemism. Men who buy women always expect to have their demands met because these men have paid and that means they are the ones who control/decide what activity takes place – not the female masseur.
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She’s on the Stop Porn site with the same bullshit. Almost word for word of the post at RF that got her tossed out. She’s a troll who wants attention and takes women’s focus and energy away from working against porn and prostitution. She shoud get NO timewhatsoever from any feminist blogger. Forsest, axe, handle.
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Trying to dress up Tantric Massage as primarily a healing thing, is the same as trying to dress up porn as an art film.
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I can’t tell the difference between that ad copy and The Onion anymore. And if I was East Indian, I’d be plenty upset about some middle-class opportunist using my culture in this manner. It’s appropriation, of the basest sort but exactly what the pimps do: call it something ethnic and sprinkle fairy dust on it and look, it’s all mysterious and quasi religious, and you and I just have dirty minds.
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Yes, there does seem to be a lot of appropriation with new-agey stuff.
The fairydust element in the TM scene is using the not-well-known words for genitals, so that it isn’t immediately obvious. But most of the websites, if you read them, you get an idea of what is going on.
I was thinking more on the ‘yoni massage’ by that site, and I am convinced that ‘yoni massage’ is point-blank code for PIV. Dressed up to be therapeutic and educational.
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The post (declaring TM as not prostitution) seems to have been edited since first seen.
After the paragraph (which also seems amended):
The following paragraph has been added:
Which is very bizarre. I could understand an edit to clarify how it is not like prostitution services, but to edit and clarify the connection even more? Basically she is doing all the same services as that first site, with the exception of the “yoni massage” which is assumed to be TM code for PIV.
And “spiritual hand jobs” (a subsequent post), prostate massages.
All sounds fairly standard ‘massage parlour’ stuff to me.
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Oh my word!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2140978/John-Travolta-accused-lurid-sexual-advances-male-massage-therapist-new-lawsuit.html
It is a tad strange that the male masseur was nude? How else could he have had his dick and balls fondled? Reckon it was a TM.
Interestingly:
The masseur is seeking more than $2 million in damages.
So I wonder if we women can sue for two mill’ every time some dude makes unwanted sexual advances?
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