On page 196 of my book "Giigle", I tell about my brief encounter with Al Gore. At the time, I remember him as having strong charisma, but not like the Billy Graham kind. Before I recognized who he was, I felt him staring at me uncomfortably across the room. When we were introduced, I declined to give him a massage.
I've listened to the Oregon masseuse's testimony. According to her story, she had quite a battle on her hands. I've given thousands of massages and only had two "incidents". One while I was in massage school working on the public. The man on the table was receiving something other than I was giving. After his demonstration with groans and movement that indicated he was thinking about sex and not relaxation, I said, "this massage is over", left the room immediately and told the front desk to collect payment in full. He complied and promptly left the building, never to return.
The second was in the corporate setting. A man who had previously acted flirtatious booked a massage and during the course of it, he asked me to move my hands to an area that was out of bounds. I declined, told him the massage was over and left the room. Because we worked for the same company and I knew I would see him again, I waited for him outside the door and when he came out I smiled, shook his hand and said "glad that's out of the way." He knew what I meant and though he never booked another massage, we were able to say hi and get past the inappropriate moment without further incident.
I would have handled the Oregon masseuse's dilemma differently. I'm not intimidated by powerful people. But everyone has a different skill set, so if her story is true and I have no way of knowing if it is, she's done the right thing by finally reporting it so hopefully it won't happen again. Massage is a wonderful therapy and hopefully won't suffer from this negative public attention.
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