Safe, Sane, and Consensual…MASSAGE?

When your massage therapist suggests you use a safe word with him, you get the feeling the massage will be pretty intense!

That’s what happened to me tonight. I went for a long overdue massage and had a new guy this time – at least he was new to me. So of course we talked about what I liked, where my problem areas are, etc. beforehand.

When he learned I like the Firm Swedish massage and that I ask for male masseuses because they are typically stronger and can apply more pressure he suggested that I pick a ‘safe word’ in case he was too hard on me. We settled on simply using the word ‘stop’ and he also said he would probably be able to tell by the way I was breathing and also if I tensed up.

It’s funny, though. I read a lot of BDSM romances and learned about something called ‘subspace’ where the submissive enters a state where they are kind of floating, aware but feel somewhat outside of themselves. I get that way during a good massage. If a massage therapist is doing a good job, that is.

The first time I had a professional massage a few years back, I was a little nervous. I had heard that they are very careful of keeping the private areas of your body covered with the sheet at all times, but was still a little worried that an accident might happen and I’d end up all shy , embarrassed and tense from it.

I needn’t have worried. Not only are they really good at keeping you covered, but about 15 minutes into that massage I entered that relaxed euphoria and realized that I didn’t give a flying leap if he wanted to yank the covers completely off of me. Seriously. At that point, I felt so damn good I didn’t care what he did to me as long as those magic hands kept doing their job.

The next day when I thought about that feeling, I thought that must be what ‘subspace’ feels like, or at least a little close to it.

Tonight when my masseur assured me he would be able to tell if I was OK by paying attention to my breathing and body tension, I once again thought how similar this activity is to the BDSM relationships I’ve read about. A good Dom, as I understand it, must be totally aware of his sub’s state, using the same sort of signals to tell what state of mind the sub is in.

At least that’s how I imagine it must be… I might be reading too many novels, though! LOL