{"id":2640,"date":"2020-06-12T17:55:46","date_gmt":"2020-06-12T07:55:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.amt.org.au\/?p=2640"},"modified":"2020-06-12T17:55:49","modified_gmt":"2020-06-12T07:55:49","slug":"reclaim-the-parlour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.amt.org.au\/index.php\/2020\/06\/12\/reclaim-the-parlour\/","title":{"rendered":"Reclaim the Parlour"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Rebecca Barnett<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

On July 14 1894, the British Medical Journal published a short piece entitled \u2018Immoral \u201cMassage\u201d Establishments\u2019:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have received communications suggesting that an association should be formed for those who have gone through a proper course of instruction in massage and obtained certificates in proficiency, and asking our assistance in the preparation of a list of good and satisfactory workers. The suggestion is, however, beset with difficulties \u2026<\/em><\/p>

Our impression is that the legitimate massage market is overstocked, and that no woman, unless she has a private connection, has the slightest chance of getting a living by massage alone \u2013 at all events in London.\u201d<\/em><\/p>https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC2404432\/pdf\/brmedj08960-0029.pdf<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC2404432\/pdf\/brmedj08960-0029.pdf<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC2404432\/pdf\/brmedj08960-0029.pdf<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This editorial gem was accompanied by a 15-page pamphlet with the sensational title \u201cAstounding revelations concerning supposed massage houses or pandemoniums of vice, frequented by both sexes, being a complete expose of the ways of professed masseurs and masseuses\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Astounding revelations!<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This delightfully salacious episode came to be known as \u201cThe massage scandals\u201d and it has continued to profoundly influence and shape our industry to this day. It\u2019s like a post-Victorian era hangover that keeps relentlessly pounding away at the temples of our deep-seated anxiety about being associated with the sex industry and our endless quest to find a more \u201cproper\u201d and acceptable way to brand ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve been running from the word massage ever since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A modern pandemonium<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

On March 24 this year, when Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that \u201cmassage parlours\u201d were to shut down, you could hear the roaring existential gale, as the collective soul leaked out from massage therapists around Australia. Inconceivable!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"The<\/a>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Australian therapists weren\u2019t alone. In the US, countless states were issuing similar closure orders for massage parlours. If anything, US massage therapists seemed even more affronted than us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One hundred and twenty six years of massage scandals later and governments around the globe still don\u2019t know how to refer to us. It was painfully clear that we had some serious work to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the days after the PM\u2019s announcement, I wrote literally hundreds of emails and made dozens of calls to various health department officials and advisors, in an effort to establish what was meant by the term \u201cmassage parlour\u201d. Nobody knew. (I will never get those hours or melanin-rich hair follicles back.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The PM clearly wasn\u2019t talking about sex work, though, because that was dealt with separately in the announcement. Jurisdictional health departments were basically guessing when they wrote up the various public health orders in the days that followed. Yep. Soooooo much work to do \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In most states, police enforcement actions showed that the interpretation of \u201cmassage parlour\u201d was broad and encompassing. Therapists working in home-based settings and commercial settings started receiving visits and warnings to shut down. A few were issued with fines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, how did we get into this mess and which 1970s pandemonium of vice was Scott Morrison apparently channeling when he blurted out \u201cmassage parlour\u201d, shortly after he mispronounced \u201cbarre\u201d 17 different ways?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A short history of parlours<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Actually, I am not about to write about the parlours you might think. I am happy to call them by their proper term \u2013 brothel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am interested in the origins of a much more determinedly wholesome, middle class kind of parlour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Ironically, the origins of the term parlour are monastic. The word derives from the old French word parloir or parler meaning \u201cto speak\u201d. It entered the English language in the early 1500s and was used to describe the two rooms in a monastery where clergy, otherwise under vows of silence in the cloister, were allowed to converse. The \u201cinner parlour\u201d was used for conversations between residents in a monastery and the \u201couter parlour\u201d was where you could receive and chat with members of the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 1800s, the concept of the monastic outer parlour was adapted into domestic architecture and became the room at the front of the house where household members greeted visitors. Having a parlour was a sign of social status and wealth. The parlour was (to quote Wikipedia)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cthe room in which the larger world encountered the private sphere of middle class life (the family’s face to the world) \u2026 it was invariably the best room in the home.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(The Merriam Webster history of the word parlour<\/a> is delightfully wry. I warmly encourage you to read it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So why the hell is she blathering on about the history of the term \u201cparlour\u201d, I hear you frustratedly intone<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

After 126 years of massage scandals, it seems pretty apparent that we are doomed to repeat history if we don\u2019t even know or understand it. There\u2019s about 73 different tangents I could explore at this point but I have a deadline and a word limit so I am just going to focus on the most immediately relevant one for now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the weeks after the PM\u2019s massage parlour debacle, AMT started working in earnest on a biosecurity planning process to help massage therapists navigate the new COVID-19 world in their clinics. And the very first thing that the committee undertook was a workforce survey to establish what settings massage therapists work from. Because AMT, along with around 20,000 massage therapists across Australia, self-evidently recognise that there is a better way to describe those settings than \u201cmassage parlour\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It turns out, though, that 50% of massage therapists spend some portion or all of their working lives in a home-based setting. And, according to the latest tranche of work from AMT\u2019s biosecurity planning committee, those settings have some of the lowest risk ratings in relation to practising during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Owning the parlour<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Is it, perhaps, time to reclaim and destigmatise the parlour? Somehow, thinking about massage therapists across the country operating their clinics from the best room at the front or side of their house, the place where the private sphere of middle class life meets the public and all manner of pleasant conversation takes place, doesn\u2019t sound even remotely lewd or immoral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If half of us are working from home-based settings at least some of the time, perhaps the parlour is more central to our identity than we comfortably imagine. And when you add all the mobile therapists doing home visits, that\u2019s an awful lot of massage therapy practice taking place inside the home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Providing care, comfort and a sense of ease is very much central to our professional identity and massage therapists do this from a broad variety of settings. A silly euphemism that stigmatised a wonderfully redolent word can\u2019t take away our power or the public\u2019s enthusiasm for our services. As far as I can ascertain, massage therapists are currently dealing with unprecedented demand for their services since lockdowns have eased. Ten weeks of isolation showed us just how much our clients missed the sense of human connection we can provide, regardless of where we practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Massage Therapy Treatment Setting Risk Snapshots<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

This might all seem like a rather bizarre and tangential way of launching the latest work from AMT\u2019s biosecurity committee but the primary audience of the Massage Therapy treatment setting risk snapshot document is government and we need to give them an informed insight into our workplaces. It is designed to not only inform government about the many settings that massage therapists work from but also the particular risks associated with each of those. There is a profound irony in the fact that the very setting that the government reopened first – the allied health setting – is actually high risk according to AMT\u2019s analysis. And it is supremely ironic that all those home-based clinics are low or moderate risk in comparison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hopefully that\u2019s enough of a spoiler to pique your curiosity and have you reaching for your tea and bikkies while you consume the contents of AMT\u2019s risk snapshots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Massage Therapy Treatment Setting Risk Snapshots<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

About the Author<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Rebecca Barnett reckons you should be incredibly relieved that she didn’t take the Foucault “Birth of the Clinic” tangent cause that would have been way more intense. She also plans to use the phrase “pandemoniums of vice” as liberally as possible henceforth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If there’s massage in the room, it is the best of rooms. Rebecca Barnett ostensibly launches the latest round of work from the AMT Biosecurity Planning Committee, but her ability to simultaneously unpack the etymology, history and sociology of the term “parlour” must be read to be believed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2647,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,110,30,2],"tags":[28,616,614,617,34,607,615],"class_list":["post-2640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-amt","category-clinical-practice","category-massage","category-professional-practice","tag-amt","tag-amt-biosecurity-planning-committee","tag-covid-19","tag-covidsafe","tag-rebecca-barnett","tag-risk-assessment","tag-whs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.amt.org.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Snapshot.jpg?fit=775%2C501&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2394,"url":"https:\/\/blog.amt.org.au\/index.php\/2020\/02\/18\/mythbusting-does-massage-therapy-flush-toxins\/","url_meta":{"origin":2640,"position":0},"title":"Mythbusting: Does Massage Therapy Flush Toxins?","author":"admin","date":"18\/02\/2020","format":false,"excerpt":"This blog, the latest in our mythbusting series, was a long time in the making. 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