By David Lauterstein
The Client List is a new show with Jennifer Love Hewitt working at a spa where massage and sexual favors are confused.
We at Lauterstein-Conway Massage School want to go on record as deploring this show – along with the national organizations the American Massage Therapy Association and the Associated Bodywork and Massage Professionals.
1. It is with great disappointment that we see this show depicting massage, which has worked incredibly well to distance itself from sexual services, as linked to sex.
This is an enormous step backward for us. It may well re-encourage the negative associations and prejudices people have had. It may encourage clients to more often confuse sex and massage – putting therapists in jeopardy from renewed inappropriate client expectations.
2. This show is denigrating women in general. Women have – along with massage therapists – worked hard to establish equality with men – only to have show after show, especially on Lifetime, concentrate on women as victims or as seductresses.
In The Client List – there are no winners. Women are demeaned. The reputations of massage and massage therapists suffer. Prospective clients of legitimate therapists may be more reluctant to trust the profession. Actual clients may be stigmatized with greater social unclarity regarding what we do.
We at Lauterstein-Conway recommend you join in the national protest against this show that takes a big step backward for women, massage, and healthcare in general. Shame on Lifetime!
Here are sites with petitions and more information.