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Massage Profession Protests The Client List
A television series that depicts a day spa's therapists working as prostitutes in their massage session rooms is scheduled to debut on Lifetime in April—and massage therapists have initiated a protest in response.
"The Client List" is about a housewife deserted by her husband who takes a job "at a seemingly traditional day spa in a neighboring town," according to Lifetime's website for the show, but finds that "other services" are also offered by the spa's therapists. "The series will follow Riley as she delicately balances a moral conflict between two starkly different lives," the website states, "one as a single mother in a conservative town struggling to provide for her family and the other as a savvy and ambitious businesswoman working with a raucous, sexy and unpredictable group of women."
In a promotional video for the program, star Jennifer Love Hewitt is shown surrounded by men wearing towels around their waists and then dropping their towels; later Love Hewitt says in describing the series, "hot girls in lingerie is always a good starter [and] the men
The promo also shows Love Hewitt standing next to a massage table wearing a white blouse unbuttoned in front to reveal her black bra.
The American Massage Therapy Association recently posted a statement to its website reading in part, "AMTA sent a communication to the President and CEO of the A&E Network, copying other executives for the company that owns Lifetime, about the implications for massage therapists and the profession. The association will be monitoring their response and will consider other action to emphasize the importance of respecting the professionalism of massage therapists."
Social networking company Wellx has launched a petition protesting the series, titled "Clip the Client List! Stop the degradation of professional massage therapists," posted to the petition site (www.thepetitionsite.com).
Watch the promotional video for the show here.
Click here to read and sign the petition.
Lifetime's phone numbers are (310) 556-7500 (Los Angeles, California); (312) 464-1991 (Chicago, Illinois); and (212) 424-7000 (New York, New York).
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Comments
Location: Las Vegas
Give Hollywood a chance to degrade humanity especially women and they will. They do not care whether something is controversial unless it undercuts their bottom dollar. Unfortunately people believe what they see on tv and if that was not true millions of dollars would not be spent on advertisement. The influence of such shows is a set back to people like us trying to make a respectable, honest living healing people and caring about others. You ever notice that most the shows with stereotypes are geared towards degrading women and keeping them down. I work VERY hard to let people know where that line is and shows like this just ruin all that hard work. Instead of allowing this type of garbage to continue its times we all rise up and fight it and let the networks know we are not playing around. I am tired of feeling like I am swimming upstream trying to get the appropriate point across as to what type of work I and many other wonderful massage therapists do. Shows like this just go ahead and shove us back down. NO MORE!
Location: McCoy
Are you kidding me! I am so mad after finding out about the show just yesterday. Why do I pay fee's to AMTA, NCBTMB and The Nevada State Board, which by the way had no comment when I called them.I have been propositioned for sexual acts due to the nature of this show.(The Client List) Further more I have had to decline prospective clients who are not referrals by my existing client base due to the fear of assault. This is hurting me financially as well as emotionally. These people who watch this show are delusional, they actually don't think a "happy ending" is prostitution! And reading JLH response neither does she.
Location: DC
I would like to call attention to the zoning laws in washington dc. In DC an individual massage therapist may not receive a certificate of occupancy to do business in a mixed use residential area. The zoning permit fee's and business permit fee's are 10X that of other businesses. There is over- regulation to a degree that it is impossible to be non-compliant. Oh- and its illegal to perform cross gender massage- all of this in a city where a licensed massage therapist has never been brought before the board for prostitution. All this to say, if you are going to be mad and indignant, lets try to educate the policy makers. This makes me mad- because this is a public policy that treats me like a prostitute. Perhaps this show could be a jumping off point- to show that this is a popular belief/ fantasy about massage- but the reality is very different.