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Massage Therapy School

for Male Massage Therapists


Massage therapy school is where it all begins. After seeing all the massage school ads promising you that you’ll make $40…… $50…… up to $60 per hour, you decided to take the plunge and enroll. The $5,000-$10,000 for school tuition seems paltry compared to the potential for income you'll have after you graduate. Besides, you say, it will be a quality education.

Some massage therapy schools are great. Others are fair. And a few shouldn’t even be accredited. All were probably started with the best of intentions. Most of the better ones probably focus on techniques and academic education pertaining to the human body. A few take things a bit further , and might include a good course of study in business practices.

Unfortunately, there are only a very few of the massage schools out there that address the issues of being a man in a female-dominated industry. Only the fewest schools will approach how difficult it is for a male massage therapist to compete for massage therapy jobs or clients against female therapists. And even if those few schools do, I’ve not heard of one school that offers solutions for male therapists to effectively out-compete their female massage therapist counterparts. And why should they? Females massage therapy students outnumber male students 5-to-1.

I’ve heard of a number of massage schools who have taught effective safety plans for what to do if a male client attempts to solicit or coerce a sexual service from a female therapist, yet I’ve never heard of a massage school teaching an equally effective plan for a male massage therapist to file a sexual discrimination lawsuit when denied employment based on his gender.



Likewise, massage therapy schools don’t teach much about making therapeutic relationships. And of the ones that do, the therapeutic relationship is often taught based on a female paradigm. Male massage therapists need to be taught about making therapeutic relationships based on the unique qualities of a male paradigm. Client-provider relationships are crucial for the benefit of the client’s outcome. Such a relationship formed by a male therapist can miss the mark if he's not been taught to properly address the unique characteristics which a male therapist brings to the table.

Massage therapy schools teach a massage therapy student what he or she needs to know about how to do massage. Where they often miss the mark is on how to teach the male massage student what he really needs to know to be a prosperous male massage therapist.


Have A Great Story About Your Massage Therapy School?

Do you have a great story about your massage therapy school? Or any bad incidents particular to being a male that you'd like to share?

Any great instructors who mentored your male insecurities?

Did your massage school give you the unique tools to compete as a male massage therapist once you graduated?

If so, let us all know the name of the school!

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What Other Visitors Have Said

Click below to see contributions from other visitors to this page...

Policy of allowing clients of the student clinic to select the gender  starstarstarstarstar
I am the program director for the The School of Massage Therapy at SOLEX Medical Academy in Wheeling Illinois. When I first took over the program, the ...

What are some good massage schools in Montreal?  starstarstarstarstar
Hi. I've tried researching massage therapy schools in Montreal, but have had limited luck.

Would it be better to train in Toronto?

Thanks to anyone ...

Hans Albert Quistorff, LMP's Massage School Story  starstarstarstarstar
We had a better than average mix 4 of 15 male and about an equal mix of male and female instructors.
Myself and the shipwright were making a career change ...

The Problem with Female Massage Instructors  starstarstarstarstar
The Massage School I attended had two female instructors for the Massage Therapy part of the program. Because of this, I received no "real world" stories ...

It is a little different for me   starstarstarstar
I am going to school right now and the instructors are all male. The other female students all seem to want me as a practice partner for some reason. I ...

My First School Year  Not rated yet



My school was a 2/14 mix male/females.

On all practical aspects, the females paired off, always leaving us 2 men together. I put ...

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