So. The full-body paraffin. Rocks out. Yes, it does.

I got to give and get one on Thursday, and it was quite the experience, let me tell you.

How it works is that you get lubed up with a massive amount of lotion and then MTs dip strips of what kind of look like birthday-streamer decorative paper into paraffin and plaster you with it. Then you get cocooned up in some plastic sheets for about 45 minutes while the hot paraffin begins to cool and solidify. Easy 'nuff.

But damn is it messy. When you set up, you have to cover the floor with plastic sheeting so that the carpet doesn't get caked. And you have to wear gloves in order to apply the paraffin so that it doesn't stick all over your hands. Consequently, as the paraffin begins to dry, it starts falling off the gloves onto the plastic sheeting on the floor. And consequently, the cute overly-hyperbolic gay man in your class will walk all through it and then track it all the way down the hallway so that you have to spend about 20 minutes trying to pick it all out.

The effects of it are quiet awesome though. As it's getting put on you, it actually feels like a burning-smack on certain more sensitive areas of your skin--your back and your stomach mostly. When I got it done on my stomach, it actually made me tickle as well, so I had to keep trying to smother my smiles and giggles.

And you get to wear towels all tucked into your what-whats and who-whos so as to keep you from being exposed--the end result is that you feel like a very large, very grotesque baby with a weird terry-cloth diaper on.

But when it's all done, your skin feels ultra-sensitive, like a feather could brush by you and it'd have the force of a semi. All the way home, I was very aware of the way my clothes felt against my skin--apparently the paraffin shluffs off that top layer of flesh and makes you feel all WHAT WHAT! And at school, I kept wanting to walk around and say, Blow on me. Yeah, do it! just because your skin is THAT hyper-aware. Most definitely a nice luxurious shag would be a good follow-up to this procedure--but, no, we don't provide that option, so don't ask. ; )

* * * * * * * * *

Someone asked me a few months ago if there are ever weird situations in class where folks are taking advantage of all the exposed flesh and professional-fondling, and though I'm sure that does sometimes maliciously happen, for the most part, I think what sometimes feels like that is just a bizarre obliviousness that folks seem to develop as they get further along in these sorts of programs.

The rules we have with regard to personal space and touch in the real world don't seem to apply in the land of massage therapy school, where you're constantly working hands-on with people. So in massage school, there is often a gray area between the a) awkward and slightly-inappropriate and the b) oblivious touchy-feelie hands-on nature of the program, and it is often a difficult area to navigate.

I've found myself uncomfortable in class before, yes. I've had an instructor spontaneously rub my back for a few seconds while I was talking to someone. Last night I had my instructor wrap his arms around me from behind (in the kind of pose you take when you're trying to show someone how to take a golf-swing) in order to position me so that I could palpate the trapezius muscle in the woman I was working with. I've had a fellow-student check up on me and pack in my sheets around my hips way more than appeared to be necessary.

And though I'm fairly certain that every single one of these instances had an absolutely benign intent, nothing more than a caring hand or a helpful gesture, there's always that worm of doubt. That worm is one of suspicion and discomfort, and I hate feeling that way.

It's so very weird and sad that we've really done such a fantastic job of making touch all f-ed up and taboo and confusing in this society, especially if you're a woman. I joke and joke and joke about sex and touch on this blog, and sometimes it's for no other reason than that sex is good and sex is fun and sex is a silly silly thing (*thinking of Barbie and Ken bumping their plastic non-parts together*). But often it's also because the associations with regard to sex and massage (and the power dynamic in massage as well) sometimes make me a wee bit uncomfortable, and because if someone in any given situation is gonna be in charge of sexualizing that touch, I WANT IT TO BE ME. I want to own it.

I often think though that many of the folks going into this field are partially doing so because they are in some very basic ways starved for touch, and with massage they can satisfy this craving in a safe setting. It is sad that we often become this way. I think the reason I crave touch so much as well and fixate on it and ramble about it is because I so desperately want to be able to share that very human connection with other people without feeling a sense of threat or discomfort or suspicion. And, particularly for females, perhaps that is an impossibility. Which is really really sad and unfortunate.

And it's even more sad that it's this big self-propagating mess. You have people starved for touch innocently reaching out to others to feed this need but the others are confused and suspicious of it based on past experiences and react accordingly, just reinforcing the awkwardness and tabooness to both parties and continuing to make them leery of extending it or receiving it. And that's just really goddamn unfortunate.

This suspicion, this confusion of motives, this uncomfortability with what is presumably completely innocent touch also emphasizes to me that every (hu)man is in fact an island, and that we spend so much of our lives trying to form bridges across the waters separating us when perhaps it isn't possible at all. We may technically be a piece of the continent, but miles of water separate us from the next piece of land.

Damn am I inexplicably melancholic today.

*Donning my terry-cloth diaper and waddling around in the hopes of lifting my mood back up again*