Treating male clients please help!

RE: Treating male clients please help!

Hi Kate,

I think you should perhaps listen to your intuition when it comes to treating men (and anyone else). If you feel at all uncomfortable or uneasy, it is best to listen to your inner self and politely decline a treatment.

It might be better even if you could only treat male clients when there is someone else there for example. This may change the way you feel.

But for now, why not just stick to treating female clients if you are more comfortable with them, and when your business and confidence is expanding, perhaps open your client base to accept male customers?

Don't worry though - plenty of people on here feel the same way, so you are not alone! 😉

Love & light,

Crystal xxx

RE: Treating male clients please help!

Not another Male Client thread.Why is treating male clients different from treating female clients? are there no dubious female clients? Kate if men are phoning up asking about sexual services where are you advertising? use a bit of logic.

RE: Treating male clients please help!

Kate if men are phoning up asking about sexual services where are you advertising? use a bit of logic.

I think this is unfair. Most female therapists (and possibly some male therapists) have had some dodgy calls. I advertised for a year only in the Yellow Pages about three years ago, under Complementary Therapies, with my Professional Association letters after my name and listing all my therapies. I always say I do holistic massage, rather than just massage. Now I only advertise on health websites, but still getthe odd strange request. Unfortunately it's an occupational hazard.

Having said that, I've always been comfortable with any male clients I have treated and find that they are often the most regular clients.

Lesley

RE: Treating male clients please help!

Scorpio,

Obviously if Kate feels uncomfortable, why not 'another male client thread'?

It oftenhas nothing to do with whereabouts you advertise; the fact is some men do target complementary/alternative therapists, regardless of the fact of they are not actually offering 'extras'.

I would have thought that as a new member on here, we should be offering Kate support, not patronising her.

Use some logic perhaps Scorpio?[sm=soapbox.gif]

RE: Treating male clients please help!

Well, SCORPIO, I was going to phrasereference to former threadsa little differently ;)and, in welcoming Kate1 to HealthyPages, post a link to a thread on this topic from earlier in the year which she may find useful. Here it is:

[link= http://www.healthypages.net/forum/fb.asp?m=363904 ]http://www.healthypages.net/forum/fb.asp?m=363904[/link]

There is also the 'sticky' on safety for therapists which is pinned to the top of the General Therapies forum, here:

[link= http://www.healthypages.net/forum/fb.asp?m=422530 ]http://www.healthypages.net/forum/fb.asp?m=422530[/link]

Holistic

RE: Treating male clients please help!

Hi Kate
To be honest i advertised on yell.com (surely a logical place to advertise)?for two years under comp therapies and that is where most of my phone calls asking for sexual services came from!!! So you don't have to advertise in the back pages of the newspaper to get dodgy calls!!!
Most of the men i treat now are from referals which makes me feel happier than just cold calling. Just see how it goes and like crystalwitch says stick with females for a while 🙂

Love and sparkles
Lisa
xx

RE: Treating male clients please help!

I would have thought that as a new member on here, we should be offering Kate support, not patronising her.

I think we were all posting at once here, and still are :Dbut hopefully my postabove redresses the balance.

Holistic

RE: Treating male clients please help!

Yep as this is the place to come for support!!!!!

Good luck to you Kate xxx

RE: Treating male clients please help!

Apologies if my comment was overly direct and yes support should always be available im shocked that people are trawling through yell.com, that is low and ruins it for genuine male clients.I have massages as part of my training routine and have encountered predjudice against males but i figure its only a minority,like most things in life there is always a minority who will ruin it for everyone else.Best wishes to you Kate.

RE: Treating male clients please help!

Hiyas Kate, welcome to HP. It's a fun place here.

Scorpio, over the last 19 years, I've had jobs in all sorts of places/enviroments, in virtually all walks of life/career paths, there is always the small minority of NUTCASES who ruin it for the rest of society (in that context, place/enviment/work/gender).

RE: Treating male clients please help!

Hello Kate

You have to be comfortable with the people you treat or the treatments will suffer, if you are not confident in your own ability to handle a male then simply do not treat them, or you could see if there is a room to hire at a local therapy centre where there will be others around and treat any new clients there for a while.

Unfortunately most therapies are a one to one experience, yes we all get an occasional person who we would probably not treat again for one reason or another, most people can be assessed on the phone, there are a few topics on this subject, at the end of the day you have to decide what is right for you, as in all businesses you offer to do a service for x-amount of money or whatever, you can withdraw the offer if you no longer wish to carry on and perform the service 🙂

RE: Treating male clients please help!

Itotally agree with what Paul has said, if you're not comfortable with someone, for whatever reason, the treatment will suffer.

Another idea is offer female only type treatments - I do a lot of pregnancy massage and the only males I've had enquiring about that have been for gift certificates, I've not had a single male want to book in for a pregnancy massage :DWhen people ring up and ask what kind of massage do I do, I always say 'pregnancy massage' second or third, itgets rid of people looking for extras pretty quickly, though I've had 2 males over the years ask if I am pregnant. One drawback, or advantage, to pregnancy massage is you only see someone for a few months - I quite like having a fairly high turn over of clients, and I do continue to see some once they have had the baby.

RE: Treating male clients please help!

hi kate,
welcome to the site .
Im sorry to say there are some sad people out there who have to upset us by these calls, i myself have had few calls but try to not let you put you off. My hubby wanted me to stop doing male clients but no why should i men do need a massage just as much as woman!!
The men i do have as clients are very nice people and have never asked for extras. they just want a massage because they are stressed or back pain.
If you have a website just put a policy then hopefully you wont get any more calls.
good luck kathy

RE: Treating male clients please help!

Hi all

Thank you for all your support, it is good to know that their are other therapists who have had the same problem. When it comes to advertising I have learnt a lotgoing along,I started outby advertising in my local paper which was when a lot of thehorrible phone calls happened, so I changed the wording which stopped most of the ungenuine callers , but I wouldstill like to find a way of attractingwomenbecause they have been few and far between ,I wonder whether they do not ring because they think I offer something dodgy?, but do not get me wrong I have nothing aganist treatingmen, but I do find myself feeling anxious whena male client comes to my house for the first time.

Kate