When you look around on the Internet at the hands-on treatment offerings of Tantra practitioners you may notice that some offer Tantric Bodywork services and others Tantra Massage. So, what’s the difference and what exactly is the deal here?
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First of all, massage is classified as a type of bodywork, which makes Tantra Massage a type of Tantric Bodywork. That said, it means that a Tantra masseur offers Tantric Bodywork. By contrast, a practitioner or therapist who offers Tantric Bodywork doesn’t necessarily offers Tantric Massage treatments.
In fact, Tantric Bodywork includes a very broad field of Tantric practices, which may involve modalities such as Tantric Breathwork, Tantric Yoga, Tantric Bathing, Tantric Eye-Gazing, Chakra Healing, Tantric De-Armoring, a variety of additional somatic practices within the Tantric Sex realm, and indeed — also Tantric Massage.
Some Tantric Bodywork practitioners don’t mention that they offer Tantra Massage, but actually do. A possible reason to this is that — depending on the country or state they work in — the label “massage” or “masseur” may be legally protected. That is, only licensed massage therapists, which are individuals who have taken an officially accredited massage therapy college program (usually consisting of only mainstream massage modalities), have the legal right to call themselves “masseurs” or mention that they give “massage.”
In general, it’s an exception that a Tantra Massage practitioner is also a Licensed Massage Therapist, hence in the situation in which “masseur” is a protected professional title they will rather say that they offer Tantric Bodywork. It means that you will need to “read between the lines” to discern if they also offer Tantra Massage.
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Then again, some Tantra practitioners offer a variety of Tantric Bodywork treatments but not Tantric Massage (or Tantric Yoni Massage, Tantric Lingam Massage, and so on), so then it’s obvious they won’t mention it. Nevertheless, they will typically clarify the types of treatments they actually offer.
Others may offer Tantric Massage, but don’t explicitly state it like that. This may be the case when their Tantric Massage sessions are fairly elaborate, for instance likewise including a range of Tantric ceremonies and rituals, Tantric Breathwork, Tantric Coaching, and/or Tantric Meditation, and so on. In this situation some practitioners rather choose to say they offer Tantric Bodywork instead of Tantric Massage.
Another reason may be that the Tantric practitioner wants to explicitly avoid any connotations with a Happy Ending Massage treatment, an idea that’s quite persistent when it comes to Tantric Massage offerings. Hence, the practitioner or therapist will rather say that they offer Tantric Bodywork.
At any rate, it’s always good to meticulously check what exactly is offered because each Tantric bodyworker offers different things in different ways depending on their training, background, and lineage. In addition, even when it comes to explicitly mentioning that they offer Tantra Massage you should keep in mind that their are various types of Tantric massages. If you want to know more about those, you may check out our article Tantra Massage | Type, Styles, and Lineages.
