DrCrey's Personal Masseur Interview

Last Updated: May 07, 2022

- I have had a lengthy educational background and worked in many fields. It's been an interesting trip, for sure. I have postdoctoral training, and experience working inpatient and outpatient centers seeing patients/clients, as a pharmaceutical executive for over a decade, teaching pharnaceutical marketing at a premiere Business School. But the fun didn't stop there as I have also worked in adult entertainment, stripping telegrams, managing a lounge in Hells Kitchen NYC, have had an animal rescue and an acre organic garden with 101 species of plants grown from seed.

But perhaps the best job I ever had is being a superhero. I promote random anonymous acts of kindness from behind a mask and encourage others to do the same. I had a charity company in SF, Crey Kray, based on this idea, and we raised money for HIV/AIDS and animals: POZ and PAWS we called it. I have been exploring bringing this concept to Louisville in a weekend workshop at a local healing and wellness center: SUPERHERO THERAPY where clients can detail their ideal superhero self, the values and special powers they would hold, and design and create a custome to promote the concept while allowing wearer to remain anonymous.

- I would say Yes Yes Absolutely Yes go for it! I would recommend that they get formal training from a certified massage school, however. There are so many good practices and skills to learn that make the work safer from accidentally injuring your client, and without the experience of a well-seasoned trained instructor, unnecessary accidents will likely happen. And there is not a worse feeling in the world than hearing from someone who came to you for help that you injured them or made their pain worse.

There are so many things that are not intuitive about this practice. For example, almost 2 decades before I trained at a Massage School I received weekly massage in my apartment, and I thought I was really good about repeating the experience for friends. When I went to school, everything I thought was happening with my masseur was incorrect. And how would I know as I never saw his hands on my back or legs, only felt them?!

Before school, I used to wear myself out with strength, pushing and kneading into someone. After school, I never wear out! I learned that instead of muscle strength, I pick a focal spot, ground myself, and shift my center of gravity over it. Better, safer!

- My first "client" was someone with AIDS in Cincinnati in 1990. My boyfriend has just passed away, and I was still HIV negative. A grief counselor told me about the local Healing Circle based on touch and massage as a way to bolster the immune system and ease the isolation and stigma of having AIDS, a disease for which many people in our society at the time had zero compassion.

The only catch was that to be at the Healing Circle you had to be HIV+. I wanted to go so badly I just let everyone presume I was HIV+ as well. I didn't let on any different, and rumors began to fly that I was also an AIDS patient, of which I would neither confirm nor deny.

The first day I went, I was terrified that I would get HIV or worse, that that fear would show on my face and give me away. But that tension went away when we started by holding hands in a circle, then we embraced. You have to remember this is 7 years before antiretrovirals and the men in this room had all been given a death sentence. And not only that, until this Circle, many of them had only felt the touch of another through a latex glove. So when we embraced, WE EMBRACED. And then massaged one another for an hour. It changed my life.

- Before a first visit with a client, I spend time on the phone or in text to assess their intent and goal for a session. And upon meeting, before any physical touch, I take time to do a full history of their experience with massage, what they like and what they don't like, injury and surgical history, current areas of pain, and a posture and body scan to look for areas that may be a source of discomfort. Finally, I invite clients to share with me specifically how THEY would like to feel at the end of the session.

Some people want to feel RELAXED, others want to ENERGIZED. Other answers I hear often are CLEAR-HEADED, PAIN-FREE, CALM, FREE FROM ANXIETY, LOVED, CARED FOR, HEALTHY. Whatever the answer, that is the mantra that we begin and end the session with, and in between I decide which techniques and tools to use to help bring about the clients goal state while also working on immune bolstering and pain relief.

I do not decide for clients how they should feel because I ALWAYS ask. And I focus the time to bring about that state by the time they leave.

- I believe everyone brings a unique experience. I have met a number of masseurs and rentmen who I admire for their overall uniqueness and diversity. Oscar Wilde famously penned "There is no accounting for taste," commenting on the tendency for each person to have as many unique qualities that make them attractive as they have qualities that they are attracted to.

That being said, I am rather a free spirit and have embraced a lifestlyle that has provided me with the flexibility to move locations easily, and I have enrolled in formal education for 15 years since high school, across 7 states. I am experienced In multiple disciplinary settings including emergency rooms, trauma surgery, inpatient and outpatient settings in neurology, psychiatry, pediatrics, gerontology, psychology, and neuropsychology, holding a license for more than 20 years to practice in health care. I have also worked in big pharma as an executive for 15 years, acquiring knowledge of specific disease areas. And I have training from the SF School of Massage. I am not afraid of but drawn to clients with specific or general health care needs and am using this medium to bring a more intimate approach to healing.

- There are some facets to this question that really call for clarification, such as what defines success and the type of training. For me, success means that I am able to accomplish the goal of reaching and helping clients in need, gay men who may be overwhelmed with stresses of life or health, who may not have optimal access to human touch or may not have a partner to express to them that they are loved and validated on a regular basis.

And for me to do that, I rely substantially on my training and experience. However, I believe that someone without any training at all may be able to provide as good as an experience if not better, depending on the needs of the client and the skill sets they possess and experience under their belt. I am not as skilled with tantric forms of massage and often refer clients to other masseurs if that is a specific or required part of the experience requested.

That being said, I do believe formal training in Swedish or deep tissue provides a qualitative difference and also brings awareness of procedures that may cause harm if not performed skillfully. This is the reason that many states require licensure for massage therapy.

- Well in the same sense that breathing is addictive, human touch is also "addictive" or essential. The early years of HIV/AIDS, researchers were incredibly interested in the immune system and how human touch was involved in healing. In the 80s and early 90s, many people including gay men, were terrified to touch anyone who was known to be infected, including their companions. It is why one of the most historic moments of Princess Diana's life was when, on international television, she held a baby that was HIV+. That moment broke the touch barrier, so to speak, for HIV patients.

During that time, I became involved with Healing Circles in the Tristate area (KY-OH-IN). Those meetings were simply for men who were HIV-positive to receive touch from other people in the form of massage, caressing, hugging and holding with intent. What we found at that time is that the lack of human touch compromised the immune system horribly, and some estimated that lack of touch was responsible for many HIV-related deaths.

Whatever the health benefit, I knew then that I wanted to be involved with touching and holding others, especially those who need it most. I cannot imagine I will ever stop.