The Uncensored Massage Book
Massage & Sex in Southeast Asia and Elsewhere
by P. C. Anders
Copyright 2011 P.C. Anders
Published by Invisible Man Books on Smashwords
All rights reserved by the publisher and the author. No part of this book may be copied or reproduced in anyway except for brief quotations for review purposes without written permission from the publisher, who may be contacted at invisiblemanbooks@gmail.com.
P. C. Anders is the pseudonym of the author, who has published 8 other books under a different name. His other books have consistently been praised by reviewers for their “courage,” “integrity,” “honesty,” and humor.
Please note that five or six chapters, or around one-fourth of this book, previously published under the title “Fool Bawdy Massage,”—and specifically “The Thai Sandwich Massage”, “The Master Who Became a Slave,” “Behind the No Hanky-Panky Door: Massaging Your Baby in Vietnam,” and “East Java and the Padlocking of Women’s Private Parts”--contain descriptions of sexual acts and words that may not be suitable for persons under the age of 16, or for persons who are allergic to the use of common and colloquial terms for parts of the body. The language and reporting are consistent with the author’s belief that the truth is paramount, and that “indecency” is in the mind of the beholder.
Table of Contents
PART I: FROM MASSAGE TO SEX, FROM LOVE TO PEACE
Masseuses: Goddesses and Associate Wives?
PART II: WESTERN MASSAGE FROM NUDE TO BLANKETED
Wholesome and Holistic Massages in America: 1986-1996
The Wall Street Tantric Massage & The Nude Finnish Pussycat
PART III: ORIENTAL MASSAGE: THAILAND
Thailand: The Breast Connection
Will She Willy? The Happy Ending Conundrum
Thai Massage Variations: Joint Shower, Sleeping on Chest, Play With Hair, etc.
PART IV: MASSAGE IN INDONESIA, CHINA, AND VIETNAM
Indonesian Massage: Triple Massage and the Massage-free Massage
East Java and the Padlocking of Women’s Private Parts
Behind the No Hanky-Panky Door: Massaging Your Baby in Vietnam
Wacky Asian Massages in China and Elsewhere
PART V: THINK TWICE ABOUT SHAKING HANDS: MASSAGE INDIAN STYLE
The Handshake: or, The Milking of the Indian Male
Gents Fingers: A Dissection of Indian Massage
Male to Male: Indian Undercover Reports
Indian Massage: Female to Male, Dogs and Cats
PART VI: SKIN DEEP PHILOSOPHICAL EXPLORATIONS
How a Masseuse May Save Your Life
The Guantanamoing of Penises and Nipples
The Zen of Balls and Masculine Maintenance
In Praise of Pretended Anatomical Ignorance
PART VII: MASSAGE ISSUES, RANDOM NOTES, AND ADVICE
Random Notes on the Massage Universe
Summing Up: Why Massage is Booming
Appendix I: A Random Consumer Guide for Men
Appendix II: The Al Gore Affair and the Dilemma of the “Ideal” Western Male
Though this book narrates true stories, the names of places and persons have been fictionalized to protect people’s identities.
I write as a world citizen who is beyond racial and national categories, and as a non-partisan member of the human race. My concerns are humanistic, and not to criticize any particular country or culture, but rather to be loyal only to literature, to humanity, and to my readers.
Also, this book assumes a male consumer’s viewpoint, because the male viewpoint is the only viewpoint I am qualified to take. A similar book by a woman author and from a woman’s viewpoint is equally necessary and I would support such a book with all my heart. Also, I use the word “masseuse” to describe all women engaged in giving massages for a living, whether or not they are formally trained or certified.
And finally, I am an admirer of the wordplay and tongue-in-cheek humor of Vladimir Nabokov and Philip Roth, and the unsparing honesty of writers such as Henry Miller; excessively literal, politically correct, or conservative persons may not fully understand or appreciate this book.
In any of a dozen cities and pleasure zones of Pleasurelandia, which is a region more than a country, you have just to walk down the street, practically any street of any town or city, sometimes just walk outside your hotel or stroll on the beach, and sooner rather than later, you will find yourself having variations of the following conversation:
Want massage, Sir?
No
Bawdy massage.
No!
Hole Bawdy Massage
No!!!
Good for you, Sir. Make happy.
No. [Hey, life is short. No point wasting your exclamation marks.]
Fool Bawdy Massage, Sir. Fool Bawdy.
Massage everything? [At this point, curiosity, resignation, amusement, and playfulness have overtaken, melted, or atomized your initial feelings of suspicion, cynicism, and irritation.]
Yes, everything, Sir!
Include what? [You want to be really sure there’s no catch. Besides, you’re the sort who likes to know the score.]
Include Fool Bawdy. But not include ping pong [the male tool].
How about pong?
Ok, pong, he responds — pong being the Cambodian word for egg, and also being half the word for balls.
Two pongs, ok?
Ok, two pongs. But Ping pong extra.
Not interested. I was just joking, my friend! Ha ha! You want to make my ping pong go ding dong, eh?!
Ha ha ha, Sir.
Ha ha ha to you, my friend.
[After a pause, he recovers his poise and coolly asks:] You want Bawdy to Bawdy Massage, Sir?
Really?
Bawdy to Bawdy, Sir.
Really? Wow!
Yes Sir. Lady take off everything. Nakkid Nakkid, Sir. And massage you with hole bawdy. On your hole bawdy.
Really?
Velly velly good, Sir.
And ping pong?
Ping pong massage, Sir, afterwards.
Include?
Not include, Sir. Extra. Fool Bawdy include massage with mew. With milk. But not take out your water.
My water?
Yes, your ping pong water.
My water take out extra?
Yes, sir.
Ok, how much for everything, dammit?
1000 baht, Sir. Make happy happy, Sir. Make ping pong happy, Sir. Sleep velly good. Yes, velly good!
Happy happy, eh? How about happy happy happy? Would that be 500 baht more than just happy happy?
Yes, sir. Too happy. Happy maak maak.
Include boom boom?
No, Sir. Boom Boom 1000 baht extra.
Why extra? [Of course you know why. You’re just being perverse, you’re just having fun at his expense.]
You want massage boom boom? With beautiful lady, Sir. Have movie star.
Hmmm, movie star. Let me guess. Is her first name Angelina, by any chance?
No Sir. Angel.
Oh. And has this Angel starred in any movies that I may have seen?
Don’t know, Sir. Maybe . . . if you have seen Thai Angels XXX No.23.
[Thai Angels! Movie Star! Even a hardened man’s resistance has begun to melt.] How much?
1000 baht for beautiful lady. 2000 baht for sexy lady. 3000 baht for karaoke singer. 4000 baht for movie star. In loom 1000 extra. But no bawdy to bawdy.
Why?
Because bawdy to bawdy lady not same same lady [as] massage boom boom lady. Also extra for karaoke.
Karaoke? What made you think, all of a sudden, that I was looking for a musical evening?
Karaoke, Sir. Lady smoke your banana, Sir! Make kala-okay with your banana, Sir. Velly good. Velly healthy, Sir. Sleep velly good.
Oh, I see. And I thank you from the bottom of the heart for being so concerned about my sleep. But let me get this straight: Smoking-hot lady sing karaoke with and smoke my banana, but no light it on fire, right?
Ha ha, yes sir. No worry, Sir, she no barbecue your banana, Sir, no light your fucking ass on fire . . . Sir!
So Karaoke include? (By now, you have picked up a bit of the local “English,” or Thinglish, Minglish, or Singlish, in which there are no tenses except the present, and every verb is spoken in the present tense, usually in a subject verb object format, but often dropping the unnecessary part of speech. The Golden Rule being: Never use three words when two will do.)
Ha ha, sir. No, Sir. 500 extra for karaoke.
Ok, forget all that. I was just joking. How much for a simple massage? Massage no boom boom.
Solly, sir. Massage no boom boom no have. You want massage no boom boom, you go beauty salon. Closed now, open tomollow molning.
At this point you are likely to be so frustrated that you throw your hands in the air and say, “Okay, just give me everything. And take all my money! And take me too! My cherry is still intact.”
Because at this moment, your wheels or your chakras are spinning, and that is the worst moment for someone to switch off the power. Because while you may have thought you were playing him, the fact is that he was playing you all along, he has come across a hundred wise guys like you, and there is a 50-50 chance that you will at this point crumble and take whatever is on offer. Because he has subtly sold himself, even if you thought at first you were going to have some fun at that poor local joker’s expense. Your mojo wheels are spinning, and now they must either be taken care of, or you won’t be able to sleep — or worse, may have to check into the local nuthouse, and you can’t let yourself down like that. It’s like being in a swank and cavernous but windowless New Delhi restaurant on a summer afternoon when suddenly, there is a power failure, and the air-conditioner stops, and the lights go off.
Many of us will have surrendered at some halfway point in the above dialogue, if not earlier, and be stretched out on a massage table or on a bed, having the wildest time of our lives, sensuality spiced with laughter and total insanity, a scenario we couldn’t even have begun to dream of in our home countries. Because once our sexual arousal has proceeded beyond the point of containment by logic and past experience, we are like lambs led to the slaughter. Helpless and pitiful. At this point, only the physical intervention of Superman can save our souls.
Besides, some of us are here precisely because of this insatiable desire for touch, for laughter, for closeness and intimacy (whether or not we admit it to ourselves), of which the world, especially the Western world, has not enough — for even George W. Bush, had he had his pathetic ping pong massaged by a lovely Thai ping pong specialist twice weekly, might never have invaded Iraq.
On the other hand, who is to say that he wouldn’t, in such a case, have invaded Pleasurelandia and transformed it into Texas — or even worse, into a gigantic post-2003 Baghdad?
Ultra Short Glossary for the Otherly but not Udderly Advantaged
Ping pong: penis.
Boom Boom: sex.
Pong: egg or ball/balls, in this piece used with creative license to specifically refer to the quasi-spherical male endowments suspended below the male member.
Banana: Penis
Karaoke: fellatio
Fool Bawdy: Full Body
Bawdy to Bawdy: When a woman massages your entire naked body with her entire naked body, usually oiled or soaped.
Mew: Milk, also meaning “breast” — the word for milk and breast is identical in many Southeast Asian languages. “Big Mew” means “Big Breasts.” And “massage with mew” means a massage using the breasts.
Milk: Woman’s breast, unless you happen to be in a restaurant; where, if you don’t happen to have an infant that you are taking care of, and if you were to order milk, they would most likely burst out laughing.
Water: Joy juice, semen (which could include semen from a seaman).
Part I: From Massage to Sex, Love, and Peace
I am no saint, and long ago gave up any illusions that I would ever become one, after having failed miserably at it in my childhood years; nor am I or ever will be a spectacular sinner like Dubya Bush, Dick Cheney, Mick Jagger, or Genghis Khan. I am what I am — and I just try to be as honest as I can be most of the time.
So, despite my knee-jerk tendency to be defensive and moralistic at times, a habit arising from having lived so long in a hypocritical society and having internalized its Inquisitors and Tormentors, having had them burned into my internal hard drive, I was never as straight as I thought I was, or pretended to be. Maybe it was God’s plan for me that I should be a sinner so that the Pure and the Virtuous may have someone to feel superior to.
Still, for nearly fourteen years, beginning in America around 1986, I fooled myself into believing that massage and sex existed in separate, watertight compartments: I received my massage on massage tables from professionals, and I received my sex at home in bed from my beautiful and talented wife (well, a few times on the sofa or on a rug too, but never on the kitchen table). With rare exceptions, I responded scornfully and disapprovingly whenever someone tried to offer me massage and sex together in various creative, “combo” packages. (Except for one hilarious accident, it was relatively easy not to get confused. If the massage cost significantly more than forty-five to sixty dollars an hour, or if the advertisement used overly suggestive language or had illustrations of panting, semi-undressed women with a few loose buttons and parted lips, it was probably going to be something other than.) Though I was as horny as ever, I didn’t need to burden myself with unnecessary guilt, considering that I had, on the whole, a good marriage.
Still, excluding half a dozen mainly accidental episodes, my 1500 massages up until 1999 were all 100 percent “legitimate”, though a handful of these masseuses rather sensibly didn’t bother with towels. But around the turn of the millennium, things began to change when something happened in my life.
It was more than that I ceased to have an official wife. It was that my whole life started to fall apart, and from that point on, finding the company and touch of women to be deeply therapeutic to body and soul, in whatever form it was offered (and sometimes given without asking), I found myself quickly surrendering my hauteur and morally righteous disdain for sensual or ecstatic massage. When, for example, a masseuse’s hands strayed under the towel to give a gentle touch to the bulb or head of my penis each time she made a downward movement over my thigh, and did this for twenty repeated strokes, I accepted it as an act of comfort, as a deep handshake between our souls. It still didn’t happen too often, but I slowly realized that my religious and fanatic insistence on Pure Unadulterated Massage was partial bullshit. For the spirit wants what it wants, or needs (and sometimes the spirit wants just spirits, and massage is beyond the thoughts of a man whose insides are drenched with distilled spirits). Therefore, no absolutist and Big-Brotherly moral code of one section of society should Nazi-boot out one of the most salubrious and life-giving — and sometimes, life-saving — pleasures in other people’s lives.
What a slow learner I was, for it took me twenty years of being massaged by about possibly 500 different masseuses young and old, a total of 2,000 times, before I realized that massage and boom boom were simply two points in a continuum, just as much as eating and boom boom, or politics and boom boom, or money and boom boom are. Boom boom (as the charming natives of Cambodia and some of their neighbors so delightfully and merrily term sex, pronouncing it halfway between boom boom and bum bum) is the sun around which the other planets of human life, such as politics, history, economics, spirituality, trigonometry, art, and yes, massage, revolve.
However, the relationship between massage and boom boom is more than philosophical or theoretical. It is not just that boom boom is simply the farthest and most intimate point in the continuum of touch and human connection that starts with a formal handshake and progresses past a hug, a clothed massage, a minimally clothed massage, a totally unclothed massage, a mutually unclothed massage, a mutually unclothed body-to-body massage, and then on to boom boom, which is arguably the essence of life, the alpha and the omega of existence.
In real life, if you were to conduct a sample survey of 20,000 massage establishments the world over, you would realize that in many parts of the world, the more relaxed and tropical and Buddhist or Shinto-Confucian countries especially, massage and boom boom are Part I and Part II respectively of an organically connected whole experience. Part I is when the body is kneaded, awakened to life and good health, its circulation improved, its glands begin to secrete the juices they should be secreting, its pleasure nodes buzzing. And as these variously aroused parts begin to shake off their former alienation, rebellion, or dysfunctional states and connect with each other, their synergy ignites Part II, or the most sacred and most vital act of human existence: fucking.
But a deep and enduring puritanical streak arising from my own West-influenced ideological bent as well as from the modern Indian civilization in which I was initiated into life, kneaded as a baby, and thus made a lifelong addict of massage, had made me think of massage and sex as totally separate worlds (and there’s no better definition of Puritanism than H.L. Mencken’s: “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy”). So I would often demand that I be given only massage, unadulterated even by dreams of boom boom. For every improper suggestion or indecent proposal the masseuse made, I mentally deducted five percent from my planned tip.
What a puritanical prick I was then, I now think! For at some deep, secret level, all of us pine for the touch of our mothers, and of female relatives, which was so forthcoming and generous in our childhood, especially in Eastern countries, where children below the age of five, sometimes barebottomed, are picked up and cuddled and carried and placed on laps by every woman and prepubescent girl in the vicinity, and consider it their birthright — these are often the best moments in an Asian child’s soon-to-be blighted life. And oh, the bathing and massage rituals. Sometimes, a woman will combine her bath and that of her child (or the child she is taking care of), and part of this ritual may involve a kind of intimacy that the child cannot hope to enjoy as it grows up. I have seen, for example, the baby stretched across the naked thighs of a woman who will shortly have her own bath — ah, what a feast of love as the baby inhales the smell of soap and woman, and is enveloped by her warm skin. But this birthright gradually vanishes as the children grow older, and adults and women (if you happen to be male) begin to keep their distance (in puritanical and schizophrenic India at least). And the Inner Child never forgives, and is never reconciled, to the loss of this birthright.
Thus you are always secretly and perhaps even unknown to yourself hungering for those intimate, uninhibited, and ungrudging touches and that closeness, and when you are touched tenderly by a masseuse with soft hands, you are aroused with warm feelings for the whole world, for all of humanity. And if your masseuse, the most immediate, breathing, perfumed, and throbbing representative of that humanity, is even passably attractive, your attention gradually turns to her, especially once the major zones of pain have been taken care of. The nicer she is to you, the nicer you want to be to her, and this feeling sometimes spills beyond the realm of verbal thanks or gifts of cash, goods, coupons, or white elephants. Her gift of touch and acceptance sometimes provokes a desire to respond in kind (in the ultimate examples, to return love by making love).
Acknowledging this yearning to touch and to return affection (which was never consummated), one of my best Upstate New York masseuses, Lisa, the one who would whisper into my ear like a lover, “The massage is finished, thank you,” would always give me a deep hug after I had dressed up and was about to leave.
And yet sometimes, especially when pain dominates your mind and overpowers all other feelings and thoughts, when unbearable aches or tension are a stumbling block to daily living and to each moment, or when you don’t wish to ruin a long-term professional relationship with the masseuse whose destiny and yours have intersected, you need to pretend to accept this artificial, manmade distinction between massage and sex simply to avoid being preyed upon for large amounts of cash or being cheated of the therapeutic massage your muscles need. Many a time has a lazy or incompetent masseuse tried to milk me (of my money) by offering a quick sexual climax, often of the hand-assisted variety (and sometimes of the orally assisted variety), hoping thus to escape from the hard work that a full therapeutic massage is. (And as for escaping the real work of a massage, there are often so-called licensed massage therapists in the U.S. who will try to do this: by asking you to breathe, for example.) Rarely, and in my post-marital years, when the formerly therapeutic relationship progressed into mutually enjoyable sex, the therapeutic portion deteriorated and shrunk until I was forced to start a long and often painful search for a new masseuse: and to firmly spell out that what I was looking for was “massage no boom boom” — the only unambiguous term that the local taxi drivers, bellboys, guides, and touts in Southeast Asia clearly understood: a term that left them little wiggle room for their tricks and surprises.
But trying to keep the massage nonsexual or not openly erotic is easier in certain countries and cultures than in others, and indeed may be easier for Western societies that, like Bill Clinton, are able to rigidly and effortlessly compartmentalize emotions, sex, and work. True, in Thailand, a culture of therapeutic traditional Thai massage attached to students, temples, massage teachers, and massage schools exists quite apart from the world of sex — or at least as far apart as medicine and banking. Respectable family men and women, mothers, fathers, and grandmothers, get themselves massaged, sometimes in Buddhist temples, or in establishments attached to temples, sometimes in their homes, sometimes on the beach on a blanket or sheet, and sometimes in a studio or a salon on tables or mats, sometimes separated by screens. These traditional Thai massages are mostly conducted clothed, or in loose pajama-like pants and top provided by the establishment, and are 100 percent legitimate (as most prudish Westerners would term them), and are often very cheap — though in private studios and salons they can sometimes be made illegitimate and sensual to accommodate your desires, usually for a hefty yet reasonable extra fee.
But in certain other countries, it is relatively harder to find massage that is purely and nothing but massage. You may discover that the massage you are paying for is either a teasing massage designed to make you a horny wreck begging for boom boom or one of its abbreviated relatives; the Thais are masters at this, and the late-arriving Chinese, for whom 60 years of often brutal and godless Communism have left them with few religious or moral scruples, are more than a match for them, or so I have heard from tourists returning from the Chinese towns around Shenzen. In a few cases, it is organically and officially “massage boom boom” — a package deal, take it or leave it, and the only item on the menu. In the latter case, whether or not you take advantage of the boom boom, that’s your choice, you’re still paying the same or just a tiny bit less. At some point you may start to feel silly, if not totally insane, not to try a bit of what is on offer, especially if the masseuse seems willing and eager. Far more likely, your aroused loins or your offended ego will do the thinking for you (What’s wrong with you? the laughing and sometimes aroused women will ask, for they too want a man in their arms and wouldn’t like to leave an attractive prospect untended. Can’t get it up? No have power?).
Massage in this part of the world is an aphrodisiac aid to boom boom, a preparation and a provocation for boom boom, the ultimate assertion and expression of life, love and health. I imagine this un-compartmentalized view comes from an earlier and less moralistic time, when kings and princes, faced with a revolt from their underfucked multiple wives, had to be massaged so they could perform again and again, and the prestige, virility, and stability of the kingdom ensured, its populace sleeping soundly in the assurance that the Royal Member was a Member in Good Standing. And why should I, with my “superior” Western experience and indoctrination, condemn these cultures as decadent or inferior for this reason?
It is this journey, from innocence to experience, from a naïve acceptance of my brainwashing by didactic and over-scrupulous American massage therapists to a gradual understanding of my body and the perspectives and practices of massage therapists in less stuck-up parts of the world that I wish to record here. For it is a rich journey: my over three thousand massages (at this point in 2010) were received in over twenty countries of the world, from Canada to Czechoslovakia, from Thailand to Scotland. What’s more, I may have seen the only three-nippled masseuse in the world; she showed me her special endowment after only our second massage. What it was in me that sparked this special kindness, this intimate sharing, I shall never know, though I do admit trying in a few Asian countries to pick up a bit of the local languages. And as I spoke to them like a fellow human being, an equal who was concerned, interested, warm, and grateful for their generous touch, they unlocked to me their secrets, one 39-year-old masseuse suddenly asking me if I could find her a boy friend.
This journey also includes dozens of real and warm individuals such as Elisa, of Long Island: the thing that excites me is that she, a large Romanian who is the furthest possible thing from a romantic prospect because of her plump size and looks and age, is like a mother, with me as her baby. She is like one of those Eastern mothers who are so full of love for their babies that they will kiss and wash every part, every extension, every nook and cranny, as if it were all equally sacred and divine and precious. While they massage you, they own you totally; nothing at all, no inhibition or legal code or provision of New York State Law, holds them back. How can I deny the joy of this: of being in my mid-forties, and going back, for a moment, to those blissful few months when I was a baby and was completely and unconditionally loved?
That is at least part of the reason why people need massages: they want to feel cared for, touched, babied, accepted and loved unconditionally; they are looking for refuge from the harsh, unfeeling, uncaring, judging, and restrictive world, a world of boundaries fenced with legal barbed wire. God bless ‘em, and may many more Elisas bloom!
Not just babied, but bathed. One of the most delightful experiences you will ever have, one that is included in the price of some Eastern massages, is being soaped, bathed, and toweled dry by your masseuse. In some establishments, as in one Bangalore outfit a few years back, it includes just the act of soaping the unreachable parts of your back (one young Manipuri masseuse named Rosie soaped my front too, but started laughing when she observed the expansive effects, and so did I, rather sheepishly). Which, back or front, is a lot better than nothing — as if any woman can trust us inept and gauche men to take proper care of ourselves! Though, reflecting on this experience, the ritual may have to do with the masseuses’ aesthetic desire not to have to massage a smelly customer.
Also, I have fallen mildly in love with nearly every massage therapist who was good and tender on the table (and therefore, I can almost guarantee, good in bed). Though, the more beautiful the massage therapist, the stronger and more passionate the feeling, it has often happened with those who were not primarily pretty in their external appearance, but regal and symphonic in their internal and emotional selves. For a great massage is an act of love, tender, and caring, as with the lovely brown-haired Lisa from upstate New York, who has the face, hairstyle, and build of a Greek goddess, and who starts softly, her butter-soft hands spreading butter-like oil over my body, and ends by whispering into my ear “Thank you,” to tell me the massage is over — so as not to rudely awaken me. It simply can't be helped; tenderness provokes my fantasies, my utter loving gratitude.
A good example of this generosity, and also of the massage moments of being that you will find packed into this book: At Pennsylvania hotel, New York, Jeannie, a Korean massage place where everyone is required to shower and use the sauna/steam room before a massage: an effective device, among Japanese and Korean establishments, to ensure that the customers are clean and fresh as babies when they get on the massage table. This device allows the masseuses to touch you in secret places without any reservations. This masseuse is a Korean who turns out to be Christian. Late forties minimum, probably even turned a half century. What gentleness, softness. Of course at one point without provocation or warning she lifts up my towel and offers a compliment that Dale Carnegie would have approved of. Then, without a cue from me, she starts to kiss, lick, and suck my nipple and brush her soft hair against my chest while another hand, without the slightest warning, seeks my below-the-waist erogenous zones and whirls about a bit over there. I am surprised and don't know what to do, and am sure I will explode in about sixty seconds, so I exclaim no, no, stop — and she stops, saying, "You are a gentleman!" And I laugh, only a semi-hollow laugh. For I am a gentleman indeed, har har har. Well, okay, that's one of my personas (damn!), one of my multiple personalities, but why only acknowledge one?