Health & Fitness: Massage Comes Out of the Parlor

Susan Gilbert Bryan was 25 and a struggling public relations assistant when, as sort of a lark, she tried one for the first time. She quickly found she had to have it every month. A decade later Bryan, now the owner of an advertising agency in Coral Gables, Fla., finds she requires it twice a week -- and insists on having it at home. Husband Jim has also been snared, as well as their two-year-old daughter Vanessa, who coos when she gets it. Admits Bryan without a blush: "I can go without exercise sometimes, but I can't live without my massages."

Massage? Isn't that just a high-priced kneading for doughy dowagers or, heh, heh, something offered to men by scantily clad masseuses as a prelude to sex? Not anymore. In the past few years, massage has been moving out of both kinds of parlors and into the mainstream. No longer an embarrassing reminder of those touchy-feely human potential movements of the '70s, massage is fast emerging as Americans' favorite antidote to that current cultural Grinch: stress. Nothing kinky, just a way to get out the kinks. "It's the ideal therapy for the '80s," declares Robert King, president of the Chicago-based American Massage Therapy Association. "Instead of having an extra martini or gulping Valium, people ought to consider a professional massage."

It is an increasingly popular prescription, one that is eagerly being filled by the nation's 50,000 massage therapists (masseur and masseuse are outre). And they deliver. If health club appointments and at-home visits are inconvenient, don't worry. Therapists will come to the office. No time or inclination for a full-hour full-undress manipulation? Then how about a minimassage? It is brief (ten to 15 minutes), thoroughly proper (clothes stay on) and cheap (a tune-up costs $10 to $15, while a complete overhaul can run $80).

Frazzled urban professionals love them. Once a week Joe Meissner, 39, who runs an executive placement service in San Francisco, reroutes his calls, takes off his vest, loosens his tie and turns himself over to Corporate Stressbusters. They bring the equipment: a stool, a 3-in.-thick black cushion and a pair of hands. "Stress goes right into my shoulders," sighs Meissner. "They knead it all out of me." Portland, Ore., and Los Angeles boast similar services. In New York City, Attorney Peter Kupersmith calls the quarter-hour sessions devoted to his neck and shoulders "miraculous and a crucial part of my weekly regimen." Muscle tension under the blue collar is getting attention too. Therapist Pat Malone counts among his clients factory workers outside Chicago, who, in addition to coffee breaks, sometimes schedule a tactile time-out.

Some organizations have even begun to offer massage as a paid employee perk-up. At Vanderbilt University in Nashville, addled workers can get on-site soothing. At Merrill Lynch's Manhattan headquarters, a therapist is on staff. Steve Herfield, president of Manhattan Temporaries, pays for up to two minimassages a week for each of his twelve employees. "Some were skeptical at first," he recalls. "Now they'd like it every day. It's a real break and a real lift." Not always, however. Some therapists report that staffers occasionally are left so relaxed that they nod off at their desks.