In the massage therapy world, we massage therapists are constantly trying to distinguish ourselves from sex workers. A lot of us will go way out of the way to make our terminology as clinical, and non sexual as possible. For example, you get massaged on a “table” never a bed; we are “massage therapists” never masseuses or masseurs; we don’t work in parlors, we work in “clinics” or “spas.”
Some of this feels pedantic, but I have no problem with wanting to make the distinction.
What I do have an issue with is the added connotation that being a sex-worker is a bad thing to be. That as massage therapists we are “above” sex-workers in some way. Yes, in many areas, my profession is far more socially and legally accepted; but I’m not a better person because I picked one profession that involves touching other human beings and you picked a different one.
I would have just posted this in a massage subreddit, but you absolutely cannot do that there.
So, I figured I’d try and get thoughts from people on the other side of the comparison.