BecauseISaidSo

Thanks so much, Yura. It was great chatting with you, and I'm particularly grateful that Max checked in with Noah about it and confirmed it was true. I appreciate you both!

Now that I'm being accused of lying over on the general thread, let me cut and paste my 27 Men Spa review over here since this thread is more about the specific place. I'll delete the bottom of my original post because it mentions a different spa and different therapist, irrelevant here. Yura, if you're reading this, can you just ask Noah if he used gloves on any client this week (I was there Tuesday afternoon)? Maybe there's a reason...or if he doesn't admit to it, at least he'll know not to keep doing it! Original post: Thanks to all for the great info on this site...I finally decided to join and contribute! I randomly stopped into Spa 27 yesterday, where I'd never been, and asked for a one hour massage. I was happy to take anyone available since the reviews on here have been relatively strong. So I got Noah and went back to the nice room. I started face down, and it felt a little strange but I couldn't quite figure out why, but nice enough. After about 10 minutes, he was massaging my shoulders so his hands were close to my ears, and I realized as a heard like a crinkling sound that he had on latex gloves! I popped my head up to ask if that was the case, and he said yes. I asked him to please take them off. He said he wouldn't. I asked if there was any other therapist there who would massage with their bare hands, and he said most of them always use gloves. He then added that if I were to check most spas around the world, that most male therapists use gloves. WHAAAA?? I obviously knew that was crap since I have had a ton of massages in a ton of countries. The only other time I've had a therapist use gloves was years ago with a female therapist and when I asked her about it, she said she was worried about getting HIV (I'm not kidding). So like that previous experience, I immediately stopped the massage. He wiped off the oil from my back, and I paid for 30 minutes. I was pretty shocked and appalled, and told him that they should at least say something to clients so we can choose whether that's what we want. Are the rest of you on here actually getting massages with them wearing latex gloves?? If so, stop that! That's never happened to me at any other place in NYC.

Don't believe it all you want. IT HAPPENED. And you don't represent everyone else on here, but good try.

I can assure you it did happen, exactly as I described. There seems to be a little coterie of you on here who throw out the "fake review" card anytime one of your faves is criticized. I'm glad he's never used gloves on you...hooray!...but he did on me and I have every right to complain about it.

Yeah, had he said that HE had a rash or injury so needed to wear gloves, then I would have totally respected that and simply declined the massage and come back another time. Or even if he said he was worried about getting something from me, I could at least react to that. But when he tried to pass it off as totally normal and that I somehow needed to be educated, that's what got me. I don't really know about the more clinical/PT settings, so my surprise was in this more sensual/relaxation setting. Anyhoo, I appreciate everyone's comments and realize the YMMV nature of these things.

I'm glad that others (so far reported) have not experienced this, so maybe it's just a Noah thing. He did say he thought that most of the other therapists there also used gloves, but maybe he was just covering for himself.

Thanks to all for the great info on this site...I finally decided to join and contribute! I randomly stopped into Spa 27 yesterday, where I'd never been, and asked for a one hour massage. I was happy to take anyone available since the reviews on here have been relatively strong. So I got Noah and went back to the nice room. I started face down, and it felt a little strange but I couldn't quite figure out why, but nice enough. After about 10 minutes, he was massaging my shoulders so his hands were close to my ears, and I realized as a heard like a crinkling sound that he had on latex gloves! I popped my head up to ask if that was the case, and he said yes. I asked him to please take them off. He said he wouldn't. I asked if there was any other therapist there who would massage with their bare hands, and he said most of them always use gloves. He then added that if I were to check most spas around the world, that most male therapists use gloves. WHAAAA?? I obviously knew that was crap since I have had a ton of massages in a ton of countries. The only other time I've had a therapist use gloves was years ago with a female therapist and when I asked her about it, she said she was worried about getting HIV (I'm not kidding). So like that previous experience, I immediately stopped the massage. He wiped off the oil from my back, and I paid for 30 minutes. I was pretty shocked and appalled, and told him that they should at least say something to clients so we can choose whether that's what we want. Are the rest of you on here actually getting massages with them wearing latex gloves?? If so, stop that! That's never happened to me at any other place in NYC. On a positive note, I then walked to Energy Spa, where I had also never been (it was experiment day), asked for an hour massage and was again willing to take whomever was available...and it happened to be Alven! He was always my fave at TSMS but I hadn't seen him in years. We had a great chat and he gave me the usual great massage. So the day ended well, but geez, part of why we all get massages is for the actual human contact!!