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Masseur vs. Masseuse


BeefyDude

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3 minutes ago, buttlvr99 said:

Or maybe in this day and age of fluid genderism, it really doesn’t matter anymore.

Yes! Except I get clients asking for a ‘masseuse’ for a 4 hands with me when they really mean another masseur. If I didn’t check it with them and turned up with a female 4 hands partner I think they’d be a bit surprised!! 

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Another possible reason is the word 'masseuse' was just a bit more commonly known years ago. I think there were more masseuses in practice and available back then. Despite the two major sites having the masculine form right there in the website name (!), some more-amateur guys may not even know there's a gender differentiation 

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Masseur is one of those job titles in English which don't have -man as a suffix, that are taken to include both genders. Some of those have a female variant that is used to make a distinction when that is needed. Think actress, aviatrix and dominatrix. (There are examples where there is no female form, perhaps because linguistically speaking it was inconceivable for a woman to do that job. Think doctor. When women started working in the field no need was seen for a special word.)  Masseuse is perhaps an outlier in that use of the female variant is bleeding across to male practitioners. It will be interesting linguistically to see if this incorrect usage becomes normalised, as often happens as the meaning of words shifts to what a proportion of native speakers think they mean, or if the gender distinction holds.

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I choose male bodyworkers at a spa in addition to choosing private services. I prefer the (typically) broader surface area of a man’s forearms and hands. That said, one of the best sessions I ever had (no gender choice available) was on a cruise ship from a woman called Dunya. Experienced and *strong*, as one might expect from “Assistant Coach, Croatian Bowling Team”

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