You understand that the guy is good at his job, likes his job, has ample clientele to be considered a professional success
You added this information well into the discussion. At the point I chimed in, the discussion was about the impact of certain legal requirements on him and I had the impression he must be having trouble working at his chosen profession. As I said quite clearly earlier--you may have missed it--if he can be successful given the constraints, good for him. In which case there is no meaningful problem of legal requirements, is there?
He was raised in a culture that believes men putting there hands on women in isolation brings erotic risks that inevitably surface as emotional involvement. His experience has confirmed the belief.
And this is the point. We are conditioned by our cultures to react in certain ways. If our culture tells us that men and women cannot touch without titillation, then that's how we react. If, however, our culture teaches us that the context of the physical contact is significant, then we react accordingly, at least beyond the raging hormones and lack of sophistication of our teen years. I recall some discussion hereabouts a long time ago, perhaps you weren't around then, about women reacting sexually to gynecologists and priests. Some do. For them, this little "tabu" switch doesn't go off like it does for the rest of us. For the most part, though, your masseur would be protected from triggering a sexual reaction by his female client's context switch, particularly if he conducted himself in a purely professional way.
So, it seems to me that, to the extent that your masseur doesn't want to provoke in his clients any sexual reaction to his therapy, the candidates to screen out would most effectively be two categories. The first is those brought up in his culture where people are conditioned to consider therapy sexual. The second is those who, for whatever psychological reason, have a broken switch. Targeting women and gays is overly broad and missing the target.
To the extent that your masseur doesn't want to have a sexual reaction to his clients, OTOH, given his cultural orientation, then it is necessary and reasonable for him to reject female clients. If he is not at risk of being sexually stimulated by a gay client, though, there's no reason to exclude them.
Your only qualifier is that he does not accept female clients as a matter of conscience.
I'm not buying your attempt to establish a new category of "conscientious objectors" for those who, for whatever reason, are unable to or do not wish to differentiate sexual context. Talk about slippery slopes... |
