Massage therapy moves toward regulation in part due to efforts of Norman businesswoman -...

[massage]

Mary Elizabeth Le Blanc has short nails.

The local massage therapist has worked in Norman since she finished her training in 2007. Like many local massage therapists, she does a variety of practices both in her office and in clients’ homes.

Even a small sliver of white on her nail is too long for Le Blanc. While it does not show over her fingertips, the personal regulation Le Blanc was trained to follow, it drivers her a little crazy.

Nails, according to Le Blanc, are the first clue indicating if a person is actually a massage therapist or a sex worker, often stuck in human trafficking.

Le Blanc said this happens often in Oklahoma because the state is without regulation, though some individual communities are regulated.

Norman is not one of those communities.

When Le Blanc finished her massage therapy training in 2007, she was shocked to find massage therapists in Oklahoma were unregulated by the state.

“You mean if I wanted to I could just go slap up a shingle and say I’m a massage therapist?,” Le Blanc recalled asking her instructor.

Her instructor told her in Norman, the answer was yes, she could claim to be a massage therapist without any training at all.

Some communities like Oklahoma City, Tulsa and more recently Moore do have regulations.

Le Blanc said these regulations do not just protect massage therapists, they protect clients as well.

She compared two different cases involving massage therapists sexually harassing customers, one in Norman and another in Oklahoma City.

In Oklahoma City, a woman reporter her female massage therapist had acted inappropriately during a session. An undercover officer wanton and an arrest was made after one sting operation.

In Norman, two different clients made multiple complaints against their massage therapist. An undercover officer then had to go in and prove they were treated inappropriately on three different occasions before an arrest was made.

Le Blanc herself has been on the other side of this issue, with potential clients seeking sex work, not an actual massage therapist. She has learned what questions to ask and what questions by a potential client are red flags.

On one occasion she stopped a session and told the client if they touched her again she was calling the police.

“You can leave this building in handcuffs,” Le Blanc recalled telling the client.

The lack of regulation has been an issue for massage therapists for quite a while.

Le Blanc said bills have been brought before Oklahoma’s legislature attempting to regulate the industry for the past two decades.

Some of the most-recent attempts were made by the American Massage Therapy Association, the professional association Le Blanc belongs to, in 2007, 2008 and 2009 using grant money.

“It has never made it past the first reading,” Le Blanc said. “It hasn’t even been read on the floor.”

While the lack of regulation worried Le Blanc, she was focused on starting her own practice and joined a local chapter of the AMTA.

In 2012, Le Blanc became the president of the local chapter “by default.” In the next year, Oklahoma Senator Anthony Sykes from Moore, Oklahoma, brought a bill forward addressing the issue.

The AMTA and others, specifically the Oklahoma State Board of Cosmetology and Barbering which has pushed for massage therapist regulation for years, had always approached the issue of regulation from the standpoint of health and safety.

Le Blanc said she sees the need for safety regulations just going to the grocery store. More than once she has seen people with perfect red burn circles down their back from an improper hot stone massage.

Sykes had used much of the language from AMTA’s previous bills, but he was focused on a different issue with massage therapy; sex work and human trafficking.

“He had law enforcement behind him in 2013. He was approached not just by the woman in the cosmetology world, but also by law enforcement,” Le Blanc said.

Le Blanc and another AMTA board member met with Sykes.

The bill originally put forth by Sykes in 2013 did not fit what Oklahoma massage therapists wanted for certification or for requirements.

Le Blanc decided to give up the presidency of the local AMTA chapter and instead focused on massage therapy regulation.

“I said we need to get organized. We need to stop letting other groups put forth bills we essentially have written and have someone else reinterpret what we need,” Le Blanc said.

She applied for a national grant of $20,000 to use on a lobbyist to help push their bill.

“The only thing that I brought new to the picture that I think all other attempts tried to push out of the picture was the human trafficking and sex trafficking angle,” Le Blanc said.

This year it passed, but Le Blanc said she still has work to do.

Massage therapy will now be governed by the Oklahoma State Board of Cosmetology and Barbering, though the exact regulations are still being decided by the board and the Oklahoma Attorney General.

Le Blanc said her only worry now is making sure massage therapists across the state are aware of the new requirements and no legitimate massage therapists end up on the wrong side of the regulation due to lack of knowledge.

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