Itching for some R&R?
People looking for unconventional relaxation methods are spending hundreds of dollars on professional back scratches, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Toni George, the 55-year-old owner of The Scratcher Girls in Miami, charges $130 for an hour of scratching using her 3-inch manicured fingernails, hammering them into her back, limbs, scalp and even the inside of her body. to the ears of her client.
The technique is so euphoric that clients will often go to sleep or “make trance sounds.”
Her services are so popular that she even travels to major metropolitan areas – New York, Los Angeles or Philadelphia – to see her clientele. Soon, she hopes to take her internship on tour to Europe.
“I’ve never broken a nail,” George told The Journal, explaining that she paints her nails before each scratching session and scrubs her claws with soap and a nail brush.
But the businesswoman insists the scratching is not sexual.
“We don’t scratch the chest or the belly,” George said, adding that she refused a man’s request to touch her nipples.
“You’ve got those ditch-minded people,” she said.
But George isn’t the only professional who earns a living through non-sexual scrapes.
Julie Luther, who opened her Soft Touch ASMR spa in Pasadena, Calif., two years ago and recently quit her six-figure job to pursue scratching full-time, offers 50-minute sessions for $110 . While slots fill up a week in advance, she turns away male customers after cases of unusual requests.
“It’s like this very pure touch that’s just for pleasure and nothing else, but not sexually,” she told The Journal.
In New York — home to unconventional practices like automated robot massages — the first of the city’s first malls are starting to appear.
WhisperWave, owned by Rebecca Benvie, opened in January with two locations — one in Brooklyn and one in Manhattan — focused on offering ASMR services like gentle back scratches and tracings, light touch and single-fee brushing per hour of $162.
“I think I was honestly looking for a service like this myself and I just saw a big gap in the wellness market,” Benvie told Dazed, adding that her practice “focuses on caring for the nervous system in an accessible and playful way “.
“There are massages, acupuncture and reiki, but there was nothing that focused on the best part of those treatments: gentle touch.”
Craig Richard, a professor of biomedical sciences at Shenandoah University, told The Journal that gentle scratching from these providers induces what’s called “ASMR,” with references to the “autonomic sensory meridian response,” or a relaxing, tingling sensation. , which occurs as a result of the brain releasing feel-good hormones.
“It’s a great cocktail,” he said.
Lifestyle blogger Mariann Yipp described the phenomenon to The Journal as a dream, almost “a sense of floating.”
“Live ASMR is a bridge,” Benvie told Dazed. “Outside of romance, many people aren’t getting enough physical touch and can go weeks without more than a handshake.”
#scratchers #big #money #sex #Youve #people #minds #ditch
Image Source : nypost.com