Communication

Good communication is essential to effective massage. In a commercial setting, the client is encouraged to communicate the type of treatment expected, for example relaxation or pain relief, full body massage, avoidance of, or focus on a specific area, the amount of pressure that is comfortable, preferred techniques, and past medical history and current physical condition.

Massage can also be a part of lovemaking, and often takes place in the context of sex work. As massage is a lightly regulated industry, clients are advised to get references, ask questions and judge for themselves.

There are well over 150 types of massage therapy. Various styles of massage have developed from a number of sources.

Erotic massage is the use of massage techniques for erotic purposes.

For example, instead of draping the subject's body with towels, an erotic massage is usually conducted with the subject naked and undraped. Areas of the body such as the areas around the groin and intimate parts of the body, which are normally not touched in therapeutic massage, will be touched in ways that increase sexual arousal.

Erotic massage may be utilized as a means of stimulating the libido, or increasing the ability of a person to respond appropriately to sensual stimulus. In some cases, erotic massage can be a form of foreplay without sexual gratification, intended to heighten the sensitivity of an individual prior to another engagement where sexual arousal and fulfillment is intended. In other cases, erotic massage may be used professionally to address issues of premature ejaculation by teaching the man to circulate erotic energy and relax the musculature of his pelvis and thus prolong arousal and increase pleasure. Erotic Massage can also be used to explore Erotic Trance.

It is also offered as a service by some massage parlours (not to be confused with establishments that offer only therapeutic massage). In this case, erotic massage may be considered to be a form of sex work, or a form of sex therapy.

Tantramassage (Tantric Massage) is a form of massage developed in the 1980s by Andro, Andreas Rothe, a tantric "bodywork" teacher in Berlin, Germany.

His method includes various massage techniques, elements from Yoga and Sex therapy. The word tantra in the name is meant to allude to a connection with an Indian cultural background Rothe claims to draw from.

Important influences came from the "Taoist Erotic Massage" by Joseph Kramer, Ph.D. and Annie Sprinkle. Joseph Kramer, founder of The Body Electric School and the new online erotic massage school The New School of Erotic Touch, emphasizes conscious breathing and skilled erotic touch in combination to wake up the body, generate erotic energy and create prolonged states of full-body arousal.

Clients are in a passive role, supported by breathing techniques. Sessions last 90 minutes or longer. The Tantramassage movement is popular with New Age followers in Germany and Switzerland, some practitioners are organized in a tantric massage association (Tantramassage Verband e.V.).