I mumbled responses-I’m a writer and a comedian, usually I didn’t know I had abductors-hoping my terseness would put a damper on his curiosity. “What do you do for a living?” “Do you stretch after you exercise?” “Do you know how tight your abductors are?” I did my best to ignore him, but the questions kept coming.

Hans, however, was unnaturally talkative for a man whose livelihood involved rubbing naked flesh. For me, it’s become the equivalent of air travel or medical exams: I rely on it, but I tend to want the procedure to be over relatively quickly, and I can’t be bothered with idle conversation. An estimated 35 million Americans spend roughly $3 billion annually on visits to massage practitioners, totaling 75 million visits each year. Massage therapy, once an indulgence of the country-club set, has become the Starbucks of the bodywork world.