Everybody in Romance Needs a Job: But Not Massage Therapist

"Massage Parlor"

A common trope in romance is the taboo relationship: professor and student, boss and subordinate, step-siblings. They resist and resist and resist...right up until they fall into each other's arms. 

It's a fun trope and can work quite effectively.

The taboo relationship of massage therapist and client never works.

The taboo is that massage therapists are not supposed to sleep with their clients since massage has commonly been associated with "happy endings" and prostitution (see Barney Miller). In much the same way that W.S. Gilbert improved the reputations of actors and actresses by insisting on separate changing rooms in the theater, massage therapy battles a reputation that only discipline and legal standards can overcome.

Consider Phoebe, from Friends, getting fired for kissing a client, who turns out to be a married jerk. Phoebe doesn't protest the firing. She knows she crossed the line. 

The few romances I've read with massage therapists have made token protests about unfair attitudes towards massage therapists...right before the protagonists fall into each other arms on the massage table. In one not-so-awful novella, the front desk administrator does threaten to take legal action, mostly because she doesn't know how to bill the insurance company. 

But it was still rather pointless. The massage therapist has a client and  they shouldn't sleep together and then...they do. So?

Restraint, in this case, would be far more interesting.