Gabby Logan's Blog by Gabby_Logan

So there I was having a massage to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. Not from my husband, but from a stranger, a woman I had just met. And in the room next door my husband was having a massage from a man he had just met. As I lay there I thought what a bizarre thing having a massage is. We are 38 and 39 years old my husband and I, we work hard, have kids and we are generally tired. It's boring to say I know, but like most people with young kids, we've been tired for a few years now. So rather than go out late drinking cocktails and dancing on a piano we decided a lovely lunch and a massage would suit us just fine.

There is something incredibly hedonistic about having a massage during working hours. If I had the time and the money I would have a massage every single day. However if you asked me to strip down to my pants and let a stranger rub me with oil I'd think you were a little perverted. It's a bit like sunbathing. Women sit with their breasts out in front of people they have never seen before on a public beach, but if they were to sit dressed the same way on a park bench in Soho Square on a sunny afternoon, the police would be along asking them to move on and get dressed. I know it's all about context and perception, but isn't it interesting how we constrain ourselves and have quite set ideas about what is appropriate and when.

I have never understood how people in nudist colonies can focus on anything other than the nakedness of the person they are chatting to. I admire their freedom. The strange thing is, I grew up in quite a naked house. Both parents wandered around in the mornings without clothes on and I wasn't at all bashful about my own body until I hit my teenage years. I look at my children with their wonderfully relaxed attitudes to their bodies. They are 6 next week, and I wonder when that will all change, because you know it will. I will always try to encourage them to love and respect their bodies. And I will carry on enjoying massages in my pants with strangers, but I won't ever go topless on the beach! And the secret to a happy marriage? Lots of massage of course, even if it's with a stranger.