You can read about the history of massage on the wikipedia page . It would look similar to today depending on what we are referring to . Not sure what you mean by gender segregated . there probably weren ' t many female MT ' s back when the practice first started as it was considered medical and women weren ' t really expected to go into that sort of profession . Maybe today in like muslim countries its segregated but I don ' t know that and its not segregated in most european countries or the americas . European massage is different depending on the country , according to wikipedia places like Germany require 3 , 200 hours and include schooling in things like gynecology and podiatry and lots of medical stuff . Basicly you are a medical practitioner when you graduate there and can probably do undraped massage and work the pelvic floor and do all kinds of really awesome stuff that is a big no no in the US . France also has strict guidelines for it . The UK on the other hand doesn ' t have an overarching governing body and has laxer regulations . It isn ' t a shift , its a licensing and education decision . We do work on the glutes in the US but we are more conservative with our draping since its required to keep gluteal cleft covered . Yes obviously if we have licensing and regulations we have to keep to strict guidlines and you might not see a ton of glute work unless thats what the video is about .