Ibn ʿUthaimīn on Giving or Getting Massages

What is your excellency’s opinion concerning what some young women do for one another, or some young men for one another, of massages, such that a person lies on his tummy, for example, while the other massages his back, sides, neck, shoulders, legs, and maybe [even] his thighs.

Sometimes that is done over clothing, and sometimes the massage is with direct contact of the skin, and on occasion, the one giving the massage applies some oil, which he uses in his massage. Of special note is that takes place quite commonly in college and university dorms for either genders.

Please give us a religious verdict [on this issue], may you be rewarded [by Allāh].

If a husband does it with his wife, or a wife with her husband, then there is no harm in that because, whatever the case may be, it is permissible, even if his desires were to get aroused in that situation—let him then satisfy his desires since he’s with his wife.

As for if [the massage were from] someone other than [a spouse], then there is fitnah [a temptation and likelihood of falling into sin] from that. For if a young man were to do that with a young man, is it not feared that his desires might get aroused? Of course. And if a woman were to do that with a woman, it is likewise feared that her desires might get aroused because women have desires just as a men have desires.

So I do not view this [type of massage] as permissible except between a husband and his wife. Likewise, were we to suppose that an elderly man had daughters and he asked them to press points on his back, there’s no harm in that because desires getting aroused here is very far-fetched. And elderly men need this. So, due to their need and the high improbability of desires getting aroused, we say: there is no harm in it, inshā’Allāh.

Source: Silsilah al-Liqāʾ al-Shahrī, no. 66.