..happy endings..

[GSCole]

In late May, in Lewes, Delaware, a massage therapist, when asked what
she did toward ensuring her security on house calls, said that "for one
thing, I don't do happy endings."  She further noted other security
precautions.

In a Google search, I found only a few references in which 'happy
endings' is used in place of 'massage with release'.  I classify the
phrase as slang.  Most Google listings of 'happy endings' are in
reference to the endings of movies and other stories.

There is at least one Google reference to a situation in which there was
some confusion over the usage of the phrase (in the name of a
restaurant), and the misunderstanding drew the attention of legal
authorities.

In a newspaper column by Maureen Dowd, titled Grainy film doesn't make
it any cooler, which appeared in The Patriot-News (Harrisburg, PA), on 6
AUG 2002, on p. A9, col. 5, there is a reference to a movie by Steven
Soderbergh.  Dowd writes "One of Soderbergh's plot lines, a massage with
a 'happy ending,' was already featured on two HBO shows, Larry David's
and 'Mind of the Married Man.'"

I presume that Dowd's column appeared in an earlier issue of the New
York Times.
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Other words of possible interest, in the same column are:

tadpoling -- older women dating younger men.

porn name -- creating a name by using your middle name or pet's name and
the name of the first street you lived on
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I'm not saying that any of the above words or phrases are new, although
one seems to have a very limited usage, but they were new to these
sheltered ears in the land of Hershey.

George Cole
Shippensburg University