To be fair, it's likely that the author's former friend would have a hard time disagreeing with this if presented in exactly the way that you have.

I suspect that what such a person finds offensive isn't OOP's behavior (i.e. receiving a hair treatment without incident), but rather the thought in and of itself. Since they know that they can't credibly assault a person's character purely on the basis of an involuntary or intrusive thought, they have to settle for calling out some behavior as a stand-in for the thought. In an alternate timeline where OOP had apologized (which would really just be extremely socially awkward, not outwardly harmful), I'd bet on the former friend making the exact opposite stink and chastising OOP for failing to keep it to herself.

Another layer that wouldn't be surprising in this instance would be subconscious homophobia. The friend thinks she's upset at OOP for "victimizing" two poor strangers without their knowledge, but in reality she's disturbed by the sudden realization that she herself may have been or may one day become the unknowing object of such thoughts. Since she can't say as much without implying that she's categorically uncomfortable being around queer women, she reached for any excuse to turn it around on OOP and make herself feel like the good guy.

My physio therapist is very nice and caring, genuinely interested in conversation and helping with my and other people's physical and sometimes even psychological problems. While she was moving my legs using her upper body, it felt quite intimate and I admired her for being so professional while doing her work physically and giving psychological support as a bonus. I'm sure she will notice at times that some people get intimate feelings but she seems to be okay with that, knowing she is helping patients while such things can happen as a side effect.

All to say that feelings are only natural and they can induce thoughts. Why apologize.

> moving my legs using her upper body, it felt quite intimate and I admired her for being so professional

This highlights something that I've been chewing on a lot lately. I'm not sure what you specifically meant by the word "intimate" when you said that, but I do think it's really interesting to distinguish between "intimate" and "sexual", even though they often coincide.

As an example, years ago I was staying with some out-of-town friends after a break-up and they wanted to introduce me to a couple of lovely single women they knew. I hadn't really been taking great care of myself in the fallout of the breakup, so I went and shaved and got cleaned up. While doing my hair, I realized that my eyebrows were pretty unruly and somewhat sheepishly asked my friend's wife if she'd be comfortable taking some tweezers to them and helping me get them cleaned up. It wasn't, even a little bit, a sexual moment but it ended up being incredibly and unexpectedly intimate. We were both pretty surprised by it and ended up getting closer (as friends) afterwards.

What a nice story! Cleaning up eyebrows shows nicely the discrepancy between intimacy (feeling love and care) and erotica (feeling lust?).

The hair grooming in the article probably felt similar.

Thinking about the physio therapy, her upper body felt very warm and soft but it was probably a rather standard technique for firmly moving the joints and ligaments in legs and hips.

What it made most intimate was not just the softness of her body but also the care she took for the movements, knowing that it would help.

So my limbic system went into oxytocin producing mode, which the aware mind easily picks up with warm thoughts. I think that's where the bridge between intimacy and sexual thoughts can happen, but there my thinking was not firmly going into that direction, it just felt warm and comfortable, even a bit emotional.

In your case the feelings apperently came from both directions, it was not a professional/client context after all.

> What it made most intimate was not just the softness of her body but also the care she took for the movements, knowing that it would help.

100% that was a big part of it too for me. It was the care and attention that was going into it, plus the element of trust that goes into giving someone consent to inflict sharp but short-lived pain.

I’d actually be really curious on the physiotherapy side of it whether there is actually a combination of intimacy and professionalism happening on the other side of it. I’ve done physio with people who did not give me warm and fuzzies at all, and with people who, like for you, left me with that nice oxytocin sense of satisfaction. I wonder if the people who left me with that feeling are good at what they do because they have some added degree of empathy or mirror neurons or whatever that makes them feel good when they treat their patients softly and intentionally.

Indeed i think it is a win win between caregiver and patient, which has little to do with financials. One of the feats of the limbic system is promoting emotional resonance which can happen in both directions and does not to have to imply romance.

>While she was moving my legs using her upper body, it felt quite intimate and I admired her for being so professional while doing her work physically and giving psychological support as a bonus.

Have you considered that from her pov, there was nothing intimate about it? I wasn't there to watch it, but in my experience, these situations are only "intimate" or awkward AFTER you start talking about how intimate and awkward there are. For people who have to touch bodies regularly at work (eg. me when I was a gymnastic coach), there is nothing intimate about it. The only ones who think it's sexual/intimate/awkward/weird/etc. are those who have no experience with it.

It's the same thing when you get a medical procedure done. Believe it or not, the nurses and the surgeon do not give a single fuck about seeing your dick. Its not intimate or sexual for them.

For her it probably did not feel intimate indeed. Still giving care can give a sense of emotional connection, with or without physical contact. Like I wrote, what made it most satisfying was the combination of the physio with empathetic conversations.

The apology in that case is more a polite society way of expressing "I appreciate your work, this isn't me taking it as something else".

I somewhat agree you don't need to apologize in that particular case you've outlined; medical professionals, of which that person effectively is, have usually seen it all. But there is a reasonable justification for why someone might choose to throw out an apology there all the same.