Given human nature, the concept of spending three hours on a Sunday spooning complete strangers somehow appears not only perverse, but contradictory.
Check this out, dear reader, and, just to augment your understandable sense of disbelief, this as well.…
Article comments
26 - boomcrashbaby
I'm not inflamed. There are many creams for that.
27 - Chris Kent
I realize, but you just know that someday, during one of these cuddle sessions or "puppy piles," some flatulent bastard is going to cut one mean mother, and then -- believe you me -- all assembled will witness true human nature in all its glory. The whole facade of MiHALKO's lovefests will crumble.
This, I believe, is when the "Cuddle Lifeguard" should come into play. If flatulence ruins a Cuddle Session, then the "Cuddle Lifeguard" should charge them double. At the very least, post a sign firmly but tactfully stating "Flatulence is Forbidden!"
28 - Dawn
Cuddle parties? That sounds particularly "fruity" to me and a solid way for right smack down on someone.
I am in no way cuddling ANYFRICKINBODY I don't know unless they are under the age of 1.
Got it? GOOD!
29 - Rodney Welch
So you only believe in cuddling with the completely helpless?
30 - Mark Edward Manning
Chris Kent: "At the very least, post a sign firmly but tactfully stating 'Flatulence is Forbidden!'"
Now that's an idea, Chris. Well, hey, perhaps for the shy cuddlemonsters in the group, they would rather have their butts do the talking. Hell, it's probably the only way some of the cuckoos attending these fetes have of fully expressing themselves. If you're going to lose one inhibition in front of total strangers, you may as well go the whole hog and lose another.
But I'm still trying to figure out what they mean, in the rules, by "clean up after yourselves." What the hell? I thought there wasn't supposed to be any sexual activity?! Perhaps it refers to a flatulence problem that's rather ... er, messy in nature.
31 - Chris Kent
National Lampoon's Cuddle Session
32 - Mark Edward Manning
You never know, it may just knock Fahrenheit 9/11 out of the number 1 position!
33 - Sally
I gotta agree with Mark here. If you need to cuddle so bad go get a dog or a cat. Something about spending $30 to cuddle with someone you've never met just rubs me the wrong way... pardon the pun.
34 - Dawn
Babies aren't helpless, they are inherently cuddly and deserving of cuddles, lonely adults on the other hand who seek out cuddles from strangers and are willing to pay for it is absolutely the first sign of Armageddon.
35 - Rodney Welch
Wrong on both counts, Dawn. As you know, babies are helpless. As you also no doubt know, lonely adults paying someone to touch them is less a sign of the end of time than it is the beginning of time; this is why we refer to prostitution as the world's oldest profession.
36 - Bob A. Booey
The only reason these people would have to cuddle strangers if they were on Ecstasy.
Way to talk tough there, Mark and Dawn. Bash them fruits. Babies good, fruits bad. If people knew how to form positive, healthy attachments with their babies people wouldn't need things like "cuddle parties" at all.
I think the story is symptomatic of a culture where people are more and more alone and disconnected from traditional bonds to family, religion, and civic groups. Robert Putnam and others have written about this increasing atomism of civil society, but the point is that people feel more and more alone. We're also increasingly angry, rageful, and consumed by infantile obsessions and undefined needs that go unfulfilled with the increasing deterioration and dissolution of marriages, family life, group identity, and meaningful vocation. I can't relate to the kind of person who would want this kind of attention to fill the void, but I agree with Boom and Olsen that they should be allowed to have "single-serving intimacy" in a way that prostitution or sex couldn't provide. It's sad and childish, but so is our culture and it's equally immature to mock people who lack something so fundamental, basic attachment to other human beings.
Sure, I bet a bunch of them are just drugged-out hippies, but let the fruits be fruity. They're not hurting all of you and your loving, ever-so-loved lives (I'm sure), right? Right.
That is all.
37 - Bob A. Booey
The Ecstasy comment was a joke, but it made no sense since I typed it wrong. What I meant to say is that the only way most people would feel comfortable being cuddled by strangers is if they were on E. I strongly doubt, however, that most of the "cuddle partiers" are clubheads or even know what E stands for.
That is all.
38 - Bob A. Booey
Oh, and cuddling is a trap.
Hit it and quit it. Know what I'm sayin?
That is all.
39 - JB Scout
Wow a lot of conservitaves not comfterble with their sexuality here..I mean honestly whats the big deal? don't like it don't do it I always say but hey it doesn't sound as bad as you'd think and I bet it's a freeing expirence..also they have strict rules on what is allowed and what is not so you people really need to lighten up
P.S - only a homophobe who is not comterble with their own sexuality would call it fruity
40 - Rodney Welch
Agreed, but maybe you should get a little more "comterble" with the English language before delivering a lecture.
41 - barnstable
How many of the guys who are creeped by this idea either have or would be perfectly okay with joining a sports team that required them to grab, hold, tackle, and otherwise get physical with a bunch of strange men?
Yes, the two situations are different, but not as much as it may seem. Fulfilling the need for physicality is okay if the physicality is violent or combative, but not if it is sensual.
I ask this because this is true for me, and I'm asking myself why.
42 - Bob A. Booey
That's hot, Barnstable.
43 - Dew
You mean I could have been getting PAID for this? LEGALLY?
Dangit!
44 - Duane
Mark is not saying that cuddlers don't have the right to cuddle. He's just saying that it's weird. Cut the guy some slack.
Barnstable, there is a big difference between trying to ram your helmet into Biff McGursky's solar plexus and spooning with a 42-year-old would-be mom by the name of Willow who works at an art supplies outlet and lives in a walkup with a cat by the name of Whiskers.
I realize that a lot of you think Californians are weird and fruity, and that they would be just the type to engage in this sort of thing. There's some truth to that stereotype. But I must say that, since we're close to that kind of thing, there is a staunch anti-huggers movement here.
Yes, cuddlers are no more than a 21st Century version of a hugger. Most of you know the type, especially if you are familiar wih the term "warm fuzzy." In the days of my youth, when I was told what it means to be a Christian, I encountered huggers on a regular basis, not to mention the requisite hand-holding with strangers of the same sexual persuasion. It's hard to pin down their personalities without writing an essay. In short, they appear to be too happy. As in a naive, ignorant happiness. Like they don't know there is badness in the world.
My guess is that it's the hugger type (think Al Franken's takeoff on Stuart Smalley) that will go to cuddle parties, not your desperate-for-affection type. Yuk.
45 - barnstable
Duane, you said,
"Barnstable, there is a big difference between trying to ram your helmet into Biff McGursky's solar plexus and spooning with a 42-year-old would-be mom by the name of Willow who works at an art supplies outlet and lives in a walkup with a cat by the name of Whiskers."
Which is funny and well-written, but uninformative. You simply state that there's a big difference: well, what is it? Is it in the impulse, the payoff, the implied morality or immorality, or what?
For my part, I could say that even though the method of getting there varies, both groups spend a lot of time in puppy piles, huddles, and grab-assing. So it seems okay, even desirable, to put a body onto another guy, just as long as you also get to slug him occasionally.
Personally, I get a kick out of contact sports, wear the odd black eye with pride, tend to avoid the butt-slapping thing, and don't see any more pathos in someone who wants to squeeze a willing and pleasant stranger on a futon than in someone who wants to drive their hip into my gut and elbow me in the nose while driving the lane.
That being said, feel free to be "creeped out" by the former folk; I'd just think twice about ascribing their desire to some defect in their personality. That's demeaning, and really beyond your ken unless you are a shrink or a psychic.
46 - Mark Edward Manning
The whole thing about butt-slapping and hugs in sports (not necessarily contact sports as there is plenty of this in baseball as well) is that it is, for whatever psychological reason, a male-bonding thing. It is an expression of solidarity, not homoeroticism, though it's hard for anyone who doesn't watch or partake in sports to tell the difference.
That is completely different to those who would spend $30 to cuddle strangers. I just find that off-the-wall. If people are into that, fine, just don't bash me for not desiring that. I don't care how lonely I was - and I'm not lonely; I have a loving wife - I would not resort to "cuddle parties." Not only are these people, to use my favorite word, "fruity," but they're getting gyped. Although, as I've already stated, I admire REiD MiHALKO's entrepreneurship. More power to him.
And, Duane: thank you. It's OK. People are constantly reading things into my entries that aren't there. It's a favorite activity among some of my readership - especially those IDIOTS that wrongly accuse me of homophobia - and if they'd rather pick my words out of context or imagine words that I didn't write rather than play Solitaire to fill up their free time, then bully for them.
47 - Duane
Well, barnstable, I guess there are a couple of different issues on the table: (1) violent physical contact vs. cuddling and (2) butt-slapping-type behavior vs. cuddling.
Let's take football as our example. Although I doubt that many players would think of it this way, football is about territory -- taking it and defending it. That is a very attractive endeavor for men, since it appeals to their forebrain. It is a sanitized version of war, which is also about territory. Players use physical means to acquire territory. The satisfaction one might feel by displaying superior physical prowess is secondary to the overall goal -- territory -- which provides the ultimate satisfaction. Many games in which the male ego is at stake involve territory -- take chess, for example. Then there's Monopoly, Risk, checkers, Go, baseball (round those bases), basketball, hockey, etc. There are also games that seem to appeal to some different instinct -- poker, for example. But I digress.
Anyway, back to football. Tackling, especially if applying excessive force, is the civilized version of killing those who would encroach upon your territory, or try to prevent you from encroaching on theirs. Violent tackling is a form of psychological warfare, with the aim of damaging the will of the opponent. Quarterback sacks are a nice example of this.
The physical aspects of football, at least when the clock is running, have nothing to do with affection and closeness. Agreed?
As far as butt-slapping and hugging and whatnot, I can't add much to what Mark wrote in #46. It could just be another brand of psychological warfare. You show the "enemy" your esprit de corps. The more blatant and prominent it is, the bigger effect it has on the opposition. It's all battlefield tactics. Again, I see little resemblance between this and cuddling.
48 - Eric Olsen
aggressive territorial cuddling - it's next, entrepreneurs take note
49 - Duane
Too late, Eric. That's called dating.
50 - Eric Olsen
I guess there's nothing new under the sun!
51 - Doc Clay
I grew up as a non-toucher. My earliest exposures to communal touching were
T-groups (training groups, or encounter groups), a movement of the sixties,
followed by a TA (transactional analysis) group in the seventies, then
Esalen-style massage groups in the eighties. One of the most important
things I got from them was the ability to touch and be touched, without
which I might never have found my way to becoming a massage therapist.
There is something very helpful about being in a group
where certain behaviors are not only permitted but expected,
and there is a layer of protection that prevents
orgiastic degeneration.
Haven't tried a cuddle party, but if somebody around here invites me to one -- hey, why not?
52 - Eric Olsen
that seems a very reasonable prespective Doc, thanks
53 - barnstable
Duane, thanks for the reply. I think I haven't expressed myself well here, because I'm reading from you an answer to a question I didn't mean to ask. I can certainly see the "kinetic" difference between contact sports and cuddling--no argument there, as my various occasional weekend contusions can attest.
Where I see less distinction is in both activities using physical contact with strangers to fulfill psychological (and perhaps physiological) needs. You put it well that football with strangers fulfills the socialized man's need to stake and defend territory, as well as to win it back from others. By the same token, cuddling with strangers can fulfill the socially isolated man's need to feel accepted, nurtured, and desired.
As before, you are perfectly free to favor one of these activities over the other. I just think that there is no call or logic (or indeed need) to characterize one population's preferences as derived from some mental or emotional aberration. Especially since you can make an equally convincing case for either side.
Now, having thrashed the horse unto death, I will climb down from the soap box. Dead-horse beating--there's an aberrant pastime...
54 - boris
Hi there in north america. If i may comment on the ongoing "debate" from germany: it´s amazing how passionate those who trash cuddling are fighting for the right to hate and abhorr everybody who favors or endorses it. i rather agree with "JB"s comment that there are obviously a few rednecks here who entertain an uneasyness with non-straight activities whatsoever. more interesting, though, is the urge exhibited here to make public confessions about one´s sexuality and combine them with a kind of hate speech against those who don´t share those unasked-for confessions (cuddle fans are "garbage" etc.). is sexuality really about who you are? seems a ot of people gain a lot here from labelling themselves as non-cuddlers. that´s very weird (perverse if you like), but o.k. after all. just don´t join the "sexuality police".