Happy Spooning
I recently did a search for someone I went to Junior High School with. We had kept in touch until a couple of years ago when I said something she took wrong and stopped speaking to me.Here's what my search came up with:
If Reid Mihalko is right, nearly all of us are desperate for someone, anyone, even someone we've just met, to hold us, rub our feet, stroke our hair. And because this is about healing, this someone might give us a long, soul-baring kiss. Then, our needs fulfilled, we might venture back into the real world, boasting that we'd been to a cuddle party, the grandest social experiment since the 1970s brought us primal screams and group rebirthings.
If Mihalko is wrong, then the scores of people who've been paying him for the privilege of letting strangers spoon with them are really, really weird.
But let's take the optimistic view. The cuddle party is a six-month-old trend that started in Manhattan and hit Washington recently. It is run by Mihalko and his business partner — two self-proclaimed (that is, uncredentialed) sex and romance coaches.
Perhaps because of his concern that people will confuse cuddle parties with orgies, Mihalko has adopted a kind of kindergarten-teacher language. He calls those attending "cuddle monsters" and calls their praise "cuddlemonials." He signs his Cuddle Party newsletters with phrases like "Happy spooning." He says his parties create a "safe space" that allows people to be "energetically open." He has apostles who attend cuddle party after cuddle party, saying it relieves stress and social anxieties.
It costs $30 to attend a cuddle party; $20 if you take advantage of the Endless Summer Spooning Special and sign up with a friend. There are cuddle party T-shirts and mugs and teddy bears and thongs. Mihalko and Baczynski say they're planning a book and training courses.
OK - my friend from Junior High is not one of the two, um, partners in this business, but she is mentioned in the article. The idea of paying someone for the privilege of pawing cuddling with perfect strangers seems foreign to me. I mean - isn't that what college and bars and dating are for? Someone who has no credentials and bills themself as a sex and romance coach while selling thongs also seems suspect to me. But maybe I'm just old fashioned like that.
Also - what the hell is a "varsity cuddler?"
posted by Legal Quandary at
21:36
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