I’ve never revealed this before, but now I feel I have to.
I can’t post to message boards unless I’m dressed as a fox.
Now you know.
A friend of mine who is a dance instructor thinks that part of the reason ballroom dance has experienced a surge in popularity over the past decade or so is that people are not getting enough physical contact. As a dancer, I don’t disagree. That’s one of the reasons I enjoy dancing. Of course, I’m also looking to meet women. I’ll certainly dance with women and men I’m not interested in, or who are otherwise off-limits, but I accept that social dancing is very much a mating ritual.
Cuddle parties (and many furries) strike me as an infantilization of that ritual. Rather than working through normal methods of socialization that lead to emotional and physical intimacy, they try to construct environments in which only nonthreatening contact occurs. It seems like people who go to a cuddle party are either emotionally unwilling to deal with real intimacy or are planning to disregard the “rules.” I’m sure not everyone is emotionally stunted or dishonest, but that’s the impression I get.