So it’s impossible for anything done by “consenting adults” to be creepy? What do you base that opinion on?
I agree- well as long as it’s legal too. You can shoose not to do it, you can say it’s not your thang- but as long as it’s legal, adult and consenting, how can it be “creepy”?
I find it absolutely hilarious that on a board most of whose members are beyond warmly tolerant of B & D, S & M, casual ‘hot monkey sex’ with cute stangers, threesomes, and a host of other “between consenting adults” activities, there are so many of you who are squicked out about this.
And self-righteously prudish about it to boot.
I can imagine people at a hip-hop dance being pressured into dancing, and once dancing, being pressured into bumping booties when it isn’t what they really wanted.
I can imagine people in a singles bar being pressured into drinking alcoholic beverages, and once drinking, being pressured into getting kind of drunk when it isn’t really what they wanted.
And how about those people who go on dates!! :eek:
Sorry, Mangetout, but do you have any idea how silly this sounds to me? Eeeek, cuddling party, what if they get in over their heads and find themselves caressed before they were ready!!?
I kind of have that same personal reaction about S & M and B & D and other eroticized power-over stuff that people do, but I don’t tell people who have their own private toy handcuffs and silk scarves for bedpost-tying that they are incredibly creepy, nor I do harbor the notion that my tastes are somehow objectively natural and folks who like the little tasseled whips are ‘creepy creepy CREEPY’.
You’re being puritanical.
Not to pick on you personally, you were just conveniently quotable. You seem to be in good (prim, shocked) company in here.
The only way I could see this idea really working is with a boatload of ecstasy. Otherwise, people would either not get into it, or it would become sexual.
I agree, not harmful or immoral…just sad.
When I was doing the online dating thing I ran into a guy who invited me to a cuddle party.
I declined to go because I am NOT a touchy-feely person with strangers. I don’t even like shaking hands if I can avoid it, honestly.
I later ran across the same guy posting a message on a forum on that dating site saying (in these exact words): “Okay, let’s cut the crap. I need to get laid!”.
I could see some women going to these things because they really do want to cuddle/be cuddled, but I seriously doubt that most of the guys are there just for cuddles. I’m guessing they’re hoping to be able to escalate things into a sexual situation outside of the party at the very least. So, for that reason alone, I think the idea is a bit icky.
When a guy (outside of a platonic friend, brother, etc) says "how yew doin? 
"- they’re hoping to be able to escalate things into a sexual situation.
When a guy asks you out for coffee- they’re hoping to be able to escalate things into a sexual situation.
When a guy asks you to a movie, dinner, or a walk on the beach- they’re hoping to be able to escalate things into a sexual situation.
No shit- when a guy asks you to a cuddle party- they’re hoping to be able to escalate things into a sexual situation- unless the cuddle party is enough “sexual situation” for them, that is.
Newsflash- guys want to have “sexual situations” with girls. If you think that’s “icky” I feel sorry for you, as indeed- girls want to have “sexual situations” with guys too.
Why did you quote me and then not answer my question? Larry Borgia acted as though it were impossible for something that is practiced by consenting adults to be creepy. I asked why. If you have some insight, you’re welcome to share it. I don’t know what you think you’re accomplishing by reversing the question and redirecting it back at me, but you’re certainly not answering my question, which makes your contribution here not particularly useful.
That’s funny. I was thinking how refreshing it was to see the SDMB - a group that generally embraces every sort of “alternative lifestyle” and unusual practice - actually recognize something like this as weird rather than immediately leaping to the absurd pretense that anything anyone likes to do anywhere is equally okay. It was a pleasant surprise to see that the (eminently reasonable) acceptance of, say, BDSM or alternative religion doesn’t extend to pretending that every social activity conceivable is equally valid.
No, I’m not. I’m not being remotely “puritanical”. “Puritanical” would be claiming that cuddle parties are disgusting and should be outlawed. I’ve simply pointed out that they’re creepy - I haven’t expressed any desire to prevent people from having cuddle parties, fondue parties, Host A Murder parties, bachelorette parties, or Communist Parties. Your ridiculous use of the word “puritanical” almost seems like an effort to imply that I called for cuddle parties to be stopped. But I have not. I merely pointed out that they are creepy. They’re creepy for all the reasons pointed out so far in the thread, starting with the OP.
It’s creepy for a group of people to decide to sublimate their emotional needs for contact with other humans into an organized attempt to fake it by spooning with strangers. The basic human need for contact with others is a powerful aspect of the human psyche; it drives people to develop friendships and romantic relationships with others. The essence of the cuddle party is to try to create a facsimile of human contact among complete strangers, substituting the inappropriate intimacy of desperate people for the true intimacy that develops among friends and partners.
Have you ever taken a psychology class? I’ve only taken a couple, but one of the experiments that I believe is routinely cited in introductory psychology classes was performed on infant monkeys. Forgive me any errors - I’m doing this from memory, since, like I said, I have pretty limited knowledge of the field. This experiment involved raising baby monkeys in cages, apart from contact with other monkeys. Instead, they had for company a “wire mother” - a monkey constructed of wire - with bottles mounted in its “chest” so the infant monkeys could nurse from it. They also had a “terry cloth mother”, a monkey made from soft fabric but without “nipples” to feed the infants. Invariably, though, the infant monkeys developed some sort of emotional bond with the terry cloth mothers, rather than with the wire mothers, even though the wire mothers provided their food.
People cuddling with strangers at cuddle parties are like infant monkeys pretending that wads of terry cloth are their mothers. I’ve always found the idea of that experiment disturbing and upsetting - experimenting with denying infants any contact with others upsets me. And the idea of a monkey settling for hugging an inert lump of cloth because it has no other choices is simply heart-rending. The difference is that those attending cuddle parties have not been locked into cages by heartless psychologists - they simply lack the social wherewithall to find others for genuine, meaningful contact on an emotional level. Is it any surprise that people apparently (per the rules cited above) break down into tears at these events? The thought of so many people settling for pretending that a stranger is actually a friend rather than actually having friends upsets and saddens me - I feel, reading about this sort of thing, much the same way as I did in my high school psychology class when I read about the baby monkeys.
That’s why I find it creepy. I don’t think it should be outlawed. I’m not puritanical. (I don’t find the thought of an orgy disturbing at all - after all, sex is a physical need, and having sex with other people is how you fulfill that need.) But substituting an artificial pretense of interpersonal intimacy for the real thing? It bothers me.
Frankly, I could also do without the implication (again, per the rules cited above) that “society” is what’s stopping people from randomly sitting on strangers’ laps and caressing them. Those are ordinary facts about how humans work as social animals; the fact that some people are so driven by their desperation for human contact to violate those boundaries does not indicate that they have achieved some sort of enlightened state of throwing off society’s shackles. This whole thing is about legitimizing a practice that is, fundamentally, the symptom of serious personal issues. I find that creepy and disturbing.
I saw a cuddle party being depicted on a TV show once. (I think it was Vegas.)
On the show, all the girls at the party were big breasted lingerie models and there were about six girls to every one guy.
Now, THAT cuddle party I wouldn’t object going to at all.
However, your run of the mill cuddle party? No thanks.
Anyone else picture this practice going over real well with the furry crowd?
I’m gonna have to go with creepy. It’s not the actual idea of a cuddle party itself – if people at a party just spontaneously started cuddling, or a group of friends starting having cuddle parties, I wouldn’t find that creepy at all. But strangers gathering for the sole purpose of cuddling other strangers just seems weird and depressing. It comes across as desperate.
Already has been on an epi of CSI.
Astonishing.
I know people who go on dates. They dress attractively and otherwise groom themselves to look appealing. They go to venues or events where the likelihood of proximity and time combining with innate sexual appetite to create mutual sexual interest is pretty high, yes? Are they “sublimating their sexual and emotional needs for contact with other humans into a heavily scripted attempt to fake it by putting themselves in sexually provocative situations”? Or are they meeting their sexual and emotional needs?
Can you explain what role the words “facsimile” and “inappropriate” and “desperate” and “true” are performing here? Try this version instead:
The essence of the cuddle party is to try to create human contact among complete strangers, providing an environment extremely conducive for fostering the intimacy that develops among friends and partners.
It’s no more phony than dancing. Cuddling works on people emotionally to make them more receptive to feeling comfortable and connected, more likely to be open to trust forming. Also, while the purpose of cuddling is not to elicit a state of profound sexual arousal (or of emotional romantic interest for that matter), it, like dancing, does indeed create a context where sexual attraction can thrive. Unlike dancing or the bar scene or lots of other such venues, cuddling lets people experience sexual flirtation in an emotionally warm soft and affectionate climate instead of a hard cool and often adversarial one.
You seem to find it contrived and artificial. Compared to what?
Your objections make no sense to me. They are analogous to saying “Your cooking and preparing of food for your guests is a deliberate attempt to substitute phony and mechanical substitutes for the real experience of being cared for and nurtured. Studies have shown that people who are fed feel cared for and nurtured by those who feed them.” (Would you be creeped out by “Gourmet Dining” clubs where members take turns cooking for each other — feeding or being fed by total strangers who would not otherwise have ended up in each other’s homes?)
Oh, and re: total strangers, I would assume that the same people keep going back to these things. They cuddle with and get to know the other regulars. After awhile they aren’t total strangers, yes?
Do you always answer a question with an unrelated question?
I don’t know if thinking an activity (between consenting adults) is creepy is incompatible with agreeing that people ought to be able to conduct said activity if they desire. There are plenty of activities a typical person might find completely distasteful, a little psychologically off, or have some other opinion about. As long as they are not trying to outlaw this behavior, it is just an opinion. We all have them, and this would be a pretty boring world (not to mention a pointless message board), if we all sat around agreeing with each other and patting ourselves on the back for being so darn broadminded that nothing anyone ever does seems a little bit, well…odd, and maybe a tad bit unhealthy as well.
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.
Why does the top of my fridge always get so dusty?
I’ve been to dances. They may be “normal” in the statistical sense but they are as contrived, scripted, and ritualized as anything you could find. And far less conducive to conversation (due to the volume at which the music is played) than many alternatives.
Of furries I cannot speak. 99% of what I know about furries I learned from this board.
Yeah, they’re every bit as staged as a cuddle party. Down to having a Dance Lifeguard on Duty and a Dance Caddy.
Oh, wait.
You know, before I climb any further out on this limb I seem to be on, I should mention that I’ve never been to a cuddle party. I just find that I have an instantaneous positive response to the idea. It’s entirely possible that I would find some aspect of the real thing unpleasant or uncomfortable were I to go to one.
But all the things complained about seem to describe things as I would want them to be, so I suspect I’m not very far off.