I don’t know how the modern incarnation started out but back when I was in ~3rd grade or thereabouts, the teenagers & young adults were calling these things “hug-ins”, and some other “-ins” of that ilk. They weren’t as rule-clad as these “cuddle parties” seem to be, and I can pretty much guarantee that they didn’t have “cuddle lifeguards” or “cuddle caddies”. But they sure did hug everyone, male and female alike, strangers and acquaintances and passers-by. They were pretty relaxed and liberated about sex, and no one considered the hugging to be some kind of watered-down substitute, nor were the participants regarded as pathetic needy losers. They were just into love and affection for everyone, including strangers.
To me it’s a response to social conditions. The amount of touching that is considered appropriate in the US is different than India. It would never occur to me to hold hands with a guy or hug when I was a kid. It literally never occurred to me. The parallel activity with a girl was a function of dating. I didn’t come from a huggy/feely family. Holding hands was something I did with my parents when I was 5 and there was a general lack of hugging between fathers/sons in my generation and social structure. It wasn’t necessary in my family to hug (to know you were loved) but I do make a conscious effort to hug my nephews and be tactile with them. They seem to respond to it even though it’s not something I feel compelled to do.
With that said, I think everyone responds to being touched. It’s part of the communication process. It’s not hard to figure out the meaning. I was in a bar the other night when a very sexy woman started chatting me up. The subtle touching of legs and arms was unmistakable in its courtship ritual. One couldn’t help but enjoy such an encounter.
This looks like an organized (contrived?) method of group courtship. It takes on a creepy context in a society that basis a lot of social rules around monogamous relationships. It obviously fills a need to be touched that is lacking in peoples lives. If anyone had watched 20/20 Thursday they even mentioned how women respond to group encounters (like the heard of women in bathrooms). The group primping triggers a euphoric response in the brain.
I would call it creepy from my perspective because it looks like a dress rehearsal for an orgy. Orgies are outside my sphere of social behavior or the behavior of anyone I know.
When I was an exchange student in Mexico, toward the end of the school year, all the exchange students had to go to a big Rotary event, and were put up in a hotel …all the American girls from our city in one hotel room, all the American boys in another. Well, at some point, one of us figured out that the key to the girls’ room opened the door to the boys’ room (not the other way around, oddly), so we invited ourselves in, and we all jumbled up on the bed together, fully clothed, to watch TV. Like a pile of puppies, I swear. It wasn’t sexual. There was no kissing going on.
Oh, my god.
When Mr. Roberto Akachi, head of the exchange student program in the city, found us…he like to have blown a fuse. He yelled and ranted and insulted and snarled. Because it’s Just Not The Done Thing!
No. It really isn’t. But I remember enjoying the feeling of closeness, the comfort of not having to be rigid and proper and fitting in and measuring up, and just being warm and cuddly with my friends for a little while. Cuddle parties sound good to me. I just don’t know any people I could cuddle with that way anymore.
I don’t know why people keep suggesting that because physical contact with other people is pleasant, cuddle parties must be pleasant. Those of us who find this whole idea creepy don’t think it’s creepy because people are touching each other. It’s creepy because people are attending organized events with strangers and facilitators whose sole purpose is cuddling. That’s a strikingly different thing from a group of friends getting in a pile. It’s the difference between those two things that bothers us.
Exactly. Note: I don’t know any people I could cuddle with.
I would not go to a cuddle party and cuddle with strangers. The ick factor is just too high. I might wish a more palatable option existed in my life, but then again, I don’t know any adults, American or otherwise, for whom a non-sexual ‘cuddle’ option exists anyway. Unless they cuddle with chilluns to watch TV or something.
Yeah, well this guy could have been in for a world of trouble - from parents and school authorities - if a bunch of libidinal teens had been found piling together in bed on his watch: as for there being nothing sexual going on, well, mebbe, mebbe not, but I’m remembering back to when I was a horny 17 year old, and I doubt my intentions would have been wholly honourable - at least, they may have started out that way, but the presence of scantily clad prostrate young women - not to mention the intimate proximity of warm, moist, tender young flesh - does things to a guy. Something probably would have come up.
Somehow it all reminds me of debates about nudist/naturalist beaches and camps and whatnot, with some people adamantly insisting “It’s gotta be sexual, I mean you got nekkid people right their with their erogenous zones plainly visible” while others are saying “It isn’t sexual. On pretty short notice you adapt and the absence of clothes stops being a signal for ‘Yeeehaw, sex is about to happen’, and you just experience what it’s like to not be wearing clothes all the time.”
It’s telling that that’s all you’ve gotten out of the many, many thoughtful posts in this thread. I suppose that’s why you said the same thing over and over without any attention to the fact that you were making points that had been thoroughly dealt with much earlier. And failing to respond to what your opponents said - instead inventing strawmen and insulting people by claiming that we were “prudes” and implying that we were uptight even though we actually were spending our time making strong, rational cases for exactly why we thought what we did.
The fact that you’ve summed up this argument as nothing but people repeating the same line back and forth serves quite well as an illustration of your part in it. Sadly, you don’t appear to even have the capacity to recognize that your opponents were engaged in substantive discussion - apparently, you can’t even tell the difference.
But hey, anything that’s not mainstream has to be correct by definition, right, AHunter3?
Quite a number. And like I said, it’s awfully telling that you can’t recognize them. Not only aren’t you capable of substantive debate, but you can’t even recognize it.
You made a point somewhere that wasn’t yet another reiteration of “Cuddle parties are pathetic substitutes for sex” or “Cuddling with total strangers is a pathetic substitute for genuine emotional connection” or “These cuddle parties are weird because of the Guides and Caddies and the 20 pages of rules, and the fact that it’s planned” — all of which are points I have addressed, not ignored?
I’d never heard of such a thing or been to one, but I don’t see anything wrong with it. Sure, it’s not what we’re accustomed to, but I guess that’s part of the point.
Once I went to a meditation thing a few years ago where one of the activities was sitting, staring into a stranger’s eyes for about 10 minutes. It was strange and somewhat uncomfortable but I’ll always remember it – it brought up a lot of interesting questions about what it means to do such a thing, what our boundaries are, why we have them, etc.
You didn’t address any points. The closest you came to addressing any of the numerous points various people made was when you claimed, with no reasoning to support it, that your analogy to casual sex was apt - when a number of reasons had already been offered to explain why it wasn’t. You made an irrelevant comparison, numerous people explained in various ways why it wasn’t relevant, and you said this:
So that’s the extent of your ability to argue. You make a silly analogy, people demolish it, and you come back and say, yeah, my comparison was spot-on. Without any reasoning or evidence to support it.
A close second in the list of AHunter3’s powerful arguments was this:
Oh, okay. So how’s it work? We all explain exactly why cuddle parties are disturbing and creepy, and you say, yeah, but I mean besides that point. I don’t want to talk about that point. So let’s not bring that into the discussion.
Argument tactic number three from AHunter3: calling everyone who disagrees with you a prude and deliberately trying to place us on the defensive. You did that over and over - you see, because in your mind, there’s something wrong with all of us, as demonstrated by the fact that we disagree with you. I let that stuff slide for several pages - I don’t like to argue through sleazy ad hominems, and a quick review of my posts will show exactly how well I stuck with the actual issues under discussion, right up until I finally realized that you weren’t about to start arguing this like an adult. You couldn’t hold your own in an actual discussion of actual issues, so you ignored people’s points and simply waited while people who disagreed with you made argument after argument. You didn’t respond to any of them - apparently, you believe yourself to be in some privileged position that exalts you above the level of people who actually have to justify their beliefs. That, or you simply don’t even know the difference between calling your opponents names and engaging in real discourse.
So, yeah. I’m not seeing where you actually made any substantive points. I can point out dozens of places where you ignored the ones I made, though. That’s it, isn’t it? If you’re not even capable of recognizing an actual argument centered on substantive issues, it’s not very likely that you’ll make one, is it?