My 18 year old daughter told me about some of her friends being involved in “cuddle parties” where people … cuddle, often while dressed in pajamas. Also some of her friends (boy and girl) who aren’t boyfriend-girlfriend, or an exclusive item, get together to cuddle.
In my experience cuddling is often the prelude to things going further, and ultimately wild monkey sex. Is “cuddling” a stand alone end in itself for these kids?
I dunno what kids are doing these days, but it sounds pleasant and cozy 
I see no reason why it couldn’t be an end unto itself, if the kids have access to wild monkey sex (or deep loving intimate sex for that matter) if and when that’s what they want instead.
I read about these last year or so, but not with teenagers - with adults.
Yes, they’re just what your daughter says - if done as advertised. There are even “cuddle facilitators” who will come in at the beginning of the cuddle party and lay down the ground rules: fully clothed (often in flannels, so much more is covered than usual), no groping or sexual contact, ask before you cuddle, speak up if you’re uncomfortable, etc.
They sound fantastic to me, and I’d love to attend a facilitated cuddle party where I trusted everyone to repect the boundaries. But I just worry that some people won’t and it will get uncomfortable. But if she can trust the attendees, I think it would be a great way to get that nurturing touch need we all have fufilled without the complications (emotional or physical) of sex.
I have to agree with Whynot. I think it is a great idea, as long as it is properly facilitated.
In one of the articles I read about Cuddle Parties, I thought that periodically a bell was rung to keep the cuddle-ee’s in check somehow. Not sure. It’s all hazy.
Wouldn’t that make them salivate?
When my daughter (16-17 at the time) told me about this idea I thought she had lost her mind.
She insisted that “everybody” was doing it and their parents were fine with it. I said no they are not get one of them on the phone so I can ask them. She refused but I guess I could have been very surprised. :eek: :eek:
More power to everybody that thinks it’s grand but no way were we going to give our teenage daughter permission to attend a cuddle party…makes me feel like Mr. Cleaver or something, like I’m some stuffy prude…but just no way man!
…no way.
Hey, whaddays know - they have a website!
If there was an SDMB cuddle party who would be the facilitator? What kind of pajamas would you wear? Hell, I’m out of luck I don’t even have pajamas!
via Yahoo groups:
Not if you have much control over an 18-year old, but I’d advise prohibiting it. If they send these announcements out to pervs like me, I could just imagine the types of people who’ll show up.
Um, are you guys all high? Cuddle party with teenage guests…riiiiggghhht. And nothing sexual will happen, just straight, unadulterated cuddling joy. Really, if my daughter told me she was going to a cuddle party every time she said the word “cuddle” my mind would substitute “monkey sex.”
“Daddy, can I go to a cute cuddle party with Jessica and Fran, they do it all the time…”
would be interpreted as
“Daddy, can I go to a hot monkey sex party with Jessica and Fran, they do it all the time…”
Seriously guys.
Doesn’t this sound a lot like how Michael Jackson described his activities at Neverland?
To me it sounds like dating for losers.
:eek: Out of my head! Out!
Wouldn’t the obvious answer be to offer to chaperone? If it’s genuinely a bona fides cuddle party, a chaperone shouldn’t be a problem. If they’re using it as a code word for monkey sex, though, a chaperone might be problematic. So if your daughter doesn’t want you coming along, you know what to say.
Hmm, well to my mind cuddling and sexual contact are like peanut butter and jelly. Good if you’re getting both, but not so good if you have just one all by itself because the very presence of one is going to call attention to the absence of the other. I’m sure others will differ with me on this.
I can’t speak to these parties, but I did have a brief relationship once that only involved cuddling, that pretty much followed the rules set forth in these parties. I thought about sex nearly the whole time. 
I’m skeptical, but I’m sure it’s possible these parties are legit.
What’s the point? There’s only two types of people I “cuddle” with - those that I gave birth to that are still under the age of, I don’t know, 8 maybe, and those I hope to or will have sex with. There are no other types of relationships I have that are intimate enough, IMHO, that induce the desire to “cuddle”.
This sounds like, “Let’s just be friends” gone to the e-x-t-r-e-m-e!
Speaking as a once-teenage boy, if you had put me in a ‘cuddle party’ with a bunch of teenage girls, it either would have gone far past ‘cuddling’ fairly quickly, or I would have been one very uncomfortable teenage boy.
I wonder if this is one of those things that only sounds innocent to the female gender. In the meantime, the boys think it’s a great idea too, but for other reasons.
And frankly, it just sounds creepy to me. A bunch of people all cuddling together just to ‘cuddle’? Pod people, I tells ya. If I walked into a ‘cuddle party’ unawares, I’d probably stop, stare, then back slowly out of the room.
I think our uptight conservatives here may have slightly mistaken ideas about the nature of Cuddle Parties. As I recall from what I noticed a few years back when I was a resident faculty advisor in a college dorm (and no, I didn’t actually participate in any such events with students myself! that’s crossing the line, good clean non-sexual fun or not), the emphasis is very much not on the “oooh, I’m cuddling with somebody of the opposite (or preferred) sex, oooh, but it’s only cuddling (giggle giggle)!!” attitude. Instead, there’s story-reading, there are cookies and hot chocolate, there are games and teddy bears and ghost stories and “My Most Embarrassing Moment” confessions and basic slumber-party silliness.
Most importantly, there are quite a few people present, most of whom are not at all orgy-minded, so it doesn’t seem likely to turn into “hot monkey sex” or anything resembling it. (I don’t know what happens after most guests leave and the lights go down, but then it’s no longer a Cuddle Party.)
It’s true, though, that AFAICT the organizers of such parties try to avoid inviting people who would be apt to use them for clandestine groping or are so horny/uptight/sex-obsessed that they couldn’t simply enjoy a little non-sexual affection and childish fun. (Such people are generally, if unkindly, known as “creeps”.)
Personally, I always thought the idea was rather sweet, and from the impressions I got, most people who attend Cuddle Parties are only too relieved to let go of the burdens of semi-independent college-workload sexually-active young-adult life for a brief while and relapse into temporary cutesy kiddiehood. And that seems to go for the boys as well as the girls.
I seem to remember reading that part of the point of cuddle parties is that so many people are deprived of any physical contact with other human beings beyond bumping into them on the subway or shaking hands. Cuddle parties apparently offer a chance to get something that’s important to some people: physical contact, without having to be emotionally or sexually involved with someone.
That said, I would never be comfortable at one. I don’t like touching or being touched unless I am close to them. Physical affection is one of my weaker points.
Oh, please. Let’s not turn this into an ‘uptight conservatives vs the liberal enlightened’ thing. It has nothing to do with being conservative. If the thread had been about college dorm orgies, I wouldn’t have said a word.
My bafflement comes strictly from once having been a teenage male, and simply not ‘getting’ it. When I was 18, I had absolutely no desire to dress up in pajamas and have cookies and giggle with the girls. I might have accepted an invitation to such an event, but my acceptance probably would have been due to my imagination running away and hoping that it would turn out to be hot monkey sex, and/or because some girl I really liked invited me and I would have simply done what she wanted in hopes that I’d have an opportunity to get her to like me.
I had absolutely no need or desire to be ‘cuddled’ or even touched by people just for the sake of cuddling and touching. Still don’t. It all sounds weird and icky.
Instead of trying to divide the line between conservatives and liberals, maybe the line between “get it/don’t get it” is more along the lines of those who grew up in cold, inhospitable homes vs those of us who got plenty of hugs from our families and just don’t have the need to seek out the same from relative strangers or casual acquaintances. But I’ll bet that’s not even it. Just different personality types. Some people like it, some don’t. My contention is that there’s a pretty large bunch in the middle who are in it for wholly different reasons. Like most teenage boys.
This should be teleporting to GD in Three…two…one…
I think the whole concept is embarrassing and stupid. It’s just another step toward making relationships as nebulous and ill-defined as humanly fucking possible among teens and college students, and it’s creeping upward as twentysomethings attempt to prolong their adolescence.
It’s ridiculous and confusing enough when people in this age group try to make relationships even more ambiguous - “I’m just hooking up with him,” or “we’re seeing each other but not dating,” and so on, because they’re emotional infants who cannot sustain even basic, simple dating relationships that conform to any sense of rules or logic. This is just a lamer way to get the phsyical side of such a relationship with even less investment and commitment.