(Image source: Cuddle Party)
First there was adult preschool, now there are adult “cuddle parties.”
WCCO reports that a “growing number of people” from the Twin Cities are attending monthly cuddle party meet ups.
Candessa Hadsall, the facilitator for the Minneapolis’ Cuddle Party Chapter, told WCCO that the cuddle parties are “not a dating service” or “a place people come to meet your life partner.”
The participants, however, still experience “affectionate touch.”
According to the website for Nurture Yourself Minneapolis, the cuddle parties create “safe spaces where people feel permission to engage with each other in affectionate, authentic and physically playful ways.”
The cuddle parties start with a “Welcome Circle where participants learn The Rules of Cuddling.”
The “Rules of Cuddling” include wearing pajamas, asking permission before touching someone, and saying “yes” if you mean “yes,” “no” if you mean “no,” and “no” if you mean “maybe.”
The cuddle party website claims the cuddle parties help individuals “[l]earn clear and easy communication skills” and “practice asking for what you want, to practice saying ‘no’ to what you don’t want.”
There are approximately thirty upcoming cuddle parties listed on the cuddle party website.
Although the cuddle party website explicitly states the cuddle parties are non-sexual, one of the upcoming listings is called, “Intro to Energetic Sex.”
The website states the event will “Turn YOUR life into an orgasmic playground that doesn’t have to look anything like “sex”…!” It also “rated PG-PG13/R.”