The floor of Ms. LaVie’s School of Loving Arts, inside the Golden Valley Wellness Center, is spread with cheap blankets and plush pillows. Fifteen pajama-clad students sit in this “cuddle puddle” nodding solemnly as Marcia Baczynski explains that dry humping, or “basically pretty much having sex with your clothes on” is not okay here (Rule Number Seven). Here, we are allowed to press together firmly, but each cuddler must remain still from the waist down; under no circumstances should there be any grinding, gyrating, or pulsing. Pajamas must stay on the whole time (Rule Number One), and there will be No Sex (Rule Number Three). Because this is not your parents’ love-in. This is a cuddle party.
Marcia’s cotton pajama pants are blue with yellow bath ducks. She and Cuddle Party founder Reid Mihalko are serving as “cuddle lifeguards” for Minneapolis’ first-ever cuddle party, the adult eventertainment phenomenon sweeping the nation.( I use this cliché purely for dramatic effect. While cuddle parties are increasingly popular in New York, Los Angeles, and, randomly, Ontario, the nation—as well as its northern neighbor—remains intrigued but largely unswept.) Translation: Two spiffy young cuddling professionals have flown in from New York to put on this thing where a bunch of strangers pay forty-nine dollars each to sit on blankets and touch each other from six to ten o’clock on a Saturday night.
“Can I kiss you?” A curvy woman in her early forties smiles at me.
“No.” I wink and lean forward. “Can I kiss you?”
“You’re good at this.” She giggles and looks at her hands. “I mean, no.”
The purpose of this partnered exercise is twofold: We “cuddle monsters” are honing our rejection skills while practicing being rejected.
“In this room,” Reid announces to the circle, “‘No’ is a complete sentence.” He explains the importance of being able to say “No” without qualifiers or apologies. “It’s very empowering.”
Four people ask me for hugs during the next exercise. I reject each of them with an unqualified, unapologetic “no.” I do feel empowered, but there is no time to bask. It is time to hit the floor.
Fifteen adults crouch on their hands and knees in a tight circle, heads in, butts out, mooing. There is an attractive couple in their early thirties, looking for an “interesting shared experience”(his idea); a P.T.O. mom wanting to explore “positive touch” after encountering some “not-so-positive” touch; a hot-ish twenty-ish guy wanting to “be touched”; a burly couple hoping to “teach him to cuddle” (her idea); and an otherwise eclectic assortment of divorcees, new-age peaceniks, social misfits, and sexual pioneers. Some are lonely, some are curious, and one or two are definitely hoping to get laid. Hips and shoulders pressed firmly against the cuddle monsters to my left and right, I open my mouth and moo.
“Cow tip!” calls Reid from somewhere in the circle. Like dominoes, we collapse into a coordinated heap. “This”—Reid and Marcia exchange smug looks—“is how we trick you into your first cuddle!” It’s true. Lying on our sides, each of us is awkwardly spooning our neighbor. On my left, Barbara and Mike remain curled in their collapsed-cow positions. The cuddle puddle rumbles with murmured conversation:
May I spoon you?
Yes.
May I hold your hand?
Yes.
“May I cuddle you?” Reid’s sexy surfer smile is wider than my face. “No.” Damn, I think, as he walks away. I should have had more wine. Alcohol is not allowed at cuddle parties, but I stopped for a glass of Pinot Grigio on my way to Ms. LaVie’s. I’m not sure how far I’m willing to go for this story; I haven’t yet decided whether lying in the arms of a complete stranger—multiple strangers—is kinky-bold and risqué, or simply sad and icky.
Barbara and Mike are engaged in a complex cuddle-positioning conversation:
So, your bottom fits in the small of my back … while my bottom rests on your stomach … They agree upon a position, and thank one another for being willing to sit up and discuss the matter face to face.
My cuddle buddy is a divorced man in his mid-sixties. “May I rub your head?” he asks. Swallowing hard, I provide the requisite verbal “Yes,” and turn, cross-legged, to face him. There is a small thump as his right hand makes contact with my skull. “Tell me if it’s too much!” he calls, cheerfully scrubbing my head like a bathroom floor.
Within ten minutes, the hot-ish twenty-ish guy is working the knots out of my shoulders while a frustrated young wife uses the arch of my left foot to demonstrate a simple massage technique. My cuddle buddy has just gotten the hang of giving a head rub when something incredible happens. All at once our energies align, and six hands are moving on my body in perfect synchronicity. Every movement; every twist, every thrust, every swirl—in Reid-and-Marcia-speak, I am Blissed. Out.
And then someone burps, and the moment is gone. There are six too many hands touching me; the snack table is calling my name.—Julie Bates
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