Paying for Cuddles Does Not Make You a Loser
What does it say about you that you need to pay someone to cuddle with you?
I get asked this a lot by people who mean well but don't understand what the benefits could be.
I get this question from a lot of people who think they want to be professional cuddlers. They ask this because hey’re conflicted over the idea of offering touch for pay.
I get asked a version of this a lot by people that don't agree with the kind of work that I do. The most eloquent way someone said is was a man that was so disgusted he yelled at me “What kind of sick fuck pays for that?”
(That was not my favorite day in business)
In my mind, many many different things come with the benefit of a trusted person to touch.
And it’s my job to help you learn or discover those things.
Maybe you are a touchy person with your friends and you've noticed they start pulling away and you don't know why, so your touch needs are not being met. You can come to a session and learn how to better bring forward those boundaries around your friends by practicing with me. I’m basically a touch coach that’s willing to be there and teach you, one on one.
Maybe you're going through a really hard time and the only thing you're getting from the people around you is the half-hearted “I'll pray for you.” Or people are too busy with their lives to stop and make time for you. Maybe they did stop for you but now they're not there when you still need them. I’m here for you to stop, slow down, and let you process what you’re dealing with and allowing you to just feel or step away from those things for a little while.
Maybe you have somebody that will listen to reminisce over a problem you’re obsessing over and they’ve finally hit their limit with listening to the story yet again. I can sit down with you, be compassionate with you, see you and witness you as you are.
Maybe you're just busy but find that when you are free none of your friends are. Especially if you want to date, this can be super frustrating. But you feel so disconnected from socializing that when you finally do get to see people you feel awkward. You don't feel like you, you feel like you've been a hermit for a while and that you're not connected to anyone or society at large.
The number of times someone has told me I make them feel human again in a session is amazing. I’ve seen people’s social skills improve smack in the middle of a session.
Maybe you're in a hospital bed. Maybe you're getting your basic needs met as far as food, medicine and comfortable space.But maybe people aren’t physically close to you out of fear they’ll mess up something.
I literally experienced this myself last year when I was recovering from surgery. The moment I asked my mom to put her hand on my head while I was propped up in bed was the most relieving touch I had received in over a week.
It's not wrong to pay for somebody to help you reconnect
We can talk about your need for touch. We can talk about how to ask for what you want in and out of a session. We can learn how to accept a no in a healthy way and practice taking it to mean nothing about you personally. But I teach you how to ask for it so you can have your touch needs fulfilled when I’m not around.
Even if the only actual benefit you get from seeing your cuddler is only able to do that, I honestly think there’s nothing wrong with that. But really, I’m not selling touch to you. That’s just the solution I have for the problem you’re coming to me with, and it’s a solution that’s very effective for a lot of people.
If you're paying a professional cuddler, to me that means that you are trying to find somebody who can create a safe space for you. For those that hate hearing about Safe Spaces™, I prefer to think of it this way: a professional cuddling session is your space where you can be you.
In that space, you don’t feel like you have to put on a mask for everybody else, even the people you feel closest to. It's a place where you can learn to be vulnerable.
You don't have to pretend to have it all figured out. In fact, I assume anyone that comes to me and says there’s nothing wrong with them is lying. No one has everything figured out. I certainly don’t.
As you get more practice with safe and consensual touch with me, maybe you’ll see that you can also get it in other places in your life without me. I'd love to put myself out of a job this way. If I can get my clients to get more of the touch that they want and need in their everyday lives, then I’m happy.
But even if you end up seeing professional cuddlers for the rest of your life, that doesn’t make you a loser. That makes you aware of what you need in your life to do well. That makes you respectful of the fact that it takes a lot of time and energy and invisible skillsets to provide what you need.
And I’m happy to take the time and energy to help you receive that need.