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http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/20...news_story5.php
NOW | SEPTEMBER 22 - 28, 2005 | VOL. 25 NO. 4
A boner for Bobo
My teddy gets more action than I do at Cuddle Party
By YEE-GUAN WONG
I attended one last month hosted by locals Cecilia Moorcroft and Barbara Brown. One's a feng shui consultant and the other does psychotherapy and last year they received training in L.A. on how to conduct a cuddle happening without participants getting freaked out.
I brought my friend Bobo to the affection-athon, in a room behind a storefront just southwest of Spadina and Harbord, where a little laneway leading to the door provides the nervous with smoking and pacing space, while the brave walk right in and are greeted by the facilitators.
Inside, people are changing into pyjamas and getting comfortable on mats. After a short wait, we gather into a Welcome Circle (think icebreakers), where the first exercise is having a request for a kiss rejected with an unqualified "no." It's the first of several exercises designed to teach us the rules, including the fact that this is a safe space , a night not for scoring but for initiating and receiving non-sexual intimacy, and that it's okay to say no to anything outside your comfort zone.
Bobo nestles contentedly on my lap while I sit in a circle of eight men and eight women ranging from age 24 to 62. One of these is Grace, a North York customer sales rep who attends with her husband, Dan, because, as she says, people have lost sight of the pleasures of platonic intimacy. These could be physical, like the Cuddle Party, she says, or emotional, the possibility that drew her here.
"Intimacy is about being vulnerable, being honest, being able to expose your inadequacies and intimacies in a safe place. Too many people think intimacy has to be sexual, but it doesn't."
It's painfully clear that in our culture people don't understand friendly intimacy. Arm brushes, smiles and second glances are taboo in our trams. We're not touchy-feely. Not I, not the people I ride with on the 506 streetcar every morning, not the woman who stayed on the sidelines for most of the Cuddle Party.
Because we don't get it, apparently it has to be commoditized. Hence the sliding-scale price tag of $25 to $35 for two and a half hours of rubbing fun. As I soon discover, the key to cuddling fun is the same as oral fun: use the hands, baby, use the hands. If you've ever cooed to a warm tongue lapping at your genitalia, you know that half the fun is in the palms of the hands as they glide around the more sensual parts of your body. Cuddling is the same, except of course for the tongue.
It also helps if you get over your grade-school-dance jitters. When we're told we can start cuddling, I'm brought achingly back to my grade six days when I stood awkwardly to the mellow flow of New Kids, hoping, praying that someone would approach me. Every adult is here to explore boundaries, but most are too scared to smile. In small groups we exchange some painful small talk before tentatively beginning to snuggle.
Before that, however, we discuss the natural but icky subject of arousal, and erections in particular. As Moorcroft says, people are scared to talk about it, so when it comes up (so to speak) at Cuddle Parties, folks don't know how to deal with it.
"There's a fear that [arousal] will happen, that it will be embarrassing and that you won't know what to do about it." But there's plenty you can do, she says, including stepping off the cuddle mat or taking a breather elsewhere. Or, like me, just back your bum away from the spooning to avoid dry humping, a no-no this evening.
Moorcroft points out that there's a negative perception of Cuddle Parties as dumping grounds for horny, lonely losers, and blames this on movies that show too much sex and not enough intimacy. "Watch a movie to see the amount of time it takes for [people] to go from making out to totally naked."
Ryerson prof Antonio Calcagno suggests that the mass media have a habit of muddling the meaning of intimacy. "The media want to be your inner life. They want to affect your mind. TV is so seductive because it's like your consciousness. But at the same time, the intimacy it presents is a fantasy very deceptive but very intimate. So you have a constant tension."
Back at my Cuddle Party, I'm spooning an older woman while giving her a back massage. When I look up, I find Bobo in the clutches of a man at the head of an eight-person spoon line. The little bugger is getting more action than I am.
Nonetheless, my step into Bobo's domain turns out to be the most memorable, pleasurable, non-sexual experience of my life. I came in thinking I'd leave a horny rabbit, but after the party, as I peeled off my pre-cum- stained underwear, I knew there was no need to finish the job.
As I stepped back into the real world and onto Harbord, I experienced the only O of the night, the U of T "O" hanging over the middle of the road.
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"In a world of illusion you only see what you feel"
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