Over the past 3 years, I’ve facilitated a monthly event for consensual, platonic touch called Cuddle Sanctuary. Every second Sunday, I’ve guided attendees to identify their desires, ask directly for what they want, practice ongoing consent, and honor their boundaries, while getting their basic human need for touch met in a community environment. This event has been one small part of building a culture in which touch and connection are made accessible beyond the narrow scope of sexual and romantic relationships. In the United States, conflating physical intimacy with sexual intimacy is the norm, as well as the idea that cuddling (or any form of close, prolonged touch) is a precursor to sex and a sign of romantic interest. For many people, this makes touch feel like it comes with unwanted expectations, if they can access it at all.
The fact that cuddling is largely unavailable to people who aren’t in romantic relationships is a significant problem, because we all need touch for our psychological well-being. We’re an inherently social species, and touch is a form of nonverbal socializing that creates a sense of connection, care, and belonging. It’s well documented that cuddling releases the stress-reducing and pain-relieving hormone oxytocin (“the love drug”), creating feelings of relaxation and even bliss. When done in alignment with our genuine desires and boundaries, cuddling can be a way of co-regulating our nervous systems with other people, generating a sense of safety and openness to each other that makes connection feel easier. This has been my experience over and over again, in my personal and professional life.
My entry into this work began in 2018, when I was trained as a professional cuddler with a company called Cuddlist to provide one-on-one therapeutic cuddle sessions. I had already been through a lot of training on consent, boundaries, and other relationship skills, but the Cuddlist training enriched my knowledge and added a trauma-informed lens that emphasized the role of agency and acceptance as a way of countering the shame that clients might feel. So many people were taught in childhood that there’s something wrong with asing for what they want, because they were routinely dismissed, ignored, shamed, or even punished for asking. We’ve been told in lots of contexts that our desires are stupid or socially unacceptable, and that there will be social repercussions for openly expressing them.
Part of my job as a professional cuddler was to reassure clients that they can express desire for nearly any kind of cuddling or touch that they’d like (as long as it doesn’t violate the platonic touch agreement we made in advance), and that I will never judge or shame them for having those desires, even if I say “no” to meeting them. It was important to emphasize that I will always take care of myself by voicing my boundaries and being responsible for my own consent, so my clients don’t have to take any responsibility for anticipating my needs, or limit their requests based on guessing what I will or won’t be comfortable with. The sessions are centered around creating safe space for them to learn to connect with their touch needs and desires (that may have been suppressed since childhood) and to directly ask for what they want without fear of punishment.
During our one-on-one sessions, people had the opportunity to be silly, childlike, silent, change their mind over and over again, voice discomfort, feel cared for, work through difficult emotions, or just have someone to talk to. I loved connecting with those people so much, because I could see that I was providing them with nourishing experiences that they really needed. The seasons were often mutually enjoyable, and I left a lot of them with a sense of comfort, purpose, and gratitude myself. I had one client who came to me because his therapist recommended touch as a treatment for his combat-related PTSD, and he told me that he felt our cuddling helped with his anxiety. Another booked me on the anniversary of his former wife’s death, so that he could openly grieve in the presence of another person who was showing care toward him. I felt that I’d finally found a form of work that was meaningful, well-paid, and accessible to me as a disabled person, which was a relief after so many years of working in the restaurant industry.
Unfortunately, I found over time that providing one-on-one sessions wasn’t sustainable for me, because of how often men made inquiries about my services with the expectation that I would provide them with sex. It was made very clear before a potential client could even book with me that the cuddle sessions were completely platonic, and they even had to sign an agreement that they wouldn’t intentionally behave in a sexual manner toward me before, during, or after our session. But, that didn’t stop a lot of men from trying to blur the lines and basically receive sex work at extremely cheap rates for that kind of service. I suspect that many of them assumed “professional cuddling” was a front for prostitution, because selling in-person sex is illegal in the U.S. (which only made my job harder). Fielding so many overt and covert sexual advances, and the disrespect for my clearly stated limits, wore on me, and eventually I stopped providing private, one-on-on sessions.
However, I continued to go to Cuddle Parties, which were group spaces, also organized by Cuddlist, for people to practice consent, directly communicate their desires, learn to navigate rejection, and get some of their touch needs met. I also learned how to facilitate them from one of the organizers in Michigan, which led to the creation of what is now Cuddle Sanctuary. During the first few years of COVID, there weren’t any Cuddle Parties happening in the area (understandably). In 2023, I decided to create something like Cuddle Party, because I knew how much people needed access to the touch, community, and communication skills that the event provided. So, here we are, three years later, and it’s been an incredible experience to co-create the healing space that Cuddle Sanctuary became with everyone who’s attended. People made friends there, worked through trauma reactions, developed more confidence with consent and boundaries, learned about their desires, and had deep conversations with each other about pretty much every topic you can imagine.
With that said, I’ve recently decided to end my role as the facilitator of Cuddle Sanctuary, so that I can divert my attention elsewhere. So, I am looking for someone in the Metro Detroit area who would like to take over the event and continue a relationship with the same venue (Center Peace Healing in Troy). Contact me via email, if you’re interested in taking that one, and we can explore the possibility together (junowayward@gmail.com). My last facilitation of Cuddle Sanctuary (and possibly the last Cuddle Sanctuary in Metro Detroit for a while) will be on Sunday, July 12th, from 3pm-6:30pm. If you’d like to attend, you can buy a ticket here. Space is limited, so this event is capped at 15 people, so get your ticket soon.
Whether or not the particular version of Cuddle Sanctuary that I created continues in this area, I would like more events like it to proliferate in the world. A couple of months ago, I posted a video on IG and TikTok about the fact that a lot of men refuse to cuddle with each other, which is a huge barrier to them getting their touch needs met. In response, so many viewers asked me how they could organize a cuddle event in their area, which is so fucking cool! I love that people want to do this, because the world sorely needs it! So, I’m going to tell you what I know. Take what you want and make it work for you.
Organize Your Own Group Cuddle Event
Logistics
First, find a comfortable, clean space to host it in that can fit at least 10 people who will all be laying down at times. Ideally, the floor should have some form of soft padding, like thick carpeting, blankets, maybe roll-out or blow-up mattresses, and lots of cushions/pillows. If you can’t provide all of the blankets and pillows yourself, you can always ask attendees to bring some to share (or that they just use for themselves). Inform attendees in advance that they should come clean, and in clean clothes, without wearing anything heavily scented.
Provide stuffed animals and other kinds of stim toys for your participants. It helps to invoke a sense of childlike play into the space, gives nervous people something to do, and is generally helpful to anyone who needs to stim.
My Cuddle Sanctuaries are three and a half hours long. Originally, they were three hours long, but several people requested more time. You can make your event as long as you’d like. Make sure to tell your attendees that they can choose to leave at any time, and for any reason. However, I do recommend letting everyone know that being on time is important (if they’re new), so that they can be part of the opening activities that prepare people for cuddling.
You can make your event private, and only invite who you choose, or you can make it public. Just make sure that you have a way of keeping track of how many people have signed up, so that there aren’t too many people for the space you have available. Your event can be free, donation-based, or require the purchase of a ticket. Decide what makes the most sense for you and your goals.
I’ve found it helpful to pass around an email sign-up sheet at the end of the event, where people can opt in to receiving email updates about future events.
Community Guidelines:
Before your event, decide what kind of guidelines you want people to adhere to, so that you can preserve the platonic, consensual, and respectful nature of the space. Here is what I created for my event (feel free to copy, use, and change any of them): Community Agreements for Cuddle Sanctuary
Cuddle Sanctuary Agenda:
Introduce The Purpose of The Event
Why are you doing this? What are the goals? What can people expect? Feel free to use any of the language in this article that I’ve used to describe the purpose of Cuddle Sanctuary. In my facilitation, I also like to add that it’s an experimental space that people can use however they like. This can mean going at their own pace, touching very minimally (just hands, just feet, just leaning shoulder to shoulder, etc.), or not touching at all! People can decide to use the space to practice saying “no” the entire time or making requests without actually doing anything. Everyone is at choice!\
Participant Intro Round
Everyone shares their name, pronouns (optional), and answers an ice breaker question. This helps people to begin to feel more comfortable, have their voice heard, and get a little info/context about other participants, which is important before experimenting with touch. There are plenty of ideas for ice breaker questions online, if you just type “ice breaker questions”into a search engine.
Go over Community Guidelines
I do this by passing out a handout with all of the guidelines, and then have people take turns reading each one aloud. Then, I ask if anyone has any questions, concerns, or comments about any of them.
The No Round
Next we practice making requests of each other, saying “no,” and hearing “no” by doing two No Rounds. I will explain more about what the No Round is a little further down in this post.
Desire Share Round
Everyone gets a turn to share what they might want to do during open cuddle time. This is a chance for people to express themselves, and also to hear what other people are interested in. It helps to generate ideas, and for people to feel more comfortable when they hear what other people might want. No one has to share, and it’s also okay for people to just say that they don’t know yet.
Open Cuddle Time
Open the floor to cuddling/touching. This is the time when people can approach each other and ask to touch or cuddle. Decide how long you would like this to be open for. I like to facilitate the transition by organizing a group steamroll activity. A steamroll is basically where several people lay straight down on their stomachs and next to each other in a row (close, so that there aren’t gaps between each person). It should basically look like sausages in a tin. Whoever is at one ene of the row rolls over the entire group, and lands at the other end. Then, the next person rolls over the entire group. Keep going, until everyone has had a chance to roll. People are always worried that they will hurt each other, but that’s never happened in my experience. The pressure of having someone roll over your body feels good (even if they have large bodies), and it creates a really silly, fun, and childlike vibe that helps to loosen everyone up.
Closing Circle
10-15 mins for each person to share what their experience was like. They can share what they enjoyed, what they experimented with, what they didn’t like, what was hard for them, and what they’d like to try next time.
The No Round
We practice saying and hearing “no,” so that it eventually feels safer in our bodies to give and receive rejection, and so that we can give more meaningful consent throughout the rest of the event. Our “yes” is not meaningful, if we can’t say “no.” The No Round helps us challenge the idea that rejection is always this horrible thing that’s either happening to us or that we’re doing to someone else. In Cuddle Sanctuary, we’re learning to view rejection as a kind of gift. We’re being given the gift of honesty, clear boundaries, and of other people taking responsibility for themselves. When we can trust that people will say “no” to our requests, we can also trust that they won’t do things that they don’t really want to do just because they’re afraid to say “no” to us. This can help us to feel safer making requests of them.
During the No Round, we sit in a circle, and each person has a turn to make a request of either the person right next to them or anyone else in the circle (you decide which format you want to use). The only rule is that if you receive a request, you must reject it in some way. You can say “no” (period, no explanation), “I don’t want to,” “I’m not into that,” “no thank you,” etc. I always tell participants that I want them to give a hard “no,” meaning they shouldn’t say things like “not right now, but maybe later.” I also tell people to try not to say “sorry” before or after they say “no,” because we want to challenge our automatic tendency to apologize for our boundaries. You can modify this in any way you like, or add things that you think are useful.
There’s an entire zine about No Rounds here, if you’d like to get more indepth information about them.
Gender and Cuddling
Before attending my Cuddle Sanctuaries, a lot of men have emailed me to ask about the ratio of men to women, and if they’ll be paired up with other people. I always tell them that the purpose of the event is to take the risk of asking others to cuddle and to freely choose who you cuddle with and how, so I don’t pair participants up with each other. I don’t control for the gender makeup of the events, so there’s a different ratio of men to women each month. Usually there is a good mix of all genders (including nonbinary people), but a couple times there have been mostly men. If it ends up being mostly men, I do make a statement about how many men in the U.S. are taught not to seek out or share physical intimacy with other men, and that that is part of patriarchy and toxic masculinity that hurts men. I encourage them to experiment with sharing touch with the men there, if they feel safe enough to do so. Regardless of what I say, some men always leave a cuddle event in which there’s a scarcity of women, because they are only willing to share touch with women.
You may want to try organizing a cuddle event that is targeted specifically toward men, so that they can practice working through their discomfort sharing physical intimacy with each other in a platonic space. In fact, I would love it if some of you did that, because I think men really need that kind of practice. I have no idea if an event like that would be successful, how best to promote it, or if enough people would even attend, but it’s worth a shot! It would probably be helpful to reserve some time at the beginning to facilitate a group conversation about the barriers men feel to cuddling with each other, which would also be a good way of helping them to emotionally connect and to possibly feel a little more comfortable touching later.
That’s all I got for now. If you have questions about anything, feel free to reach out via email (NOT via DM or the comment section). Again, my email is junowayward@gmail.com. I wish you all the best in your cuddling endeavors!
this is amazing ! thank u for your generous shares