Gimme a hug! (The 'Cuddle Party' is New York's newest feel-good-about-yourself fad)

New York Daily News ^ | July 11, 2004 | GREG BENSINGER

[Area Freeper]

[Happygal]

So why would perfectly normal people pay $30 to cozy up to complete strangers on the floor of another stranger's upper East Side apartment?

Wow, is that all a hooker gets these days?

[bmwcyle]

Then the "Takes a bath once a week" cabby shows up.

[Piquaboy]

Hope that they are not leaving out the homeless because they really need to cuddle.

[xsmommy]

just the thought of this is making my skin crawl!

[Happygal]

Ha! Ha! Ha!

I nearly choked reading that! *LOL*

[toomanygrasshoppers]

Creepy and very sad.

[hometoroost]

"Perfectly normal people" don't pay $30 and hour to cuddle to with strangers.

[Izzy Dunne]

Kerry/Edwards, party of two - your mat is waiting.
Kerry/Edwards, party of two -....

[bmwcyle]

I always like to do the morning coffee back through the nose.

[Shut up and take it]

"To prevent an "orgy from breaking out," Mihalko enforces a set of 16 rules, posted on www.cuddleparty.com and on the walls of his apartment. Rule 1: "Pajamas stay on all the time."

It's only a matter of time, until an orgy does breakout at one of these parties.

[Conspiracy Guy]

What a bunch of losers.

[cyborg]

More metrosexual yuppie CRAP... just when I thought I heard it all with 'speed dating'.

[wildwood]

geez, i thought the headline was referring to the kerry/edwards campaign.

[Conspiracy Guy]

I bet Kerry and Edwards go to these all the time.

[sirchtruth]

Oh my goodness! Wasn't this in an episode of the Seinfeld show? It actually goes beyond the step of wearing name tags so you could say hello to the other person by name.

Why doesn't someone just create hugging booths and charge $30.00 for a hug...

[Conspiracy Guy]

In NYC you'd get rich.

[Esther Ruth]

In no time they will have "professionals" telling us of all the therapeutic effects this has and how the NEA plans to incorporate it into the public schools, then they will have evidence that grades go up because of it, business productivity increases and there will be discrimination of employees who refuse to cuddle with other employers. Which pajamas will be appropriate for the workplace? a whole new area for clothing designers to explore. Sick and sicker!! Dear Lord please help us!!!

[OpusatFR]

""All the cuddlemonsters are coming out of the closet," said Mihalko."

What are they, two years old?

Seriously, though, touch and intimate, sexualized relationships forced on these kids at an early age via tv, radio, music, movies has created people who experienced sex, but not love and affection. Hooking up, aka, slutty, indiscriminate sex does not equal a deep, loving, committed marriage.

Even friendships between men and men, and women and women have been tinged through the media's view with homosexual overtones. Is it possible for these young people to look at two men in a lifelong friendship anymore and not wonder? The idea that everyone is fodder for one's genitals is always presented by Hollywood.

Until these young people relearn respect for themselves and others, the true meaning of intimacy and sexual relations, and the idea that friendship does not equal indiscriminate sex, expect to see more infantile behavior.