The big squeeze
Professional cuddling services part of growing movement set to embrace Toronto
Two professional cuddling services, one from Vancouver and one from Montreal, are snuggling up to Toronto.
The B.C.-based Cuddlery and Quebec’s Comfort-Companionship Cuddling, also known as CuddleMe.ca, both offering clients physical contact — that doesn’t include sex — are expanding to Canada’s largest city in the weeks ahead.
“It’s basically an affection-based service provided in the comfort of the client’s home,” said Hasnain Bashir Mirza, a respiratory therapist by day who also runs CuddleMe.ca, which offers 60 minutes of snuggling for $80.
“I see patients every day of my life and they’re so deprived of affection,” said Mirza, explaining his reason for starting the company.
Mirza launched the service on Dec. 22, and has served at least 10 clients since. He’s had inquiries from outside the city, including Toronto, Ottawa, Quebec City and even New York state, and has received more than 200 applicants for cuddling positions from both men and women from a variety of backgrounds and professions: Teachers, firefighters, lawyers, students, bus drivers, stayat-home moms.
Adnana Popovici is the company’s first cuddler. She knew Mirza through a friend, and he approached her because she seemed like a good fit. “I’ve worked with autistic children since 2008,” Popovici said. “It’s part of my job to give cuddles whenever children ask for it.”
Popovici said she’s had six clients to date but declined to say how much money she’s made so far. The business model is definitely “lucrative,” she added.
On the West Coast, Marylen Reid, who previously worked in the law industry, now operates the Cuddlery. Her service is similar to paying for a massage, with the client and cuddler meeting wherever they choose, she said. It could be at the cuddler’s home, the client’s home or a public place.
The clientele is diverse, Reid added. “There are some women who are tired, there are some business people who just want to cry because they’re too proud to do it with friends, and there are some people in a retirement home where their kids paid for them to not be alone at Christmas time,” she said.
Services start at $35 for 30 minutes of cuddles, with higher prices for options such as skin-to-skin snuggling — “where the men and women wear shorts while the women also wear a short top instead of a full pyjama,” the website reads — and cuddling in crisis, if the client is in a panicked or emotional state.
With her Toronto expansion plans in full swing, Reid said she’s already had about 20 applications for cuddling positions. Wannabe cuddlers have to go through a training process, with Reid as the facilitator, including a question- and scenario-based interview and a cuddle simulation.
Reid hasn’t had formal training. She “perfected” her cuddling technique through research and practice.
The Cuddlery served its first client on Dec. 16, and Reid has received more than 600 inquiries from clients and potential cuddlers since the business launched last month. About 30,000 people have viewed the company website in the past week.
Cuddling services have popped up throughout North America in recent years, such as New York-based the Snuggery and B.C.-based Snuggle Service.
Controversy, however, has often followed, amid concerns these businesses lead to illicit activity under the covers.
Jacqueline Samuel, who opened the Snuggery in 2012, has been accused of being a prostitute. One Wisconsin business, the Snuggle House, shut down in 2013 after being open less than a month. Reports say the company cited harassment from city officials who feared the service was a front for prostitution.
The Cuddlery and CuddleMe.ca both make it clear their services aren’t sexual in nature, but rather about the health benefits of contact with another human being. Cuddling releases “happy hormones,” Mirza said.
Indeed, experts have long hailed the power of touch for releasing the bonding hormone oxytocin, often called the cuddle hormone.
One 2014 study from Universitat Bonn suggests the hormone helps people overcome fear, while 2013 researchers from Stanford University found it alters brain activity in an area tied to a pleasurable “reward” sensation.
Men in particular need to cuddle for a happy relationship, noted one study published in Archives of Sexual Behavior in 2011.
It’s these benefits cuddling advocates emphasize, while steering clear from associations with sex. “There is no nudity or sexual activity in any of our services,” reads a message on the Cuddlery website. “No Coitus,” is written in bold type on CuddleMe.ca’s home page.
“There’s a difference between offering sex as a service and offering cuddling as a support,” Reid said.
One longtime cuddling advocate from Montgomery, Alabama scoffed at its association with sex.
For a decade, Len Daley has been involved with the Cuddle Party, a service that launched in Manhattan back in 2004. The company now hosts group cuddling events in cities around the world, including dozens in Toronto.
Daley became the group’s first “Certified Cuddle Party Facilitator” in 2005, and is currently the service’s executive director, but he’d been organizing cuddle sessions in his psy- chology practice since the 1970s.
“People are very crabby when they don’t get enough bonding,” he said.
He stressed that these types of services show how people can share kindness and compassion in nonsexual ways.
“People find out that touch has been conflated with sex in our culture, but it’s not a true picture. Grandparents, parents . . . all kinds of family know how to have physical contact with one another . . . and keep it non-sexual. It’s not that difficult,” Daley said.
Cuddle parties are a way to practice that, he said. “This experience is a way of training people to avoid sexual harassment and date rape,” he added, since the group sessions train people to set boundaries and respect others — a side benefit to the “natural, healthy high” people feel while cuddling.
But Dave Perry, co-CEO of Investigative Solutions Network Inc., a fullservice private investigations and training organization, has concerns about the new cuddling companies coming to Toronto.
Perry spent almost three decades with the Toronto police force, including stints on the Sex Crimes Unit and Sexual Assault Squad, and said there are risks of sexual assault for both clients and employees with this kind of service.
“When you’re going into people’s homes, you’re taking a lot of the control out of the hands of the company,” he said.
Reid said the Cuddlery has security protocols in place to ensure the safety of her cuddlers and their clients. They are encouraged to meet in a public place and talk on the phone or Skype beforehand.
The cuddler takes a photo of the client’s ID, which is sent to the Cuddlery and also films the session. Once the session is over, the Cuddlery is sent a message verifying all went well.
Mirza said CuddleMe.ca has a legal contract in place for clients, and cuddlers are encouraged to keep their cellphones on them at all times. “So far, we’ve had no issues whatsoever,” he said. “Everyone has been ultra-receptive and kind.”
CuddleMe.ca had its first client on Christmas Day, a man who didn’t have family in the country, and just wanted some companionship. Popovici was the man’s snuggler and said he definitely needed a hug.
“He said this helped (him) more than any psychologist he’d ever been to,” Popovici said.