Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff Mom Never told you. From House top
Speaker 1: works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Kristen and I'm Caroline and Caroline. Today's topic is one
Speaker 1: of those that I did not expect to find as
Speaker 1: much research and in depth investigations on something as simplistic,
Speaker 1: at least seemingly simplistic as cuddling. I know, well, I
Speaker 1: was not surprised. I totally expected that there would be
Speaker 1: plenty of first person accounts or anecdotal stories or even
Speaker 1: think pieces and analysis about who cuddles and why. I
Speaker 1: didn't expect. Similarly, I did not expect the actual amount
Speaker 1: of academic research that's out there. But once I started
Speaker 1: reading about cuddling and thought about all of the different
Speaker 1: variations of cuddling, which I gotta say side note, cuddling
Speaker 1: is like one of those like moist works for me? Yeah,
Speaker 1: could why? But why is that because you're cuddling a verse?
Speaker 1: I'm a verse too, Referring to the act of cuddling
Speaker 1: is cutdling? Does it signify? I think, as my therapist
Speaker 1: would say, Christen, I'm sensing that there's a lot of
Speaker 1: emotion around this. No, I think I just prefer spooning.
Speaker 1: I think I just felt like the sound of cuddling.
Speaker 1: You know, it's similar to how a square is a rahombus,
Speaker 1: but a rambus is not a square. You know, Spooning
Speaker 1: can be cuddling, but cuddling doesn't necessarily equate to spoon
Speaker 1: and spooning doesn't sound quite as much like the word curdling.
Speaker 1: So I think that's I think that's what's going on
Speaker 1: in my brain. You're also right there, yes, because when
Speaker 1: I think of cuddling, I automatically think of like cottage
Speaker 1: cheese cuddling. I think of care bears. I don't know why.
Speaker 1: I literally like, I've never had what I just said
Speaker 1: to you out loud. I've never had that concrete thought,
Speaker 1: but I was like cuddling, Yeah, I just I think
Speaker 1: of the care bears on their little clouds. That's what
Speaker 1: I think of. We are really unpacking some deep stuff
Speaker 1: already in this Why am I paying for therapy cottage cheese,
Speaker 1: care bears? This is incredible? Um, But thinking though about
Speaker 1: all these variations of cuddling, snugging, snugging, snugg e ng
Speaker 1: when you put on a snuggie then you cuddle someone,
Speaker 1: or snuggling as most people call it um. Then there's spooning,
Speaker 1: all these you know, this kind of intimate close contact
Speaker 1: that might seem like frivolous behavior to explore, but there
Speaker 1: really is a lot of gendered hang ups with it.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of evolutionary theory behind cuddling um. There
Speaker 1: are lots of social rules around cuddling and new developments
Speaker 1: in the world of cuddling today. Can't wait, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: can't wait to get into the there there's a lot.
Speaker 1: I mean, whether you listeners, whether you are pro cuddling
Speaker 1: or anti cuddling, there's something in here for everyone. What
Speaker 1: a divide, I know, I hope this is not too
Speaker 1: controversial for people. Well, it's it's related to the are
Speaker 1: you a hugger or not question? Because some people not
Speaker 1: so much huggers, other people all about the hug, always
Speaker 1: going to go straight in for the hug. Sure, And
Speaker 1: I do find that that relates to the larger personality.
Speaker 1: I mean, if I don't consider myself a hugger, but
Speaker 1: there are people that I enjoy hugging, saying with cuddling.
Speaker 1: I never really considered myself much of a cuddler, and
Speaker 1: still until I started dating boyfriend dog. Yeah. I consider
Speaker 1: myself a hearty handshaker. We'll see. I'm anxious all the
Speaker 1: time and my palms get sweaty. I hate handshaking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't mind a good hug every now
Speaker 1: and then. Um, but you mentioned your boyfriend dog when
Speaker 1: I asked my fiancee about cuddling, because of course I
Speaker 1: needed to get the guy's perspective on the topic, because
Speaker 1: there's a whole stereotyping of men don't like to cuddle,
Speaker 1: cuddle something. Cuddling is something that only only chicks like
Speaker 1: to do, and that in no way is an impression
Speaker 1: of my fiance But I asked him whether he liked
Speaker 1: cuddling or not because we we sleep real close, and
Speaker 1: he said I was the first person he had ever
Speaker 1: been down to cuddle. Interesting, I know, And I was
Speaker 1: walking on air for like two days. But I hate it. No,
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it. And the next day
Speaker 1: I was in a really good mood and he was like,
Speaker 1: this is because I told you about the cuddling thing,
Speaker 1: isn't it. I was like, maybe a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Well it's interesting to see, and I mean, well, we'll
Speaker 1: definitely get into all that hard hitting cuddling research in
Speaker 1: a minute, but very hard hitting. But it is interesting
Speaker 1: to think about it from a personal perspective and and
Speaker 1: pat relationships and current relationships about how, yeah, it does
Speaker 1: seem to be related to your larger personality, for instance,
Speaker 1: whether you're a hugger and in what circumstances, but also
Speaker 1: your attachment style. There's all this research into whether you
Speaker 1: are UM an anxiously attached person or a securely attached
Speaker 1: person or avoidant attachment and whether that means you will
Speaker 1: cuddle or not. So in terms of the psychology of
Speaker 1: cuddling in these attachment styles, we can look at it
Speaker 1: not just in romantic context but also like platonic and
Speaker 1: familial context as well, because probably the very first cuddling
Speaker 1: that we experience is when we're little babies, being being
Speaker 1: cuddled and snuggled all over the time. UM and there
Speaker 1: has been a lot of research on childhood development and
Speaker 1: cuddling and how it might influence attachment styles and also
Speaker 1: um outcomes for kids and and and a piece on cuddling,
Speaker 1: a very end up piece on cuddling and Slate written
Speaker 1: by David Merritt John's UM. He looks into the history
Speaker 1: of our cultural attitudes towards that parent child cuddling. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so in the early twentieth century, uh, cuddling was
Speaker 1: thought to be a negative in in the family context.
Speaker 1: You you might be making your children too soft or
Speaker 1: too dependent on you. Um, which of course made me,
Speaker 1: I say, of course, like you guys know what the
Speaker 1: heck I'm talking about. But it made me think of
Speaker 1: my grandmother. Of course, my grandmother. Of course it made
Speaker 1: me think of her too. I know. Well, my dad's
Speaker 1: mom was a very cold woman. And so according to
Speaker 1: family legend, I say that like nobody my family ever
Speaker 1: met her was her mother. And it was said that
Speaker 1: my great grandmother never hugged were cuddled up to my
Speaker 1: grandmother because she herself had had sort of a traumatic upbringing.
Speaker 1: Her mother died at a very young age. Her stepmother
Speaker 1: like basically didn't like her. Um. So it is like
Speaker 1: interesting to see that sort of cultural sadness and unfortunateness
Speaker 1: passed down. Luckily, my dad was snugly with me so well,
Speaker 1: and a lot of moms back in the day were
Speaker 1: advised not to cuddle, especially during the progressive era around
Speaker 1: the turn of the century, you have the rise of
Speaker 1: what's called scientific Mothering and uh David Merritt John's sites.
Speaker 1: This landmark text The Care and Feeding of Children by
Speaker 1: pediatrician named Luther Emmett Holt, and it was super popular,
Speaker 1: to the point that the US Labor Department actually recruited
Speaker 1: doctor Holt to write a mass produced pamphlet on proper
Speaker 1: child rearing, which was a pamphlet ess a pamphlet back
Speaker 1: in the days when pamphlets were were cool. Well that's
Speaker 1: all there is to parenting. It's like a pamphlet worth Yeah, really,
Speaker 1: that's all you need. Um. So it was unfortunate though,
Speaker 1: that Holt was tasked to right in these pamphlets because
Speaker 1: he was decidedly anti cuddling, and it was kind of
Speaker 1: the um conflating cuddling with coddling um. And and this
Speaker 1: even extended to rocking a baby, Wholet wrote by no
Speaker 1: means should you do that. It's a habit easily acquired
Speaker 1: in a very useless and sometimes injurious one. Yeah, my
Speaker 1: parents rocked me for a long time. So I got
Speaker 1: home on the weekend and I just we hopped in
Speaker 1: that rocker and I just I just rock off to sleep.
Speaker 1: That sounds like a real healthy attachment there, Caroline, not
Speaker 1: not too close nothing, nothing is weird about that. Um.
Speaker 1: And then in parenting takes a psychological turn with the
Speaker 1: publishing of Dr John Watson's Behavior is a manual psychological
Speaker 1: care of infant and child. And I mean he sounds
Speaker 1: like a great, great guy that you'd really want to
Speaker 1: invite over to your child's birthday party. He wrote, treat
Speaker 1: them your children as though they were young adults. Never
Speaker 1: hug and kiss them, never let them sit in your lap.
Speaker 1: If you must, kiss them once on the forehead when
Speaker 1: they say good night, shake hands with them in the morning.
Speaker 1: SEVERI half a very business appropriate relationship with your children.
Speaker 1: Since I don't have any kids and only have a
Speaker 1: very old Labrador retriever, I'm just imagining doing doing them
Speaker 1: that to Buddy, just kiss him on the forehead and
Speaker 1: shaking a little Paul before late in the morning. Does
Speaker 1: he shake? Yeah you can shake. Yeah you can't, Caroline,
Speaker 1: smart dog. You're a good dog. Mom. But then it's
Speaker 1: in the World War two era when it seems like
Speaker 1: cuddling starts to take on more gendered meanings in terms
Speaker 1: of the stereotype that is alive and well today, of
Speaker 1: assuming that guys aren't into cuddling, and that cuddling is
Speaker 1: not a manly, masculine thing to do. Because, as we
Speaker 1: talked about in our Mama's Boys podcast a while back,
Speaker 1: this was the era of mom is um and along
Speaker 1: with the popular psychologists of the day, there was this
Speaker 1: idea that overmothering was ruining the nation's young men and
Speaker 1: softening them and making them, you know, too attached to
Speaker 1: their moms and the whole. I mean that extends to
Speaker 1: representations on screen. You can see it in Psycho and
Speaker 1: Norman Bates um so. And that's also there are lots
Speaker 1: of undercurrents of homophobia, I think, because wasn't it in
Speaker 1: like the nineteen twenties that we start to see the
Speaker 1: rise of well, because it's in the wake of psychoanalysis
Speaker 1: coming around all these fears of people who don't leave
Speaker 1: their same sex tendencies behind. You know, Freud wrote about, oh, well,
Speaker 1: everyone has an attraction to members of the same sex,
Speaker 1: but then you leave it behind or lt you become
Speaker 1: anal retentive. So it seems like this is also rising
Speaker 1: with alongside fears of homosexuality. Yeah, and I would assume
Speaker 1: that all of that embedded itself into our cultural views
Speaker 1: of cuddling as well. Yeah. Well, in the nineteen fifties
Speaker 1: we start to get more of a clue that maternal
Speaker 1: nurture and presumably in with this cuddling is important because
Speaker 1: we get psychologist Harry Harlow's famous baby monkey experiments at
Speaker 1: the University of Wisconsin. And for those of you who
Speaker 1: might not have taken like a psychology one oh one
Speaker 1: class and read about this study, it is so heartbreaking.
Speaker 1: Tell us about it, Caroline Well monkey babies. Um. So, basically,
Speaker 1: he was seeking to find out the whole nature versus
Speaker 1: nurture argument and whether adoption children who were adopted could
Speaker 1: be happy, healthy, and successful just like children who were
Speaker 1: biologically born to their families. Um. And so he takes
Speaker 1: these infant monkeys away from their mothers and puts them
Speaker 1: either with like a wire structure of a monkey kind
Speaker 1: of the dispens of milk, or a milk less wire
Speaker 1: structure that's covered with soft haterry cloth. And he found
Speaker 1: that despite the fact that neither one was an actual
Speaker 1: monkey or a mother, um, the monkeys who grew up
Speaker 1: being able to cling, to cuddle with and rub on
Speaker 1: the terry cloth monkey pseudo monkey developed more normally. Those
Speaker 1: who were able to comfort themselves by going and kind
Speaker 1: of cuddling with this terry cloth structure ended up being
Speaker 1: a little more normally developed than the monkeys who grew
Speaker 1: up with the wire structure, because they found that when
Speaker 1: they did test later and either scared the monkeys or
Speaker 1: stressed them out, the ones who grew up with the
Speaker 1: terry cloth mother reacted in a more healthy way. They
Speaker 1: might run to the terry cloth structure and kind of
Speaker 1: cling to it and then be okay. They've helped adjust
Speaker 1: themselves to the fear of the stress, whereas the ones
Speaker 1: that grew up with the wire structure threw themselves down
Speaker 1: on the floor, screamed, got in the fetal position, rocked
Speaker 1: back and forth. And they said that it resembled the
Speaker 1: way that children who are completely neglected or deprived from
Speaker 1: a young age react to stress and fear. And it's
Speaker 1: also similar to what they saw among a lot of
Speaker 1: adults who had been locked away in um mental institutions
Speaker 1: for years well. And they found too that if given
Speaker 1: the choice, the monkeys would forego getting fed from the
Speaker 1: wire hanger the dispensed milk and instead go get comfort
Speaker 1: in contact from the terry cloth. Yeah, and he found
Speaker 1: by following these monkeys for a while, following them down
Speaker 1: the street, I don't know, by like curious George and
Speaker 1: his friends. Right, by continuing to observe the monkeys, he
Speaker 1: realized that no amount of later life cuddling affection whatever
Speaker 1: could right the path of the monkeys who had grown
Speaker 1: up with the wire structure. Well, and that need for
Speaker 1: in eight need for cuddling in you know, the primate
Speaker 1: species will come in later in the episode when we
Speaker 1: talk about the science and evolutionary theories behind why we
Speaker 1: do this kind of bizarre behavior of rubbing up on
Speaker 1: each other. Oh, you're a joy to go to a
Speaker 1: bar with, I guess, oh yes, oh yes. But if
Speaker 1: we if we move from parent child cuddling, that familial cuddling,
Speaker 1: to platonic, friendly, same sex cuddling and look at the
Speaker 1: culture around that in our assumptions, we see that it
Speaker 1: gets very gendered very fast too, because it used to
Speaker 1: be more common when boys and girls were largely socialized separately.
Speaker 1: This would have been kind of pre twentieth century. Boys
Speaker 1: and girls kind of grew up in their own spheres,
Speaker 1: and so friendships between boys and girls were what I
Speaker 1: should say, like between boys and boys and girls and
Speaker 1: girls would be very intimate. I mean to the point
Speaker 1: of a lot of you know, physical contact and intimacy
Speaker 1: that we think of today in terms of girl friendships,
Speaker 1: but not so much with boys. Yeah, I mean, into
Speaker 1: the early twentieth century, emotionally and physically expressive friendships between
Speaker 1: men were super common, and guys would even share beds,
Speaker 1: like the the story that jumps to mind is, of course,
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed sharing a bed. And there's
Speaker 1: all of these people today who look at that out
Speaker 1: of context and they're like, oh, Lincoln must have been gay.
Speaker 1: He was like gay. Oh my god, we're so afraid
Speaker 1: of him. And it's like, well, okay, hey, there's nothing
Speaker 1: to be afraid of. But b you've got to look
Speaker 1: at it in the context of the time when it
Speaker 1: was super common for men to share beds and then
Speaker 1: for men to share room. So there might be a
Speaker 1: bunch of guys sharing a room if they're traveling. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and John Ibsen actually published a whole book of photographic
Speaker 1: evidence of these physically intimate friendships between men called Picturing
Speaker 1: men Um, And it's incredible to see this comfortable intimacy
Speaker 1: without that that fear of being perceived as gay. It's this,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, it's homophobia free expressions of of
Speaker 1: genuine love between dudes. And it's really sweet to seek
Speaker 1: guys not just like with their arms around each other, um,
Speaker 1: but really close, like legs entwined and having those formal
Speaker 1: poses that you might see like family portraits, but two
Speaker 1: men with like their arms resting on each other's thighs.
Speaker 1: And it really, it doesn't seem sure. There was one
Speaker 1: like Civil War air, a picture where a guy sitting
Speaker 1: on his buddies lap posing for the camera, you know,
Speaker 1: like you do, like you there's only one chair. What
Speaker 1: are you supposed to do? But signaling that homophobia may
Speaker 1: at long last be waning, and my goodness, we certainly
Speaker 1: hope it is a viral study among forty British male
Speaker 1: student athletes found thirty seven of them reported cuddling with
Speaker 1: their bros, even describing the super chill way that they
Speaker 1: deal with accidental erections. Let's say that the Big Spoon,
Speaker 1: you know, they're like bros hang out binging on Netflix
Speaker 1: on the couch, wants the Big Spoon and because of contact,
Speaker 1: you know, he gets an erection, and they told the
Speaker 1: researchers that they usually deal with it one of two ways,
Speaker 1: where the little spoon is like, hey, might you know
Speaker 1: get rid of your direction, or then the other guys
Speaker 1: like I'm gonna go pop to the loop and then
Speaker 1: they just you know, take care of it. I mean, Caroline.
Speaker 1: And it might sound and listeners, I know that might
Speaker 1: sound far fetch, but I am legitimately recounting what is
Speaker 1: in this right qualitative study. It's a study, but and
Speaker 1: it's a study that went viral. The thing is about
Speaker 1: the study a very small sample, a study sample, but
Speaker 1: also judging by the coverage that it got and a
Speaker 1: lot of leaping to lots of conclusions about how, oh,
Speaker 1: college boys cuddle each other all of the time. Um
Speaker 1: is I don't know, to me a sign that we
Speaker 1: we maybe aren't so far away from cuddling if we're
Speaker 1: so amazed at the fact that, you know, um, athletic
Speaker 1: jock kind of dudes can touch each other and it's fine.
Speaker 1: I mean that we talked about this back in the
Speaker 1: day in our Bromance episode, which I encourage you to
Speaker 1: go listen to if this topic interest to you. Um,
Speaker 1: because yeah, In that episode, which was a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago, we talked about trend pieces looking at dudes, bros,
Speaker 1: guys who were like, yeah, we cuddle, so what we're
Speaker 1: just buds were friends and um for guys listening, I
Speaker 1: don't want to imply that anytime you cuddle you automatically
Speaker 1: get an erection. I'm just saying that was something that
Speaker 1: was noted in that study. Right, sometimes it happens, Sometimes
Speaker 1: it happened, wers whatever. But if we look at girlfriends
Speaker 1: cuddling in this context of what are called romantic friendship,
Speaker 1: they were and still are super common. I mean, as
Speaker 1: I was reading about you know, girls cuddling their girl friends,
Speaker 1: I immediately thought of Girls the show. I mean, there
Speaker 1: are so many scenes of uh, Lena and her friends
Speaker 1: being in bed together, taking baths together. It's very close
Speaker 1: and physically intimate. Yeah, like all my two best girlfriends
Speaker 1: in the world, if we're like on the couch or whatever,
Speaker 1: we'll totally like throw our legs over each other whatever
Speaker 1: without a thought. Like, but then it's the same thing
Speaker 1: as as what we talked about at the top of
Speaker 1: the podcast, with like hugging or you know, who do
Speaker 1: you cuddle with, or who do you want to cuddle with?
Speaker 1: There is that degree of like super closeness for me
Speaker 1: that proceeds like I'm gonna throw my legs over your lap.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're just gonna deal with it. Listen, You're
Speaker 1: gonna swaddle me and rock me like a baby. You
Speaker 1: want to be my bff. Yeah, I have weird weekends. Um,
Speaker 1: but this was really interesting to see in h early
Speaker 1: twentieth century, as homophobia starts creeping in and it is
Speaker 1: it's interesting to see for girls and and female friendships.
Speaker 1: How in the same way that homophobia started creeping into
Speaker 1: guy friendships, a lot of it being fueled by the
Speaker 1: rise of psychoanalysis, there was concern about physical intimacy between
Speaker 1: girl friendships as well. Um. As marriages for love became
Speaker 1: the norm, especially once we get into the nineteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: and along with the idea of your spouse being a friend. Um,
Speaker 1: there were warnings to parents that they should make sure
Speaker 1: that their daughters aren't too physically friendly with their girlfriends
Speaker 1: because that might lead to lesbianism because of our quote
Speaker 1: unbridled libidos. Um. Yeah. William James uh was writing in
Speaker 1: the eighteen seventies. I believe, And I was discussing how men,
Speaker 1: you know, just have this natural aversion to wanting to
Speaker 1: be attracted to their male peers. You know, it's inherent
Speaker 1: in us, but it's disgusting, and so there's a natural
Speaker 1: aversion to it, whereas you know, that natural aversion is
Speaker 1: not as strong or as common in women because we're
Speaker 1: also pretty, you know, we are, so it's so soft,
Speaker 1: it's no good. But I just I think it's so
Speaker 1: funny when you come back through history and you look
Speaker 1: at particularly men's view of like women's relationships with or
Speaker 1: without sexuality involved, but like there there are so many
Speaker 1: anxieties that prop up around this time. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: and definitely the rules for expressiveness in men's friendships have
Speaker 1: been far more rigid in modern times because I mean,
Speaker 1: even even though yes, there was that that panic over
Speaker 1: same sex attraction within girl friendships, still because of the
Speaker 1: assumption that women are naturally more nurturing, um, cuddling and
Speaker 1: those kinds of behaviors have still been accepted though, I mean,
Speaker 1: you have you know, girls are probably likelier to have
Speaker 1: sleepovers where we brush each other's hair and oh my god,
Speaker 1: being in elementary school in the library for reading time,
Speaker 1: and like having your best girlfriend just braid your hair,
Speaker 1: or you give each other massages, give each other's nails.
Speaker 1: I wish someone would come braid my hair now, it's
Speaker 1: like the most soothing. Maybe that's a cure for insomnia.
Speaker 1: That's probably weird. I don't think my boyfriend would braid
Speaker 1: my hair. Have you asked? I haven't? You know? You
Speaker 1: never know, not a topic I've broached. Well, speaking of
Speaker 1: your boyfriend braiding your hair, Caroline, that's the perfect segue
Speaker 1: to talking about opposite sex cuddling because it's always been
Speaker 1: this fraud issue because of the sex factor and the
Speaker 1: whole accidental for play factor. Yeah. So if you go
Speaker 1: back to eighteenth century colonial America, which let me tell you,
Speaker 1: was a laugh riot, which is real fun. Back then,
Speaker 1: wintertime courtship might have involved this thing called bundling, which
Speaker 1: to me, in my head, even though I know what
Speaker 1: it is, I still just pictured two people in sleeping
Speaker 1: bags bumping up against each other. It was kind of
Speaker 1: like that. I know. It was basically trial cuddling for
Speaker 1: people who were likely on the marriage track. So it's wintertime,
Speaker 1: it's cold, you don't have central heat and air. God, forbid,
Speaker 1: and so the guy would sleep over at the girl's
Speaker 1: house in the same bed. And of course this was
Speaker 1: more about body heat than lust per se, although I'm
Speaker 1: sure that there was a lust undercurrent londer current londer,
Speaker 1: current londer current. Um. And this was supposed to help
Speaker 1: see if they were compatible for marriage, but to prevent
Speaker 1: the sex from happening, they might sleep in this bifurcated
Speaker 1: bundling sack, which again like do they make these at
Speaker 1: camping stores? Can I get these? Yeah? At Yield? Are
Speaker 1: I had the bifurcated bundling sack? Um, I'm sure, Like
Speaker 1: with this artisan thing going on, I'm sure, like Etsy,
Speaker 1: somebody makes bifurcated bundling. Do you want to bring back bundling? Yeah, bundler, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's our new Uh, it's our tender app competitor, right
Speaker 1: and and like those apps, there's no e er, it's
Speaker 1: just are of course bundle. Um. So they would be
Speaker 1: in the sack and or have a bundling board between them,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, wait, why are you having a board
Speaker 1: if this is about body heat? Well, I bet Caroline,
Speaker 1: the loundertones combined with the body heat would permeate the
Speaker 1: bundling board, which listeners, A bundling board is exactly what
Speaker 1: it sounds like. It's just it's just a board that
Speaker 1: they put down the middle of the bed. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: so I mean, at least in this way, if those
Speaker 1: undertones do or take you, the family would at least
Speaker 1: know what man was responsible for impregnating their daughter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, because it's funny. So this was happening in
Speaker 1: the context of premarital pregnancy being on the rise. So
Speaker 1: this was kind of a way for parents to be like, listen,
Speaker 1: I guess if it's going to happen, we need to
Speaker 1: know who to marry a little susan off to, just
Speaker 1: in case. The Puritans though, by the way, we're just
Speaker 1: outraged by this whole bundling trend um. But as our
Speaker 1: sexual mores have loosened up as we burned our bundling boards,
Speaker 1: so to speak, much of our heteronormative romantic cuddling discourse
Speaker 1: really revolves around two major assumptions, that men used cuddling
Speaker 1: to initiate sex, and that women used cuddling to bond
Speaker 1: after sex. Yeah, very divided these assumptions. Yeah, for us,
Speaker 1: it's bonding, for them, it's just spreading their seed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so we're gonna unravel the gendering of these cuttle
Speaker 1: preferences when we come right back from a quick break.
Speaker 1: So before we get into the cuddling battle of the
Speaker 1: sexes in quotes, let's talk for a minute about why
Speaker 1: this behavior permeates our closest relationships, because there is some
Speaker 1: science to this. Yeah, I mean, basically, it promotes bonding.
Speaker 1: You get the release of oxytocin, which is that bonding hormone,
Speaker 1: and it basically communicates social information, including touch, to our
Speaker 1: brains reward system. It's like it's like candy, like eating
Speaker 1: a delicious chocolate bar. It would be like when when
Speaker 1: your boyfriend dog braids your hair, your oxytocin would are
Speaker 1: we are we in our bundling sack, in your bundling sack. Yes,
Speaker 1: your oxytose in your brain would gather up boyfriend dog
Speaker 1: hair braiding, the sense of calm, and then deliver that
Speaker 1: to your brain's reward system and you'd be like, oh,
Speaker 1: I really like that, right, and so then your stress
Speaker 1: levels plummet as basically anyone who's had a good old
Speaker 1: cuddle can attest that good old cuddle, good old cuddle,
Speaker 1: little cuddle, puddle, good solid cuddle. So if we look
Speaker 1: back for a minute at that parent child cuddling, we
Speaker 1: start to see this, these neurological benefits playing out from
Speaker 1: the very beginnings of our lives, because our brains really
Speaker 1: are wired to enjoy this. Uh. There was a study
Speaker 1: published in two thousand nine in Nature Neuroscience, for instance,
Speaker 1: that located receptors in our skin that transmit pleasant touch
Speaker 1: sensations not limited to cuddling. But in a way, they're
Speaker 1: kind of like our cuddle receptors, being like, oh, I like,
Speaker 1: I like how this feels. This is nice, I feel safe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my boyfriend has strong cuddle receptors. But we'll get into
Speaker 1: that when we talk more about the gender division. But so,
Speaker 1: speaking of people with strong cuddling receptors, there's this mom
Speaker 1: from Amsterdam, and Kristen and I both posted this to
Speaker 1: our social media because it was like kind of funny
Speaker 1: but also horrifying. She knitted a full life size replica
Speaker 1: of her son. She knitted a suit of her son
Speaker 1: because she was like, he doesn't cuddle with me as
Speaker 1: much anymore now that he's a teen or a tween
Speaker 1: or whatever, and so you know, I wanted to hold
Speaker 1: onto those cuddling days, so I knitted a suit of him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it looks super creepy because he wears it like
Speaker 1: it's hollow. It's not like she stuffed it with stuffing.
Speaker 1: I mean, like her human son wears it. Okay, but
Speaker 1: here's the thing, Um, I feel a little bad for
Speaker 1: her because of course the story went viral and people
Speaker 1: freaked out saying like, you're the creepiest mom on earth. Also,
Speaker 1: how long did that take? But anyway, Uh, it was
Speaker 1: a joke. She did it trying to be funny, but
Speaker 1: of course some things were lost in translation and people
Speaker 1: just saw cuddling son and that's kind of disturbing. Replica. Yeah,
Speaker 1: bless her heart. It is a horrifying It's a horrifying creation.
Speaker 1: And I totally dig the sense of humor though, But
Speaker 1: if you really just literally do see the picture and
Speaker 1: the quote about like I miss cuddling my son, because
Speaker 1: I know when I posted it to our tumbler, people
Speaker 1: were like, oh my god, this woman needs help. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: but there is some science to do back up that desire,
Speaker 1: her desire to cuddle her song, because I think that
Speaker 1: is legit because when we did post it to the
Speaker 1: Stuff I've Never Told You Facebook page. A few moms
Speaker 1: commented saying, I know exactly what she's talking about, because
Speaker 1: it's in our d n A. A two thousand six
Speaker 1: study found quote a maternal predisposition toward touch significantly predicted
Speaker 1: babies to receptivity, and another study found twins tend to
Speaker 1: have comparable cuddle levels. So, I mean, it seems like
Speaker 1: if you, if you are like this lady and you
Speaker 1: really like to, you know, cuddle, and that's one of
Speaker 1: your love languages, you might say, yeah, one of the
Speaker 1: ways that you bond, then um, then yeah, maybe you
Speaker 1: maybe you do knit a life size replica of your child. Sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you're into that. I bet she's a hugger too.
Speaker 1: But I thought it was interesting. In that Slate piece
Speaker 1: when David Merritt John's was talking about the sex difference
Speaker 1: between male and female babies cuddle receptivity, he says that
Speaker 1: it's basically when he was speaking with temperament experts, but
Speaker 1: he said it was basically the same no matter the
Speaker 1: sex of the child. It's just that some babies, male
Speaker 1: or female, aren't as down for super cuddling as others.
Speaker 1: Some are total snuggle babies and others are like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go stiff as the board, please put me down.
Speaker 1: It's about fifteen or kind of like cats, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to cuddle a cat and it's like, get me
Speaker 1: out of here. Um and oh man, I love trying
Speaker 1: to cuddle a cat because it's just sun shot somewhere down.
Speaker 1: Before we came into the studio, I was just talking
Speaker 1: to Hollway from History stuff about kitties and she was like,
Speaker 1: because I told her how much I wanted a dog,
Speaker 1: and she was like, well, you know, you should get
Speaker 1: a cat. And I was like, well, if I could
Speaker 1: guarantee that it would be a cuddly dog like cat,
Speaker 1: I would totally get one. But you never know. Well, listeners,
Speaker 1: if you know of any good dog like cats Caroline
Speaker 1: could cuddle, let us know and please send pictures. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll rent it, Like I mean, I can't have a
Speaker 1: pet right now, but like, I'll absolutely rent it from
Speaker 1: you rent a kitty. Um. So if we look though
Speaker 1: at friendly cuddling, that same sex platonic cuddling that we
Speaker 1: talked about a little while ago, scientists think that it
Speaker 1: might be our primate version of grooming each other. So Caroline,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to come up to you and like
Speaker 1: dig through your hair and look for fleas or or
Speaker 1: bugs or things like that. Than you're welcome as much
Speaker 1: as I want to. Um, But they think that, you know,
Speaker 1: our cuddling behavior is related to that. I mean, think
Speaker 1: of how you know girlfriends will hold hands, will link arms.
Speaker 1: We I mean I might brush your hair and then
Speaker 1: and then secretly try to see if you have any
Speaker 1: any face in your hair, so that you know to
Speaker 1: bolt if you see one. Well, didn't. These researchers also
Speaker 1: say that they thought that not only was the primate
Speaker 1: you know, tick searching or flee searching and grooming a
Speaker 1: precursor to our cuddling, but that it was also a
Speaker 1: precursor to like gossip circles. It's a way to spend
Speaker 1: time with people you love and care about in like
Speaker 1: an intimate way. Um, and then you know, once we
Speaker 1: actually gain the ability to talk and say human words, Uh,
Speaker 1: then we're just talking smack about the cave women next
Speaker 1: to us. I think about this too whenever, Um, I
Speaker 1: groom my dog. Now, you guys tell each other secret? Yes,
Speaker 1: he tells me all the secrets and I brush out
Speaker 1: his old fur. You know, good way to spend time
Speaker 1: together and gossip about the other dogs that your your
Speaker 1: apartment complex is always talking smack about my fiance. Let
Speaker 1: me just tell you home man. But when it comes
Speaker 1: to romantic cuddling, the cuddling, that's that's the most controversial,
Speaker 1: the most fraught with stereotypes. Evolutionary theory explains post quital
Speaker 1: cuddling motivated by women wanting to make sure that the
Speaker 1: dude who might have just impregnated her is going to
Speaker 1: stick around and you gotta love some always had her
Speaker 1: normative and predictable. Evolutionary theory because on the flip side,
Speaker 1: they maintain that men might be more inclined to engage
Speaker 1: in more hedonic activities like pleasure seeking activities like having
Speaker 1: a smoke, eating or having sex again, rather than wanting
Speaker 1: to cuddle, because guys are just about that, about that
Speaker 1: pleasure center, all of at that base. Um. Which great,
Speaker 1: that's gonna be in my head forever now. Um. But biologically,
Speaker 1: researchers say cuddling off of boost sexual attraction because it's
Speaker 1: linked to an increase in testosterone, which might also explain
Speaker 1: how cuddling does double duty as both for play and
Speaker 1: postcoital relaxing. And there was this study in the Archives
Speaker 1: of Sexual Behavior that we looked at that discussed how
Speaker 1: couples who partake in post sex cuddling felt more satisfied
Speaker 1: with their sex lives but also their relationships in general.
Speaker 1: And they found that it mattered. Cuddling mattered more than
Speaker 1: the foreplay or the duration of the actual intercourse because
Speaker 1: our brains look at it as a positive post sex reward,
Speaker 1: and I can only imagine that no matter male or female,
Speaker 1: if you do have this stronger like touch reward receptors,
Speaker 1: that it's even better. But what's what I loved is
Speaker 1: that they found that it's not just postcoital like feel
Speaker 1: so rewarded, so fulfilled, I'm so happy with my partner,
Speaker 1: but also the effect lasted for a long time, like months, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, and even isolated outside of sex, just cuddling
Speaker 1: on its own, when you're laying on the couch and
Speaker 1: bene watching Netflix. Yet again, it can be, you know,
Speaker 1: a bonding activity for couples, not surprisingly, and there's research
Speaker 1: to back it up. So I mean, it's just funny
Speaker 1: in looking up research for this podcast, how the media
Speaker 1: really love to make like sweeping generalizations about cuddling. Um
Speaker 1: in terms of, oh, science finally proves that couples who
Speaker 1: cuddle are better than everyone else, or science proves that
Speaker 1: men love cuddling and women actually loath it. And we've
Speaker 1: kind of concocted because of a lot of our sort
Speaker 1: of misinterpretation of studies, um and and assumptions, Uh, that
Speaker 1: there is this cuddling war going on in this battle
Speaker 1: of the sexes, almost the most adorable war, the softest
Speaker 1: care bears just hitting each other with pillows. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: because the assumption that most men don't like cuddling is
Speaker 1: based far more on gender norms than hardwiring. All of
Speaker 1: that neuroscience we've just been talking about. For instance, in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six, scientists Mark Hollander at Vanderbilt studied gender
Speaker 1: differences in cuddling. On the basis going into this study,
Speaker 1: h Hollander assumed that quote, according to our prevailing viewpoint,
Speaker 1: it's unmanly to want to be held or cuddled. Only
Speaker 1: women are permitted or encouraged to express such feminine wishes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but when you look at statistics, which we so love
Speaker 1: to do, there isn't really a huge difference. And how
Speaker 1: much all dudes and all ladies like to cuddle, Yeah,
Speaker 1: as much as a headline every other month will claim that, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: women really do love to cuddle. No, no, no no, wait,
Speaker 1: it's actually guys who love to cuddle more than women. No,
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of it's kind of breaks even, sort
Speaker 1: of like the sex differences in babies, where it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, we just have a subset where they're they're
Speaker 1: just the cats, the cats of the world. They don't
Speaker 1: want to be cuddled. Right. There was this twenty eleven
Speaker 1: Kills the Institute study on older long term couples that
Speaker 1: found a slightly stronger twelve versus nine relationship between cuddling
Speaker 1: and kissing and relationship satisfaction among men. Of course, there's
Speaker 1: all sorts of things you have to take into account,
Speaker 1: including like who in this long term study has dropped
Speaker 1: out due to divorce, Like maybe all you're left with
Speaker 1: is the people who genuinely just love spending time to
Speaker 1: get well and the chicken egg, two of which comes
Speaker 1: first the relationship satisfaction or the cuddling and kissing behavior.
Speaker 1: But the way that three percent edge was interpreted in
Speaker 1: headlines across the internet was men love cuddling. They love
Speaker 1: it way more than women, so much more than women.
Speaker 1: And I feel like if you just ask humans about cuddling,
Speaker 1: it's like what we've been saying the past couple of
Speaker 1: minutes that it's literally like, yeah, you've got some people
Speaker 1: who like it, and some people who don't, and some
Speaker 1: people like me who really hated it and weren't really
Speaker 1: down with it until they met their person. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: but there is an interesting link to between cuddling and
Speaker 1: attachment styles, so we talked about um earlier in the podcast.
Speaker 1: A two thousand and fourteen study examining attachment style and
Speaker 1: both cuddling among parent child relationships and romantic relationships did
Speaker 1: find that women overall reported more positive feelings about cuddling,
Speaker 1: but the researchers weren't entirely sure why. Well, here's the
Speaker 1: thing I mean. So, as you mentioned at the top
Speaker 1: of the podcast, you've got the spectrum of attachment styles,
Speaker 1: everything from avoidant attachment, which is like, oh I love you,
Speaker 1: but like I'm going to keep an arm out, uh,
Speaker 1: to secure attachment, which is you're well adjusted, you like cuddling,
Speaker 1: you're not going to spend twenty four hours a day
Speaker 1: with your person, but you love them whatever, all the
Speaker 1: way to the anxious attachment, which is fear of abandonment.
Speaker 1: It's I've got to cuddle you because you might leave me,
Speaker 1: Like I've got to cuddle you because it makes me
Speaker 1: feel better. It's a self seething behavior. And as I
Speaker 1: was reading this, I was like, oh, okay, Because although
Speaker 1: my boyfriend and I are sort of each at the
Speaker 1: middle of the spectrum in terms of attachment styles, I
Speaker 1: would say that I am I don't I don't know,
Speaker 1: left of center in terms of the avoidant attachment style,
Speaker 1: and he's a little bit right of center in terms
Speaker 1: of the anxious attachment style. Although we are obviously very
Speaker 1: secure with each other and in love and all that
Speaker 1: griss stuff. But I think that that sort of helps
Speaker 1: encapsulate our individual relationship with cuddling, where I came into
Speaker 1: being like, uh, and he just I mean that boy
Speaker 1: wants to cuddle all the time. But a notable thing
Speaker 1: about that study on attachment style and cuddling was that
Speaker 1: of wutly attached people were not down to cuddle. They
Speaker 1: found like there was a strong relationship between you know,
Speaker 1: not being into it and being avoidantly attached, Whereas you
Speaker 1: would assume that anxiously attached people would want to cuddle
Speaker 1: all the time, but researchers um like, to their surprise,
Speaker 1: did not find a relationship wasn't It was a much
Speaker 1: weaker link between the anxiously attached style and cuddling. So
Speaker 1: it could just be that my boyfriend just like likes
Speaker 1: to cuddle. Just well, I mean, I wonder if that
Speaker 1: speaks so to the universality of cuddling where I mean,
Speaker 1: it is such a such a common behavior that it's
Speaker 1: not really much of an outlier for someone to like
Speaker 1: to to cuddle. Yeah. Sure, I mean I'm definitely a convert.
Speaker 1: You know. Like my boyfriend had been um basically like
Speaker 1: out of town for two weeks, and I went over
Speaker 1: to his house last night and we just lay on
Speaker 1: the couch just like silently just cuddled for a long time.
Speaker 1: It was a way to reconnect. It's that it's that
Speaker 1: sets in those good bonding chemicals. You gotta get that
Speaker 1: oxytocin refilled sometimes. And you know what, I was the
Speaker 1: big spoon. Yeah that's really sweet because your boyfriend is
Speaker 1: super tall. I know, I just love cuddling up to that.
Speaker 1: But but even in hookup context there isn't a huge
Speaker 1: gender gap either. And I was thrilled to see this
Speaker 1: studied because I feel like this is where the cuddling
Speaker 1: stereotypes totally come out of UM anecdotally in conversations I've
Speaker 1: had with my girlfriends about hookups. UM Binghamton Universities justin
Speaker 1: Garcia UM did a survey and found that of dudes
Speaker 1: and sixty one percent of women wanted to snuggle post
Speaker 1: hook ups. So yeah, more women, but still a lot
Speaker 1: of dudes. Meanwhile, in committed relationships, there was no difference
Speaker 1: at all of all the people wanted to cuddle and
Speaker 1: liked doing it. UM. So that said to me, like,
Speaker 1: we are maybe making up some of these stereotypes. Obviously
Speaker 1: there are some some differences, but they are narrower than
Speaker 1: we probably assume or tend to read into. Well, it's
Speaker 1: all of the crap about gender norms. It's almost like
Speaker 1: we want to believe it. It's funny. It's like it's
Speaker 1: funny to believe that a man who likes to cuddle
Speaker 1: is feminine or weak or whatever, or like we're gonna
Speaker 1: smother you, clingy. Yeah, all of that junk and that
Speaker 1: you know a woman who doesn't like to cuddle, is
Speaker 1: you know a tramp who's going to leave you. She's
Speaker 1: so tough, tough, need to cuddle so independent. Um, in
Speaker 1: straight long term couple of contexts, because ps, there is
Speaker 1: zero research at least that we found on same sex snuggling,
Speaker 1: so researchers up to it well same sex romantic relationships,
Speaker 1: not same sex platonic friends specifically uh British college jocks. Um.
Speaker 1: But in the straight long term couple contexts, cuddling is
Speaker 1: mutually beneficial related to healthy, satisfied relationships, whether it's used
Speaker 1: to initiate sex or not. And that's something Caroline, but
Speaker 1: you talked about in that study where it's like whether
Speaker 1: we're doing it before sex, after sex, are just on
Speaker 1: a random evening when you haven't seen each other in
Speaker 1: a long time. Culling can be good for you and
Speaker 1: it makes a lot of sense because of the you know,
Speaker 1: the physiological effects of it. Well, you mentioned that there's
Speaker 1: little to no research among same sex romantic relationships uncuddling,
Speaker 1: but this is also an area where we could use
Speaker 1: more research for the a sexual community. You know, we've
Speaker 1: we've got a lot of letters in recent months from
Speaker 1: members of the a sexual and a romantic community who
Speaker 1: you know, obviously want to hear themselves represented in media
Speaker 1: and in research, and there's really nothing out there about
Speaker 1: them either. Yeah, I mean, they have a lot of
Speaker 1: kind of crowdsourced resources. And um, I looked in that
Speaker 1: for thoughts on cuddling because there are people within you know,
Speaker 1: the a sexuality spectrum who are totally down to snuggle
Speaker 1: and really love snuggling and cuddling and spooning, but just
Speaker 1: don't desire any sexual contact beyond that. And so there
Speaker 1: are you know, lots of questions at that point of
Speaker 1: for you know, for their partners, how do they you know,
Speaker 1: make sure that that's not misleading in any kind of way, um,
Speaker 1: and is it mutually satisfying? And so I would love
Speaker 1: to hear from any a sexual or a romantic listeners
Speaker 1: about the cuddling issue too. In a word about context
Speaker 1: and you hinted it as Carolina a second ago when
Speaker 1: you said that you are cuddling convert, because I mean,
Speaker 1: I think how how much someone likes cuddling in the
Speaker 1: moment when you ask them, like, do you enjoy cuddling?
Speaker 1: Depends a lot on the circumstances around it. Are you tired,
Speaker 1: is it super hot in the room. Are you not
Speaker 1: really like into that person who's next to you? For
Speaker 1: whatever reason? You know, sometimes you just want to sleep
Speaker 1: on your stomach with a pillow over your head and
Speaker 1: call it a day. Yes, I do. My name is Kristen. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: I Even within my relationship, there are obviously times that
Speaker 1: I'm like, get away from me, especially when it's time
Speaker 1: to sleep, Like I'm fine cuddling up before we go
Speaker 1: to sleep, but when it's time for lights out, like,
Speaker 1: get off me, don't touch me. Although of course it's
Speaker 1: freezing in my boyfriend's house all the time. Sometimes we'll
Speaker 1: do the thing and this is probably t m I,
Speaker 1: but we'll like fall asleep kind of snuggled up because
Speaker 1: we're freezing, and then wake up in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night drench I know that feeling. Well, sorry for
Speaker 1: grossing an one out, but I mean, if you don't
Speaker 1: have a super cuddler like my boyfriend, which you better not, Uh,
Speaker 1: there are other cuddling opportunities out there. Okay, Yes, this
Speaker 1: brings us to the strangest wrinkle in this cuddle puddle
Speaker 1: more people these days are cuddling with perfect strangers like Balki. Yes,
Speaker 1: where people are cuddling Balkie. Um. And here's the thing.
Speaker 1: While it scientifically makes sense that we crave pleasant touch
Speaker 1: and its physiological effects, it does not make any socio
Speaker 1: scientific sense to cuddle with a stranger because it kind
Speaker 1: of violates so many norms. And uh is perplexing to
Speaker 1: a lot of researchers because I mean, even even for me,
Speaker 1: as someone who is um more of a non hugger
Speaker 1: than a than a hugger, the idea of just meeting
Speaker 1: someone in a park and laying down and then having
Speaker 1: their you know, body odor and the hot breath so
Speaker 1: close to me and not knowing them makes my skin
Speaker 1: crawl because it just seems so it seems very unsafe
Speaker 1: to me. Um. But there's an app for that. If
Speaker 1: you are a cuddler and there are a lot of
Speaker 1: colors out there, has someone already made bundler? No one's
Speaker 1: made bundler. We can still make buddler, okay, okay, and
Speaker 1: our bifurcated bundle bags trademarked Sminty of course. Yes. Um.
Speaker 1: But there is an app formerly known as cuddler Uh,
Speaker 1: it's called Spooner, and geo locates people around you who
Speaker 1: are down for a cuddle. Yeah. This sounded like woe
Speaker 1: danger zone to me because just you know, dating websites
Speaker 1: can be sketched in general, or websites apps. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I'm old. Hello, um anything in the outside world, things
Speaker 1: that are outside of my comfort zone, I e. The
Speaker 1: podcast studio Um. But Charlie will Hims, who's the founder
Speaker 1: of Spooner, told Salon that I think is a culture
Speaker 1: we're ready to consider. Cuddling is more than just something
Speaker 1: that happens before after sex, but it's something worth pursuing
Speaker 1: in its own right. Cuddling takes communication, respect for boundaries,
Speaker 1: and self control, and he's telling them all about how like, no,
Speaker 1: it's totally fine, it's totally safe. Like it helps you
Speaker 1: and even in your personal life work on your communication
Speaker 1: skills about what you want, what you don't want. And
Speaker 1: this is not about sex. This is not meeting to
Speaker 1: pick people up for sex. This is literally for cuddling.
Speaker 1: And hey, if people like hit it off and one
Speaker 1: a date after, like cool, that's fine. But I was
Speaker 1: reading this like, there's no way that is so like
Speaker 1: murder central in my brain and and I know a
Speaker 1: lot of people out there are which just got really offended.
Speaker 1: I'm I am sorry. That's just me personally being totally
Speaker 1: afraid to cuddle with strangers. Yeah, yeah, you and I
Speaker 1: have similar I think personal cuddle boundaries. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: that sense. If I don't even like shaking hands and
Speaker 1: you don't want a sweaty cuttle, I don't want to
Speaker 1: go old body I have. When I was in high school, UM,
Speaker 1: like a bunch of friends and I used to have
Speaker 1: like we'd all be hanging out at night or whatever,
Speaker 1: and we used to have, um, basically the congo line
Speaker 1: equivalent of cuddling. There would be like fifteen or twenty
Speaker 1: of us like lying down, just spooning. It was hysterical.
Speaker 1: Maybe some alcohol was involved. It's a smelly cuddle, um
Speaker 1: when I don't have her name in front of me.
Speaker 1: But a writer over at Daily Dot tested out the
Speaker 1: Spooner app, and one of her main complaints in terms
Speaker 1: of safety was that you can't um select by gender.
Speaker 1: So if you want a same sex cuddle because that
Speaker 1: might make you feel safer, um, Spooner doesn't let you
Speaker 1: do that. Because Williams thinks that you know it should
Speaker 1: be because Williams thinks that it shouldn't be a sexual thing.
Speaker 1: But in her experience, the people who are messaging her
Speaker 1: were almost exclusively dudes who seem to want uh well,
Speaker 1: who want a sexy times Hello. Have you been on
Speaker 1: the internet? Yes, that is how those things are gonna work. Sorry,
Speaker 1: Charlie Williams. And you're like utopian view of cuddling app
Speaker 1: literally sorry Charlie. Yeah, yeah, I wonder though, if there
Speaker 1: are any listeners who have tried spooner, please tell us
Speaker 1: if it goes better then it seems like it might.
Speaker 1: This is why the world needs Bundler, Kristen. We would
Speaker 1: ensure that there was a gender selection, but would it
Speaker 1: only be for proper courtship. I don't know. I haven't
Speaker 1: thought that. We haven't we haven't developed our business plan yet. Um.
Speaker 1: But if you want to cuddle in a safer context,
Speaker 1: you can go to a cuddle party. Caudle parties exist
Speaker 1: and they are organized by groups around the country, like
Speaker 1: Minnesota's Nurture Yourself, Um, and you started in early two thousands,
Speaker 1: and usually if you go to a cuddle party, it's
Speaker 1: exactly what it sounds like. It's kind of like Carolines
Speaker 1: high school experience, minus the booze. You're not allowed to
Speaker 1: go drunk, um, but you wear pj's. A lot of
Speaker 1: cuddle party rules asked that you don't eat garlic beforehand.
Speaker 1: Smart are very smart, and I will give them this.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of rules around constant Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they make sure to set it up ahead of time
Speaker 1: that you know, no means no respect everybody's boundaries, all
Speaker 1: of that stuff, which is incredibly important in any context.
Speaker 1: But I especially appreciated how Nurturing Yourself noted that crying
Speaker 1: and giggling are encouraged at their cuddle parties. Um. And
Speaker 1: it's exactly what it sounds like. I mean, you kind
Speaker 1: of you start off with sort of a group orientation
Speaker 1: and then gradually it evolves into a one giant cuddle puddle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and people are making money off of this. People are
Speaker 1: there are professional cuddlers out there. And you know, we're
Speaker 1: not talking about some Japanese trend that has probably been
Speaker 1: misinterpreted in American media. We're talking about in the United States,
Speaker 1: professional coddlers have opened up shop. And this was report
Speaker 1: it on in the Wall Street Journal, which I especially
Speaker 1: appreciate it. I love picturing my father picking up the
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal, which he gets in the mail in
Speaker 1: reading an article about professional cuddlers. I imagine he just
Speaker 1: clears his throat very and comfortably, puts the paper down
Speaker 1: and makes a sandwich. But it's a serious business. These
Speaker 1: professional cuddlers will charge clients for non sexual snuggles. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the number one thing that these professionals have to combat
Speaker 1: our perceptions that it is a form of prostitution, essentially
Speaker 1: your sex work. Um. But business names include Cuddle Up
Speaker 1: to Me, the Snuggery, and Cuddle Therapy. And I think
Speaker 1: Cuddle Therapy was one of the original ones, open not
Speaker 1: surprisingly in San Francisco. And I mean, obviously it is
Speaker 1: easy to laugh and dismiss this kind of stuff, but
Speaker 1: they also talked to a woman named Samantha Hess who
Speaker 1: opened up Portland's Cuddle Up to Me, and she specializes
Speaker 1: in cuddles for people who've sperienced trauma, people with autism,
Speaker 1: and she says that she regularly sees people with disabilities
Speaker 1: and disfigurements who just in a very human nature way,
Speaker 1: just need that human contact. Yeah, I mean, in that way,
Speaker 1: it's um, it makes sense. That these businesses exist in
Speaker 1: that and that clients seek them out for for non
Speaker 1: sexual purposes. Just I think it was it was her
Speaker 1: talking about how, you know, a lot of these people
Speaker 1: just want to feel special and loved for a moment um,
Speaker 1: And she's actually developed an entire curriculum of various types
Speaker 1: of cuddles that clients can come in and select. Um.
Speaker 1: I think there are lots of elderly patients or clients
Speaker 1: I should say as well, because they live in such isolation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: human touch is so important, it is. I'm a total convert, Yeah,
Speaker 1: due to professional cuddling. Uh, not for me personally, but
Speaker 1: now I'm a I'm a convert since I started dating
Speaker 1: my boyfriend to convert general cuddling. Well, now I'm curious
Speaker 1: to know about our listeners. Are you into cuddling? Do
Speaker 1: you have any thoughts about cuddling? Have you ever been
Speaker 1: to a cuddle party? We want to know all of
Speaker 1: your cuddling thoughts and guys, do you ever encounter those
Speaker 1: bogus gender stereotypes if you're a dude who likes to cuddle?
Speaker 1: Has it ever backfired on you? Mom? Stuff at house
Speaker 1: stuff works dot Com is our mailing address. You can
Speaker 1: also tweet us at mom Stuff podcasts or messages on Facebook,
Speaker 1: and we've got a couple of messages to share with
Speaker 1: you when we come right back from a quick break, Caroline,
Speaker 1: I'm in the process of giving my personal site, Chris
Speaker 1: and Conor dot com a makeover thanks to Squarespace, and
Speaker 1: I can tell you firsthand that it is super easy
Speaker 1: to use, intuitive and they have fantastic design aesthetics. So
Speaker 1: my new site is going to look real nice. It's
Speaker 1: just pictures of Beyonce though, right pretty much? Yeah, basically, um,
Speaker 1: so we're regardless of what celebrity you put on your
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Speaker 1: now back to the show. I will let her here
Speaker 1: from Michelle. In response to our episode on wrinkles, she says, Hello,
Speaker 1: I've been listening for a long time, and I'm writing
Speaker 1: in for the first time now. I just listen to
Speaker 1: your episode on wrinkles and something you mentioned sounded exactly
Speaker 1: like what I've been told in real life. You talked
Speaker 1: about a study where older women are judged to look
Speaker 1: angry and unapproachable because of their sagging skin. Those exact
Speaker 1: same words, angry and unapproachable, were thrown at me in
Speaker 1: a job evaluation a couple of years ago. I'm fairly
Speaker 1: young and don't have wrinkles yet, but do have resting
Speaker 1: bitch face. I'm already hyper conscious of what my face
Speaker 1: is doing at all times now thanks to that evaluation,
Speaker 1: and I am terrified now of what's going to happen
Speaker 1: when I start getting wrinkles. Will I be judged to
Speaker 1: be even angrier and more unapproachable than I am now?
Speaker 1: Will I live alone forever with my cat because other
Speaker 1: humans don't think I'm pleasant enough. The connection between resting
Speaker 1: bitch face and wrinkles is one I hadn't made before.
Speaker 1: Men are allowed to have normal resting faces and age
Speaker 1: while women are not. At the same time, a male
Speaker 1: coworker that had what I would call arresting angry face
Speaker 1: and I were talking about our evaluations. I told him
Speaker 1: that I was called angry. He said that he was
Speaker 1: simply told to work on his communication skills. It's enough
Speaker 1: to make my mood reflect what my face is apparently
Speaker 1: already showing. Here's to hoping that society changes enough by
Speaker 1: the time I start getting wrinkles to keep me from
Speaker 1: being friendless forever. I know you've done a video on
Speaker 1: resting bitch Face, but if you ever do a whole podcast,
Speaker 1: I'll certainly be interested. Thank you for all the work
Speaker 1: you do well. Thank you, Michelle, and I'm sorry about
Speaker 1: your evaluation at work. That's a fantastic idea. We should
Speaker 1: so do a resting bitch Face episode. Uh So, I've
Speaker 1: got a letter here from Janice about our street Art
Speaker 1: Sisterhood podcast, and she writes, while I'm not a street artist,
Speaker 1: I am a professional visual artist. About three years ago,
Speaker 1: I took a deep breath, scrapped the serving job I had,
Speaker 1: and went into business for myself full time as an artist.
Speaker 1: Since then, I've been really working to build my portfolio
Speaker 1: and get into galleries and such here in the Austin
Speaker 1: area while surviving off of commissions and a part time
Speaker 1: job at a local arts store. Thanks for the Internet,
Speaker 1: I'm now able to reach an audience that allows me
Speaker 1: to actually do this. But it also gives me a
Speaker 1: man to wear, and it sometimes gives me some interesting
Speaker 1: insights into how artists are viewed. One such insight I've
Speaker 1: blamed is that people almost always assume that I'm male.
Speaker 1: I'm almost without fail referred to as a heat even
Speaker 1: though my name is Janice and a lot of people
Speaker 1: find me through my website. Here's a real insight though
Speaker 1: for myself. I learned early on that the mask of
Speaker 1: anonymity can actually help me get a better sale. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure why, but when people find out I'm female,
Speaker 1: they seem to want to haggle with the price more.
Speaker 1: IM not sure if everyone else's experiences, but it seems
Speaker 1: that people think the work of women is somehow diminished
Speaker 1: versus the work of a male counterpart. I've only been
Speaker 1: listening to your podcast for about a month, and I'm
Speaker 1: so excited to have found you, and I listened to
Speaker 1: you know all the time while I'm painting and creating.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for the really interesting topics and
Speaker 1: a more female viewpoint. A lot of podcasts have resonated
Speaker 1: with me a great deal and I'm excited to go
Speaker 1: back through all of the interesting topics. So thank you, Janice,
Speaker 1: and for other visual artists out there sending I'm curious
Speaker 1: if you found a similar thing in terms of people
Speaker 1: wanting to haggle more with you and talk your price
Speaker 1: down once they find out that you are a leady creator.
Speaker 1: Let us know, Mom sab at house. Stuff works dot
Speaker 1: com is our email address and for links to all
Speaker 1: of our social media as well as all of our blogs,
Speaker 1: videos and podcasts with our sources. So you can learn
Speaker 1: more about the science of cuddling. Head on over to
Speaker 1: stuff Mom Never Told You dot com for more on
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Because it has to
Speaker 1: works dot com