Cuddle Parties: the right touch?

Research shows that sustained touching offers health benefits.

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. (AP) — Edie Weinstein-Moser, best described as an insatiable cuddler, massaged the knee of Faith Kremer as she lay on a carpet of soft blankets. Kremer, 38, a social worker who lives south of Annapolis, Md., closed her eyes and nestled against another woman, who rested her head on the belly of Kerry Blubaugh, 56. He owns the Natural Healing Arts wellness center off St. Albans Circle in Newtown Square, where the unusual workshop was taking place on a recent Sunday afternoon.

Blubaugh pressed his back against his close friend, Denise Gilmar, 45, of Glen Mills, who snuggled near Melvin Jones, 32, someone she had just met. She rubbed his shoulder, while Jones massaged the back of stranger Linda “Linney May” Hunter, 56, of Glendora.

“Ah, this feels wonderful,” said Hunter, a holistic practitioner, resting her chin on a fluffy pillow.

The Cuddle Party was going perfectly.

Cuddle Party? The very name raises eyebrows. Snickering is inevitable. But this wasn’t some kinky swing time. Begun in 2004 in a corner of the country not usually associated with touchy-feely encounters — New York City — the nonsexual socials have since spread around the nation, including the Philadelphia locale, and to Canada, Australia and England. Founders Reid Mihalko and Marcia Baczynski, sex and relationship educators, bill the events as communications and boundary-setting workshops that have touched thousands of snuggle-starved adults.

“It’s a human need,” said Weinstein-Moser, 49, of Dublin, Bucks County, who introduced the phenomenon to the region last fall. She was smitten after attending her first in 2005, where she discovered she was a natural. Now a certified cuddle facilitator (training price tag: $1,490), Weinstein-Moser throws parties as far as Maryland and North Jersey. It costs $40 to attend.

The self-described Renaissance woman and freelance journalist also has gigs as a social worker, interfaith minister, clown and massage therapist.

“We live in a low-touch culture where strangers are suspect,” she said during the introduction, little silver hands dangling from her earlobes. Like everyone else, she wore pajamas. Her black top had the word karma stamped across the front; pink hearts dotted the bottoms.

“Our culture teaches intimacy has to be sexual,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be.”

In fact, research finds that sustained touch, that oft-ignored stepchild of a sense, can lower blood pressure, relieve stress, reduce aggression, and foster peaceful coexistence. Seriously.

“Hundreds of studies show that with moderate touch, you get all kinds of health benefits,” said Tiffany Field, director of the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami Medical School.

The sense, though, needs a makeover. “Touch is tied to sexual behavior,” Field said. “People misinterpret touch.”

Without taction, babies fail to thrive, studies of orphans show. Lower-touch cultures, such as the United States and Great Britain, also have more aggression than higher-touch ones (France), she said.

The key word is moderate, surprisingly. “If you’re lightly stroking someone, it’s going to arouse, elevate blood pressure and heart rate. If you get moderate pressure,” Field said, such as a back rub, “it puts you in a relaxed state.”

Cuddle Parties do not claim to offer therapy or even massage, but do tout the benefits of tactile contact. Not everyone, though, is convinced that what happens at the hugfests can deliver health benefits.