The sign read, “Don’t knock, just come in.”
I’d arrived after the official start time to this conversation-free, non-sexual, nurturing touch cuddle party and worried I’d missed an opening ceremony. I needn’t have worried—I opened the door to find the host lying on a bed of pillows.
“Cuddle me,” she said, opening up her arms.
It was an offer I could not refuse.
Still, I felt a slight tinge of unease. In my experience, the world did not work this way. Rolling around on a comfortable surface with an attractive and friendly friend had always been closer to what I thought was a destination in interpersonal relations, not the starting point. But it was lovely, and so was she.
As we spooned, I committed my first cuddle party faux pas—I kissed her gently on the neck. Her neck was right there—so were my lips. It felt natural, but I knew instantly this wasn’t allowed. Or was it? I didn’t know. Somewhere in the clouds, the cuddle referees conferred and let play continue.
We had a sweet and enjoyable chat, a cuddle party of two before other guests arrived. I felt a mix of feelings then, not wanting to share and yet also grateful for the infusion of new people, new bodies, a transition to something I could better wrap my head around.
The evening flew by quickly. Although this event was supposed to be free of conversation, we all wanted to talk, laugh and tell jokes of varying crassness. At one point, a woman who arrived later to the party sat upright with her arms crossed over her chest and confessed, “I feel shy.” But having said that, her shyness seemed to dissipate. Later in the evening, she lay on me, my arm behind her and my hand resting comfortably on the shoulder of the man she had arrived with.
Eventually, I had to sleep. I went to a guest bedroom and got some fitful rest. I had heard people talk of these parties as “getting their oxytocin hits,” and I could appreciate that. But some of me also felt I had an evening of small appetizers and still wanted the main course. I wondered yet again—perhaps I’m not cut out for this?
The next day, I tried to figure out what to do with my pent-up energy. I debated asking the host out to lunch, realizing how utterly impossible that seemed. If we’d started near what I thought of as the endpoint—the physical intimacy—then our interaction was running in reverse. Pressing my body into hers was fine, but lunch? Terrifying. We hadn’t even met yet.
This feeling of not knowing which end was up started two years before; at my then-wife’s request, we opened our marriage. Initially exciting, but the new relationship energy soon opened old wounds. Polyamory turned from a fun experiment into a last-ditch attempt to save a marriage I hadn’t realized needed saving.
“The first year is the hardest. We almost divorced many times,” was the advice given to me by one couple who had successfully transitioned to a stable polyamorous marriage. This became my lifeline. We just had to get through the first year, I thought. But that year passed, and we were still struggling.
I bargained to shut down the experiment, but it was too late. The marriage that we’d had was over. Through an acquaintance, I was invited to join a polyamorous community that held regular cuddle parties. This appealed to me. I suspected that cuddling with strangers was more my speed than, say, casual sex.
When the traveling cuddle party needed a home one evening, I volunteered to host. Reconfiguring my house to accommodate 20-plus cuddlers was a challenge, even more so when one of the organizers and his two king-sized futons bowed out.
Before the cuddling began, I asked one of the organizers to lead us in exercises. She led us through various rounds of partner exercises. The initial rounds involved practicing asking for and giving—or not giving—consent.
“May I touch your hair?”
“No.”
“May I squeeze your butt?”
“No.”
This exercise clearly had several goals: training us to ask for consent, encouraging people to feel free to say no, and practicing hearing and respecting the no.
We were asked to answer the question in the next round by suggesting an alternative. I was partnered with a woman whose naughty Mona Lisa smile intrigued me.
“May I squeeze your nipples?” she asked me. Bold, I thought.
“No,” I responded. “But you can touch my head.” She did.
“May I kiss you on the lips?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “But you can touch my neck.” And so I did.
“May I hold your hand?” she asked.
“No,” I said slowly with a grin. “But you can squeeze my nipples.”
She let out a laugh, found my nipples through my T-shirt and squeezed them. It was more amusing than erotic, but sharing the laugh was its own moment of connection.
Oxytocin flowed, the hot tub was used despite the rain, and it seemed a successful evening.
That was on a Friday. On Sunday, I had a second date with a woman I’d met through a conventional dating app. I didn’t know her well, but she seemed to come from a different world—the straight world of monogamy. I knew I was risking overloading my emotional circuitry by meeting her on the same weekend. But with the holidays and travel, my time was limited, and I happened to have that day free.
She intrigued me; she was a book that didn’t fall open at my fingertips. I sensed hidden depths and possibilities. And I also felt the whiplash of moving between such different worlds.
On our first date, I felt I’d talked way too much about my marriage, separation and divorce. She was going through a divorce as well, though much further along than me. We had a nice connection that day and agreed to meet again. But I had resolved to better compartmentalize for our second date—to get to know her better and ask her questions about herself.
I had high expectations for our second date, but it was awkward. Although we were having a pleasant enough time, the chemistry of our first encounter was missing.
We sat on a bench facing each other and talked. I wanted to break through the barrier that separated us. I wondered what it was and why it was there.
“Can I move closer to you?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, and so I did.
Soon, our legs touched, and we held hands. The ice had melted. Later, I reflected that the consent exercises from my cuddle party had unexpected benefits, just in giving me the simplest of vocabulary to ask for what I wanted.
And later, when she tilted her face toward mine—an invitation to a kiss—no words were necessary.
