@dave31415 give it up man. I just got home and can't believe this is still going. If you had TRUE intents, you would have stated your own personal preference from your VERY first post when you put up the poll. Instead, you are attempting to post it as an open discussion as a devil's advocate. Just stop it. You get hostile replies from the people who see right through you. I hate to say it but you make us honest and legit platonic cuddlers have a tougher time.
Reported and reviewed. Edited to remove the more personal comments. [Charlie_Bear]
@dave31415 some folks just aren't as persistent in feeling a need to respond with an argument and counter to each and every post and comment in a thread. You post about something like this , which you know will incite a reaction, argue and comment on each and every post just about, and then wanna say that you aren't even in agreement with the premise just want to see what others will say? But then still insist on arguing and insisting on validation of your words, rather than simply allowing for people to post their thoughts which is what you allegedly are just wanting all along anyway? That is more convoluted than a 3500 word essay on the argument of an argument about an argument, just for arguments sake .
Ok I got the dead horse loaded on the flat bed. Are we going to the taxidermist or the incinerator?
@BoomerSpooner I have some rather nice floggers for that horse if you need to borrow them
@dave31415, if you have site suggestion, you can post it here: https://www.cuddlecomfort.com/forum/discussion/1440/criticisms-and-ways-this-website-can-be-improved
I think it helps that a professional has reviews but I think for someone looking for a professional cuddler it's the photos and detail in their profile that will help the person decide on the choice. Karma helps but I believe having a good profile and clear photos is key 🩵
@dave31415
I also believe that there are as many women who want to cuddle as men, maybe even more. But there are a number of things that keep them from trying the site
I actually completely agree with this. Women like to cuddle just as much as men do. But there are massive differences in who they want to cuddle and in what context. And while safety is a factor, it's definitely not the primary difference.
It's a similar thing as the dating/sexual scene really. Women are highly desired by default with little effort, while men usually have to put in some work to find someone. It's not because women don't want sex or don't want to date. They want those things just as much as men.
@ocean900 Next time, do a video chat first. Might save you trouble.
TLDR: OP Suggests a bad idea. He gets irritable with people over the various ways in which they tell him it’s a bad idea.
Plot twist! He knew it was a bad idea all along. He was just testing you.
🙉
Maybe eBay should make you give stuff away before you’re allowed to sell things 🤔
I agree @CuddleWho & @dave31415 - there’s very much likely as many women that want to cuddle as men. Personally, I came to the site seeking refuge from the “netflix & chill” culture of the dating apps. The expectation of sex there puts so much undue pressure that, if it’s not what you’re looking for, you become a bit of an outlier as a result and almost even an anomaly. You’re just constantly bombarded with it. I found it cute and interesting that there could actually be a site that doesn’t put pressure on a woman to be sexual and it offered what I’d been longing for all along - someone to cuddle with. That was part of the reason why I was surprised there was a price being associated with it.
As an enthusiast coming from the dating world, I quickly realized some things though. The pool of men here are generally much older and/or married and are just not as attractive as those you find on the dating apps. As a female enthusiast I prefer to cuddle with someone I find attractive with a status/age similar to mine. Another thing I noticed was all the pretty girls on the site were majority pros. At first this made me wonder if I should stay because I didn’t like the implication of what charging for cuddles might mean but the constant reiteration of “platonic” made me feel a little less sketch about it.
Another limiting factor of the site is it’s popularity. If I had known of this site years ago, I would have likely came here instead of dating. But I only heard of it through word of mouth & as a keyword search on google.
All in all, if the objective is to attract more enthusiasts I’d say key points that would have attracted me more is: a more attractive pool of men to choose from, no charges for cuddles (it’s awkward seeing that from the start), and more site visibility, particularly if it transitioned to an app store. Particularly it being seen as an alternative to the dating lifestyle where women and men stay platonic (no strings) and you can finally relax without the tension or pressure of sex constantly hanging in the balance. There’s a safety net in that, at least that’s how I feel as a female here.
As far as the OP question goes. I think if taken from the perspective of an enthusiast or a male client it makes sense in an effort to up the ante on quality cuddles, kind of like electing someone to office after acquiring a certain number of votes. But as noted above, businesses don’t typically start out that way, they may give discounts or perks here and there but the reviews and what they’re offering is more likely to steer the masses.
I don't believe karma should be required to start charging for cuddling. But I also agree with the sentiment about how people discuss topics in the forum. Just state your opinion and chill with the bitterness and hostility. I believe the OP brings up topics that likely stir some strong feelings but I have never felt they were offensive or trying to complain. That's what a good forum should do. It is when others try to derail the post (and it's usually the same offenders) that it ceases to be a discussion and everyone just projects their own baggage into the thread. Chill!
@jplemmon a lot of people post their opinions and move on. The problem I have is when the person making the claim about how people post on the forum are actually responding with arguments and complaints about each and every post, and then gets defensive when called out on it which is what the OP does frequently.
@pmvines I'm looking back at the first page. The moment it goes off the rails is when the term "bitching and moaning" was tossed in. And frankly, I don't think he even was. Prior to that, it was a perfectly calm and reasonable discussion. This is what I'm talking about. People who purposefully bring in their baggage to derail a thread. There is no need for it.
@PrettyLuv I found your post very interesting. Of your suggestions, I think the only one that is really actionable is increasing visibility. CC has no control over how attractive the members are, and as has been pointed out earlier, take away the pros and this site disappears. Certainly things could be done on a marketing end to make people more aware of the site, but it is also a double-edged sword -- there are already a lot of people on here who don't understand the word "platonic" and try to push boundaries, and the more people who know of the site, the more of those people you are going to have here. And there are a lot of people who are not bad actors who simply do not get this at all (either believing it's a dating site or thinking it's a cover for sex work), so a lot of the marketing spend would need to be on education about what site is and is not.
@WriterGF I don’t think it would disappear at all. To the contrary, I think it might actually be holding it back. The concept alone is pretty solid. I think with the right visibility paired with an app, the site would gain enough traction to hold its own without the monetary component.
Minus the forums, it's almost best to think of Cuddle Comfort the site akin to something like Angie's List (now renamed to just Angi).
This site hosts a list of independent businesses who registered as Professionals to more easily found by those seeking to hire them instead of them solely marketing themselves using their own site and advertising through social media. Cuddle Comfort takes that list of independent businesses, Pros, and presents them to anyone who wants to hire them for the platonic cuddling service they offer while taking a small booking fee for continued upkeep of the site and some profit for the site admins.
At no other relatable site, including Angie's List, would someone seeking to charge for their service ever be required to first work for free to get reviews before they could start charging. Yes, on occasion this site has had issues with multiple fake accounts being made and they swap Karma or make it by the Pro screening process, but the moment one account gets flagged, it and all related accounts are pretty quickly logged and banned... I can't say all, but many of the fake accounts over the last 2 years come from 1 of 2 ISPs so it's pretty easy to tell if the profile is a fake in that aspect on our side.
As for ways to protect ensuring Pros are legit, one of the ways would require new Pros be required to pay a fee to be listed. This would dramatically cut down fake Pro accounts from being attempted to be made as it would mean before they could try to scam people they'd have to pay.
Also, really the only reason to have an app for this site would be for the push notifications for mentions, responses, messages, etc. which you can set to get email notifications for each of those. The mobile version of the site operates well enough and only requires you to open your browser to check it. I know an app has been brought up many times over the last 6-7 years, but I don't think anyone here knows what all it takes to make an app, make it functional to a variety of screen sizes and resolutions, to be secure on both Android and iPhone, keep up with regular security updates, OS versions, etc to provide basically giving you that ping notification to inform you of something rather than just remembering to check the website on occasion... and how many of you just leave your phone on silent anyway?
Yes, ADD/ADHD people with our attention span and easily distracted can and will forget to check, but I keep 3 windows of CC of certain pages open in a group in my mobile browser majority of the time and when I have time to check them I do. I know Mark has said it might be nice to have one but yea, it'd be a lot of work and a lot of upkeep for him and Gary to deal with on top of the site and forums side of things.
Some people on this site: “Cuddling is a human need and an absolutely essential part of our health and wellness.”
Also some people on this site: “Capitalism rules, baby!”
@PrettyLuv The site began as just enthusiasts. It became what it is in large part because there weren't enough female enthusiasts. Now I could be wrong, but I'm not convinced more visibility is going to prompt a flood of female enthusiasts to join. The ones here now don't seems to stay long, and even on well-known dating sites, men vastly outnumber women. And the fact is, it takes much longer to build a foundation for this with an enthusiast, which is part of the reason pros get hired. Also, if you take pros out of the equation, how does the site generate any revenue? If you start charging just to join, are membership numbers likely to go up or down?
@WriterGF I can almost guarantee you that no matter how visible the site becomes, if the monetary component remains, they’ll never be an influx of female enthusiasts here, just a rise in pros.
If the site wants more female enthusiasts they’ll have to nix the monetary component and develop an app. The reasoning for developing an app might differ for the developer versus the end user but as it relates to the end user, apps are typically downloaded, more often than naught, because of association with other popular apps and out of pure curiosity. It’s like a self-generating ad just being listed in an app store. Even the name “cuddlecomfort” is catchy and welcoming to a female crowd. I would argue that the female user base may even overtake the male user base here should the site scale large enough, and should the platonic aspect remain.
In other words, the site has great potential to scale in taking users away from other dating apps for a safer alternative. Apps also have the plus side of increasing the age range since most of everyone uses them in one form or another for social interaction.
How would such a thing generate income? There’s a plethora of ways for site owners to generate income on an app. The dating apps are billion dollar companies not because they began by charging their users for dates but because of the loads of perks that come with setting up certain types of accounts over others and because of how easy it is to join and interact in the chats (messages are sent in real time, you can see when someone is typing/responding to you - fast).
There’s always going to be an imbalance of female to male ratios on these apps starting out, but if the point is to increase the number of female enthusiasts, I think it starts with strategically building the user base and taking away anything that might detract from that, so that there’s at least a number to choose from.
@MrMarkAndrew
The same things are both true of Food, Housing, Medical Care, etc...
And those are all far more immediate needs than cuddling, nice as cuddling is and all.
@PrettyLuv I think we will just have to agree to disagree. I do think the possibility of becoming a pro cuts potentially cuts down on females staying enthusiasts, but I also think if you eliminate the pro aspect, many of those women would leave the site. And while the idea of an app is great, I believe it's already been discussed and CC does not have the resources to do it.
I would be curious to hear from pros how they would feel about there not being a pro option, but that probably belongs in another topic.
On the inverse, I think many female enthusiasts that would have remained enthusiast are leaving the site because of it. Inverse relationship.
I think some of ya’ll could use a cuddle lol
@CuddleWho I agree with your last post here. I've not read the whole thread.
It’s an interesting concept. I do think that the term pro is used very loosely here . Lately I’ve seen a lot of people sign up in my area, become pro and almost every time they’re either banned or deleted within a few weeks.
Most pros are on here with good intentions, but lately it seems like many people dive in for other reasons.
In most professions, you’re required to complete a course, do an internship or gain experience otherwise. Someone mentioned watching videos. Maybe filling out a questionnaire?
I won’t go down a rabbit hole. Earning karma for free won’t work for a variety of reasons. Most obvious would be scammers getting fake karma and turning the whole thing into a complicated mess.
I'm a fairly new pro, so admittedly my experience is limited....but I feel compelled to weigh in.
As I read the post initially, I wasn't sure it was serious. Then, as I read the responses and your engagement I realized not only are you serious, but your expectation of the post was to attempt to implement change to the platform as it exists seemingly solely for your own benefit and the benefit of others that share your viewpoint.
In your supporting arguments you say it should be free because it's a mutually enjoyable experience like dating....but THIS IS NOT DATING!!!!! This is a service. I've never/don't charge people I date to cuddle- even though that's something I do as a job....I'm not dating/attempting to date my cuddle clients. I'm not looking to turn my dating partners into cuddle clients. The two are unrelated entirely and you using dating as an example to justify why you should be cuddled for free just means what you're actually looking for/would benefit most from is finding someone to date....but not on this website, that's not what we're here for. I've never charged anyone I met on Tinder and I cuddled the shit out of them. 😂 AND- if you ask my ex's they'd tell you it'd have been cheaper to hire a cuddler than to pay my upkeep for those "free" cuddles...
"It's not fair".... No, you're being entitled....you've acknowledged pro's are required because of the imbalance. TRYING to make people work for free will just make them not work at all. Before pro's there were no cuddlers....it's been repeated 100 times. No one is making anyone pay for this service. No one is requiring anyone to use pro's only....free market dictates supply and demand.
I don't have to justify my "price" to anyone....but for the sake of attempting engage in civil discord about a subject that frankly ruffled my feathers I'm going to give a little breakdown of the "WHY"....I'm priced low average at $80/hr. In general people choose who they want companionship from visually first. What's the relevance? I'm chosen because I'm cute. Why am I cute? Because I spend money to be. I'm not trying to sound like an ass, but honestly - my upkeep is expensive. If I don't do it, I don't make money. So- we have the expense of the actual products for upkeep, then we have the TIME. For each appointment I spend about 2 hours getting ready. Shaving for smooth skin, showering for good hygiene, blowdrying/styling my hair, doing my makeup, getting dressed, etc....then there's a commute. Let's assume 30 min each way for nice round numbers. If someone books an hour for $80, I have a minimum of 4 hours invested in that appointment without including any messaging, video, screening, etc I may do beforehand. Suddenly that $80/hr is actually $20/hr and doesn't include my actual expenses.
I thankfully have a flexible work schedule, so I'm often able to accommodate appointments at different times of day. However, doing so takes money out of my pocket, without the payment I can't be accomodating because I'd have to keep a more rigid schedule.
I could go on and on about why you aren't entitled to the use of anyone's body or time for free, but hopefully I've already sufficiently made my point. If you feel something should be free find someone who does it for free....no one is forcing you to pay.
Also worth noting- I VERY often stay over the scheduled time for no additional charge especially if I'm enjoying myself and they have a great attitude....willing to bet that happens a TON....so maybe if ALL of your pros are running out the door at exactly an hour you should ask yourself why....based on what I've read I can probably guess. 😬👀
No. But multiple bad karma and a pro should lose the status.
@PrettyLuv I find your thesis very interesting. TBH, the enthusiasts I have talked to have fallen into two camps -- people who have ended up quitting because they got overwhelmed by messages and/or tired of getting propositioned sexually, and those who were planning to turn pro. I haven't met any who quit because of the existence of pros, but that certainly doesn't mean they don't exist.
Maybe the real question should be, “Why is Karma even a thing here?”
It’s prone to shenanigans annd only a few users seem to trust it.
Given those two issues what is it bringing to the table?