@HarleyGirlKate fwiw, vetting doesn't have to feel like a big chore nor invasive - it gets to be second nature once you have practices in place that work for you.
People generally already have vetting processes in place in a number of areas of their lives already, it's just that the practices are so routine that they never question them. For instance, when you pick a new restaurant to go to you usually have some baseline of criteria you want met that narrows down the list of options until you are able to choose the "right" one. Or when you are at work and choose which coworkers to help you on a project based off of what you know of their skills and past interactions you've had with them.
All vetting is is having set criteria to narrow options and meet a goal. In the case of vetting people you meet online, the goal is generally for things like safety and compatibility. You just have to decide what those criteria are, how you'll determine if potential matches meet them, and then apply procedures that lead towards the end goal of meeting up with safe compatible matches. Once you find procedures that work for you, you keep practicing them and they become routine.
Vetting people before meeting them is just the action of creating personal boundaries and enforcing them in a conscious manner.
@cuddlefaery I think I might have misspoke and not said enough. I agree completely with the observations you made, thank you.
I do understand that it is important to vet people and would be a bad idea not to. I think the part I find "exhausting" now that I think about it and after some introspection, is a feeling that perhaps I have to be on my guard a lot more than I wish I had to be, and trying to find the balance between being open, loving, and accepting while at the same time making sure that my cuddle partner respects my (and their own) boundaries.
The good thing about massage therapy is that over the years I've found it has become accepted in the mainstream as being platonic, and as a CMT I haven't had to deal with too many problems with people pushing boundaries, even when my practice included men. I'm wishing cuddle therapy was more like that, but as many seasoned people on here have said, "It is still early days."
I originally came on here with the idea of doing this professionally, and I still plan to, though I think this is an area I need to process, figure out, and come to terms with before I move on from being an "enthusiast."
What continues to stand out to me is more the macro issue.......the education of our men, through friends, family, and society in general. What has been normalized has men's responses to sensuality, i.e. genital arousal needing attention/release, is rarely questioned....by men. Thus, even in "normal" marriages, I hear friends complain that though they love to cuddle, their men always look at such affection/sensuality as a prelude to sex. All sorts of biological/genetic reasons are given to justify it......virtually always simplifying something considered universal. Always suggesting the "animal" response is normal, understandable....and acceptable. Never considering that the human aspect can bring an alchemical transformation to the animal response. We, as humans, not only have choices, and make choices constantly, but are deepened through that habit of conscious choice-making.
Men, especially as teenage boys, need a new introduction to who they are and can be, in schools and in homes. They need to be given a chance to become men, through a rite of passage, that incorporates a development of empathy. They need to be guided to see their behavior, both physically and emotionally, as it impacts the other, especially women.
Radical education transformation may not solve everything, but it certainly can help shine a light on the journey.....
@beaubliss very well stated, sir.