This is a little old (from 2014), but I thought this article from Psychology Tomorrow Magazine described a guy's first cuddle with a professional (Samatha Hess) amazingly well, including his doubts and the after effects he felt:
The Cuddler
Some quotes:
"It was an amazing sensation in those first few minutes feeling someone nestled in that spot on my left side, near my heart, and things changed. She touched my face, and I touched her hair. Skin touched skin in different places, all of them appropriate relative to her boundaries, and we began to hold more tightly to each other. In the weeks leading up to the session, I’d had so many worries. What if I get sweaty? What if my stomach growls? What if my body does any number of things it seems to do more frequently and awkwardly the older I get? What if I have a cramp or a spasm? Or if I sneeze? Oh, why am I doing this?"
"She and I talked about this next aspect moments after I became aware of it, but it was a revelation to me how muscle memory came into play. Yes, it had been a long time since I had cuddled with someone, but my hands and body began to touch and stroke naturally, like a reflex. It was as if the part of me that knew how to tenderly touch a woman had been frozen by cryogenics, in a state of suspended animation, and upon awaking, it knew instinctively what to do."
"I couldn’t help but think that cuddling with Sam was an important part of preparing for relationship intimacy again, peeling off my layers a bit at a time, allowing someone to hold me and not my armor when I am finally in someone’s arms again, and she in mine. There is probably some value in the flip side, in allowing that person to be the one to do the peeling, but I sensed my cuddling time with Sam was a precursor to creating a comfort level with human contact I would not have otherwise been able to nurture. Although it might have nothing to do with Sam’s purpose, it felt like a wonderful byproduct of the experience, of her therapy."
"I use that word intentionally: therapy. I’ll leave it for you to evaluate her credentials, but I consider Sam a therapist, someone skilled in the healing arts, and after reading her website and spending two hours with her, I know this is a person with a plan, a purpose, a methodology, a gift, and a wonderful way of pulling together her innate qualities and learned techniques to develop a powerful dynamic. At one point I said to her, “You know what you’re doing.” She said, “Yes, I do.” She is following a plan, but it clearly comes from her heart. You can’t look into her eyes and come to any other conclusion."
"After she left, I felt lighter than I had in years, as if I’d unloaded the weight of my world from my shoulders, and even my insides felt less stressed than I’d thought possible. My cravings — the ones that are my demons, always squeezing me in their tight grip — were gone. It was almost uncomfortable, this feeling of needing nothing to fill my emptiness. It was not the norm. It was beyond my ability to describe in words. In those moments, though, I dictated notes to myself so I could remember them later: Incredible. I have this feeling right now I haven’t felt in a long time. I don’t feel the heaviness of my body. I don’t feel this big hole that needs to be filled."
"It didn’t last. In fact, it scared me, and within hours I sought comfort in food, in distraction, in my devices. The unbearable lightness of lightness, as I decided to call it, was too much for me. But it opened a door, giving me a chance to know it’s possible to feel that way. It made me want to feel it again and to be able to let myself continue to feel it."
"I’m wondering if others, especially men, feel some reluctance regarding contacting Sam for a cuddle. Is it somewhere on the scale of social stigma between ‘Signing up for an online dating service’ and ‘Paying for sex?’ Like, I want this, I need this, but I can’t tell anyone I’m doing this? I’ve read comments at the bottom of news stories about Sam, and I am not surprised by the skepticism, the snark, the dismissal of her as someone using a gimmick to gain fame or fortune, or both. Others can evaluate her as they see fit. All I can speak to with any authority is how it felt to hold her for an hour, and for her to hold me, and to look into her eyes, and to feel my walls coming down."
"The next day, when I learned my blood pressure was at its lowest in a long time, I couldn’t help thinking I’d experienced the early stages of what will soon be considered an integral part of healing. I have little doubt that if in years from now massages are still covered by insurance plans, cuddling will be too."
I also came across an article from 2015 that mentioned cuddling being accepted as a professional therapy for insurance purposes in Europe for the first time.