@Mike102 I hope none of your cuddle partners are reading this thread. 🤣
@CharlesGrove I've known too many men who are nurturing and supportive for it to just be a wild mutation. And submissive men, too, but they are generally mocked as being unmanly.
Some generalizations should be avoided, as they are harmful and inhibit growth.
@Mike102 Have you ever talked to someone who prefers to cuddle with an attractive person and asked them why? I don't think you would like it if people made assumptions about you like that. There is a vast difference between wanting to be around an attractive person and getting sexual gratification out of it.
@WriterGF yeah that's what someone told me, this isnt my opinion. Luckily he realized how unhealthy that was and stopped cuddling.
I only cuddle with pros I find attractive.
I would cuddle with emthusiasts that I don't necessarily find an attraction with at first.
The beauty is I see deeper than the skin, and it doesn't take too long into cuddling for me to feel someone's heart, and see glints into their soul.
Beauty is a diamond. Multi-faceted.
@Huggycatbear no judgement, it's your money and your right. But may I ask why you only cuddle attractive pros ?
@Mike102 i get what you're saying I'm just offering an alternative to your thought. If i were to ask women i would be leave zone of them wouldnt like what you suggested. I wouldn't say they are wrong for feeling that way. But attractiveness is relative and refers to many things that do not involve sex.
Does attraction imply a feeling of trust or safety?
For me, not necessarily trust or safety, but instead, calm and relaxation.
@CharlesGrove i think so
Why do marketers only use attractive people in ads?
@Mike102 So you're basing your comment on what one person said?
@Mike102 did you actually read all that @Huggycatbear wrote? How he defines attractive/beauty? I think he has already answered your question.
Hi again @theCuddleDrgn - sorry that you're out of energy and or the desire for more feedback. I'll engage back with you in kind but under the understanding that you're no longer courting feedback or intending to be responsive to the conversation. I personally do not have the luxury of simply checking out of the male experience, and believe it's self-evident that this topic was hardly exhausted. More than that, I figure we're either driven to be topically literate and aware, especially concerning matters so important and so sensitive as these, or we aren't. So if there are still many important things to keep in mind, or to from a position of curiosity, be naturally driven to take into account - we should concern ourselves with that attempt at a more complete and balanced perspective. Thus I will continue!
Responding to someone who effectively says 'abolishing heteronormativity so that men are cuddling men isn't happening' with "Then how can we successfully mitigate loneliness in cis men?" is a staggering disposition to witness.
You're literally sincerely asking people what else we could possibly do to help men with loneliness if we don't get men cuddling men? I don't even know what to say to that and don't want to be disrespectful, so I'll leave it as is.
Digging deeper: not listening to men isn't about to position anyone to do well for them. There are degrees of not listening to us throughout this thread, and some which seem to persist as though no valid male voices have engaged with you and this or that topic thus far. So one learns that you're not really respecting the contributions of men to this topic, and this conforms perfectly to the overall demeanor of intending to 'solve men's problems' but without listening to or concerning yourself with resonance among the men you're supposedly driven to help.
Something important needs to be called out here. There's a demonstrable disregard for aspects of reality which interfere with the theory, interest and agenda you created this thread from. For example, no interest or sensitivity is expressed with respect to what men actually want, re: the heteronormativity you disagree with and very sweepingly put forth as 'the problem' - a wildly unnecessarily narrow interpretation of the problem that demonstrates an interest in being right rather than understanding the problem.
Let's put an end to this flagrant disregard for consent, autonomy, and feedback you don't like hearing from people who not only value their consent and autonomy, but who are shooting you straight when asking you, very reasonably, to reconcile your convictions and intentions with all the other insight that indicates what is not about to happen, and why that is. A failure to do this is a failure to be morally and intellectually honest, not only with yourself, but with us.
"Okay but how can I figure out a slightly less forceful way to make this a reality without violating the people who are saying it's not about to be their reality" isn't the moral crusade you presently seem convinced that it is:
I also want to point out that while I can appreciate not getting to everything raised in my last post, much of what was raised was pertinent to the topic at hand and the arguments, beliefs and goals in play. And much of that went unacknowledged, or effectively disregarded with undue consideration. For example, comparing cuddling to reiki is a very loud way of saying "I don't actually care if science backs the efficacy of this modality" - given what we know about the science around the efficacy of reiki.
Moreover, you mistakenly, impatiently and confidently assert that we don't have studies around this. But we do. And you'd probably like to know of them, so you could lean on them!
For the curious, let's take a cursory look at where the science is, and where it may or may not be going:
Mix bag hey? Future uncertain.
But what if we could peer further into this. What if we were still more curious as to what cuddling and touch were offering, and whether that is something truly new, and or something uniquely effective by contrast to other offerings?
These things being clarified, I'd honestly recommend rereading the things that went either unheard or unresponded to in my last post, and I say this because I'm not going to take the time to point out each of the compelling bits that went completely unaddressed, but which also speak powerfully to a less glamorized and very much morally and truthfully concerning perspective on these matters.
Here's something that certainly is trending upwards, and while it may have many positive implications, we would be morally and intellectually insincere in these pursuits and topics, if we weren't taking into account the negative implications:
The above reminds me of this ongoing poll/thread I started last night:
Guys who see cuddling pros - are you in therapy? https://www.cuddlecomfort.com/forum/discussion/22066
This all like my opinion man, but I disagree with the suggestion that we need men to start cuddling men in order to create a more affectionate society. Men and women display affection differently to other men or women. And personally I like to cuddle people that are soft and clean. Biological males are very rarely either.
@Travismo
And personally I like to cuddle people that are soft and clean. Biological males are very rarely either.
Men not being clean sounds like a cultural problem that should be fixed. Then we can examine what soft means in this context.
I like to cuddle people that are soft and clean. Biological males are very rarely either.
Plus they're hairy and have calloused hands and reek of male phermones. Yuck.
Males generally (emphasis on generally) have denser bone and muscle, coarse body/facial hair, and rougher skin. Frankly I'm surprised (but thankful) that anyone finds people with those traits appealing.
Yikes, OP went so far as to block me for the higher information perspective I shared in this thread, in service of staying morally and intellectually sincere, and knowing how to most be effective in helping not just men, but people broadly. Just found out as I went to DM them, as per their offer.
I'll leave it to everyone else then to decide what kind of a damn they feel OP gives about men, our preferences, our healing or our voices. Though I know my boiz could feel the insincerity toward us from the get. As per my previous comments in other threads: women, as men, are people - and people do not often readily surrender their power. And even less so when their unhealed trauma is relying existentially on such perspectives and corresponding identity politics, to keep their own equilibrium somewhat in tact.
That rough spot in your thirties when ones original puritanism is fading, and they realize they don't want to hate men, but they still don't have a commitment to seeing and treating men as real, whole people. People with a voice. People with an experience. People who aren't so fundamentally incompetent that they need you to terraform their gender identity or sexuality, to 'solve the problems men face'. Imagine treating such a serious issue to such a crude level of giving an ish. Literally raising the topic of loneliness and male suicide, only to categorically hate anything that isn't men saying "okay, we'll be gay, thank you for saving us."
As a very liberal guy who has an extensive history of correcting typically conservative men on the topic of communism, and having the education around communism to do so: OP's proposed solution is basically emotional communism. For men. Rather than literally any open-mindedness or interest towards any other direction that might address men's issues, or any of the downsides to their puritanical fantasy devoid of an interest in men's voices.
But I think oozing the widest reaching imaginable interpretations of heteronormativity as being oppressive (which I generally do agree with!) was the more honest goal within their soul. Given the allergic reaction they've had to witnessing the topic itself be expanded, and contributed to by men themselves, taking it a bit more seriously.
I don't have much hair. Not even on top of my head I have really soft skin.
Men have a lot more access to personal care products these days.
@aTallCuddleBug this is the shortest comment you've made that I've seen, congrats. But i don't know if you DMs her anything like what you posted but im sure that will earn you a block. But seriously im sure all your post have some good information and thought in there, but i wouldn't know. It's too much to commit To in the forum.
When I think soft (which is so tightly woven with warm) what I mean in a cuddling context is:
Physically soft. Smoother skin, softer hair, less densely muscled, gentle of voice, slow in movement, light to firm touch and embrace.
Emotionally warm. Listening, not debating. Speaking, not gabbing. Asking, not demanding. Existing, not judging. Sympathizing, not blaming. Supporting, not criticizing
For me, being in a physically and emotionally safe space with someone is the essence of my inner world.
What I absolutely don’t want within that inner world is a challenge, or a competition, or a fight.
I had all of that I ever need in the outside world.
And, for a lot of reasons, I either see other men as vaguely neutral and possibly dangerous, or teammates as our team works towards a common goal, or competition.
And, honestly, usually all three at once.
Whatever else all that is, it seems to be part of being a human male.
There’s been a few books about it…
Start with the Iliad, then try Don Quixote, Cyrano, and Moby Dick. Oh, and of course, all of Shakespeare. (The DAMAGE that man’s romantic issues have done to our culture… but he wasn’t lying…)
@ReltvlyCanshes I did not DM, though I was invited to. I went to pursue the offer, only to find that speaking educationally to the topic and taking it far more seriously than OP cares to, earns me a block.
And that's okay. So long as people understand that complaining about topical length by localizing it to the people speaking up to the topic at the length of which it exists, is more a matter of their disinterest in the topic, rather than some offense committed by those speaking more rather than less fully to it!
Or it is just reading fatigue ....
Other people’s attention spans or intellectual capacity is only my problem if I am being paid.
@aTallCuddleBug So THAT was the point of your post? I think the AI part was briefly mentioned at the very bottom, almost as an afterthought. That would be an interesting thread.
I made a thread recently, part of which questioned whether ai girlfriends are something we should lean into because they could be good for guys. Nobody really wanted to touch the question, just as nobody wants to acknowledge how closer to Her this particular industry is coming. Arguably closer than any of the other connection for hire industries, by a wide margin.
@starrynitecuds 😂😂 yeah, it was only really raised as a sort of 'topical north star' to question if at any point there is a limit or a recognition of harm in continuing on a path of commodifying and depersonalizing human connection.
@CharlesGrove 😂😂😂
This legendary moment comes to mind, although its more about 'fanged criticism' than 'overly long commentary':
I'm still striving to more humbly accept the rebuke. Social media, however, is also infested with people who have every intention to gaslight topics and those participating in them, in part through the near total lack of coregulation that takes place here, which would otherwise quite likely prevent people from strutting the audacity to simply plug their ears and run away from whatever truth they hated hearing.
A recent and childish tweet of mine comes to mind:
Holy cow!!! See i never could get to the bottom of alone of those posts! I've always misunderstood
@aTallCuddleBug
People who aren't so fundamentally incompetent that they need you to terraform their gender identity or sexuality, to 'solve the problems men face'.
I saw nothing that indicated changing anyone's gender or sexuality.
I went to pursue the offer, only to find that speaking educationally to the topic and taking it far more seriously than OP cares to, earns me a block.
It's also possible for a reasonable person to view some of your dissertation-length posts as patronizing.
I didn't see it as patronizing. Though I usually only briefly skim the beginning. I don't always have time to read a novella, including screenshots which are a bit small to read. Plus I think they're screenshots of AI output, which makes the posts inherently unreliable.