Cuddling was never about intimacy when I got started. It was about nervous system regulation.
When I was about to open the Snuggle House in Madison back in 2013, I had over 150 applicants who wanted to snuggle for a part-time income. Narrowing the list down to 5 that really got it - the desire to help others find balance and harmony vs. just 'get paid' to lay with someone - there was a beautiful thing we witnessed: people would 'test run' our services who were so sensitized that cuddling itself would be a trigger.
I have been in-and-out of this type of trauma. It loops. And before you realize it, your world becomes so small that it becomes unbearable. The thing is, if one person is regulated in a state of calm and presence, this seems to transfer through the 'touch' of the other. In one episode wherein I was experiencing cPTSD (recurring bouts that usually put me in the ER), my partner placed her hand on my heart. She held the space. Love.
The trauma-loop, which before felt unbearable and beyond my ability to cope (alone and in isolation), surged in a place of surrender... at last, dispersing in a few minutes vs. hours. There are many benefits to cuddling. The apex discovery I made was that my entire life's trauma did NOT need to be "rationalized" in my head, drugged into numb sedation, or to experience another ER visit to look at a physical vessel.
What needed to happen was a non-judgmental connection where unconditional love could flow to allow for safety to be perceived by a nervous system that perceived only 'danger' from years of reinforcement. What do you perceive when you visit the ER? (Danger). What do you perceive when you're alone and isolated in trauma? (Danger). What do you perceive when you're in a relationship and you're failing to meet someone else's expectations of being 'the strong one' all the time? (Danger).
The MISSING KEY to a real vault of value that makes each session transformational is NOT sensual (that is perceived danger in most cases, too), it is PERCEIVED SAFETY. There are very few places someone can find this in their life. Fair-weather friends are going to leave... relationships are going to have strings attached... family will almost always be 'too busy' or let you down... I don't say this because I'm making it up. I tell you this because I've lived it.
IF done properly, therapeutic cuddling can be the most "soothing" a person has experienced in their life. And the saying goes, "in the absence of soothing, symptoms present themselves." Just my thoughts from hundreds of sessions in my adult life and recognizing the key to being the catalyst for someone's breakthrough.
Often, this breakthrough is the last resort they have... because the rest of the world wants to drug them, talk their ear off and rehash the mental trauma-loop (with no soothing), or abandon them in their most critical hour of need. It might sound like a silly job, "I'm a professional cuddler." And based on the words used, it is. If it were done the way I do it, it would be called "co-regulation partner."