I was reminded of an almost-lost practice that was all the rage long ago, the legendary “Taxi Dance”. From what people have told me, it fulfilled for many people the same human need, to hold, to touch, to experience any level of simple affection from another human being, no matter how unattached or professional the act might be.
I imagine many people could attest that sex and affection do not always go hand-in-hand.
For many folks “sex without affection is still just sex”. Though this is still a point of some heated debate when a partnership is assumed to take precedence, the point of the aggrieved party usually is their assumed monopoly on both very valuable pleasures.
Affection and human contact though, is to me as others, a psychological need that when denied can cause much more grief and despair about the state of our lives than merely missing out on physical release.
That dependence is a main reason why the “taxi dance” have actually never really disappeared, as described here: http://articles.latimes.com/1990-07-15/magazine/tm-549_1_taxi-dance-hall
“(…) In most cases, the meter runs at 35 cents a minute, or $21 an hour. During this time, you’re entitled to complain that your wife doesn’t love you, that your girlfriend is cheating on you or that your boss is a miserable ogre and you don’t know how much longer you can take it. Or, depending on the girl and your reputation as a tipper, you may indulge in something akin to a poor man’s lambada.
Taxi dance clubs were once abundant in Chicago, New York, Detroit and San Francisco during the late teens and early 1920s. Today, however, they’re scarce to the point of extinction.
The grand exception is Los Angeles, where at least seven taxi dance clubs represent the fruition of a revival that began in the early ’70s, fueled in part by the loosening of sexual mores and later by droves of lonely immigrant men seeking a few dollars’ worth of tender, loving care.” (...)
So, anyone finding such a thing as a “cuddle party” to be entirely without use or merit, likely has the particular need being very well satisfied at the moment. Anyone else should consider whether they really have any other way of satisfying the human need as simply, positively and directly.
