Around 1985, when I was in high school, I caught a lecture at U of T by a futurist who was talking about careers in the 21st century. He talked about jobs that already existed at the time -- such as computer programming and biomedical engineering -- but he also made some predictions based on technological and social trends and predicted the existence of wacky jobs such as "android physiologist". Someone in the audience asked why the futurist didn't use the term "android mechanic", and he replied by saying that it was because we would consider them more as people rather than machines, sort of the way the Star Wars characters interacted with C-3P0. It was a pretty interesting lecture, even if his predictions turned out to be way off.

For example, he'd never have predicted this 21st century job: Cuddle Party Facilitator [this is a Google cache copy of a classified ad that's since expired].

Photo: A cuddle party.
You too can make 40 grand a year getting people to do this.

"What, pray tell," you might ask, "is a cuddle party?" Let me present the Wikipedia definition:
A cuddle party is a non-sexual event in which adult participants are encouraged to engage in consensual cuddling, touching, caressing, and massaging. REiD Mihalko and Marcia Baczynski founded the organization in New York City that throws regular Cuddle Parties (they capitalize the events). They use a set of rules to set up a safe space and keep things from heating up too much, such as no nudity, hands under clothes, French kisses, dry humping, or other sex. Erections ("Mother Nature's way of giving us the thumbs-up sign") are not problematic, but should not be acted upon.
The Cuddle Party promo material tries so hard to emphasize the wholesomeness and child-like aspects that it ends up making the concept seem creepy in that Michael Jackson sleepover camp way.


REiD (yes, that's how he capitalizes it) Mihalko and Marcia Baczynski, the creators of the Cuddle Party concept, are such big fans of Ayn Rand that they gave their company the clever-clever name of "Atlas Spooned". It figures that Randroids would find a way to monetize cuddling.

One wonders if ol' Ayn would've approved. I can't imagine her cuddling anything other than a large canvas sack of money (just like in the cartoons, with a big "$" on printed on it), and I'm sure she'd dry-hump it too.


The next Cuddle Party facilitator training sessions will be held at:
  • Montgomery, Alabama, July 15-17th
  • New York City, September 23-25th