Admit it ladies- sometimes, there are moments where the only reason you want a boyfriend is so that you have someone to stay in and cuddle with. But what if you didn’t need a boyfriend to get that one-hour snuggle you so greatly desire?
The Snuggle House, located right here in Madison, is a business that provides one-hour snuggle sessions to its customers for a charge of $60. The business was supposed to open its doors on October 15th, but concerns about the Snuggle House being a front for prostitution postponed the opening.
Madison Assistant City Attorney Jennifer Zilavy is concerned that once people have gotten their snuggle in, they’ll be aroused and looking for more.
The business claims to have a 100-page manual for the staff members to follow and insist the Snuggle house is strictly non-sexual cuddling. Even so, each room is equipped with surveillance cameras and a panic button for customers to use in a snuggle emergency. Owner Matthew Hurtado and his four person staff argue that people need touch, and cuddling is a therapeutic method designed to make them feel safe and connected. Lonnie Johnson, the business’s only male cuddle-buddy, told a Journal Sentinel reporter, “It’s my goal in life to spread the love.”However, if intimate touching by strangers didn’t raise enough concern, in his motivational video “Misfits to Millionaires,” Hurtado dubs himself a “sex-addicted misfit, who becomes a millionaire.”
Apparently paying a business owned by a self-proclaimed “sex-addicted misfit” to have your body pressed up against a strangers in an intimate embrace is not as much of a red flag as one would assume, considering already over 300 of the city’s most touch-deprived have signed up for a cuddle session.
Coming from a family of hug-enthusiasts, I know the power of a much needed squeeze. However having a stranger wrap their body around you for an hour doesn’t strike me as a healthy replacement for a loving embrace, primarily because of the lack of the “loving” aspect and the fact that you’re paying for it. How can a person feel safe and loved if their cuddle-buddy is thinking about how each passing minute of holding you in their arms means one more dollar for them—and that’s best case scenario (I don’t think I need to clarify what the worst would be).
I’d like to believe that at Madison there’s enough Badger-loving to go around so we don’t feel the need to pay someone to hold us. But if you’ve got cash and a craving for a cuddle, head on over to 123 E. Main Street and sign up for a session at the Snuggle House, where everyone’s motto is “hugs not drugs.”