Feeling lonely? You can now pay to cuddle with NC therapist. Here’s what it looks like
When clients come to this North Carolina therapist office, they walk into a unique kind of space: a king-size bed and calming lighting in what looks like a normal bedroom.
It’s the “cuddle space.”
It’s where Ishka Shir offers a unique kind of therapy: professional cuddling.
Shir is the owner of Hold me AVL, a therapeutic cuddling company in Asheville, North Carolina.
According to her website, professional cuddling is a “form of alternative therapy in which the therapist shares platonic touch with their client.”
“In most of those spaces, the touch is platonic. A lot of people are lonely and seeking connection through touch, and it is difficult in our society,” Shir told McClatchy News. “Sharing touch with people who we are not related to or romantically involved with is often seen as taboo or awkward.”
Other than getting massages or a haircut, “there are not very many places where someone touches us,” she added.
Shir describes her clients as people who are lonely, who just experienced a break-up, or who have recently become widows or widowers, she said. And for $75, they can experience a one hour session of professional cuddling.
“Clients look like everyday people who you might be friends with, you might work with or you might be related to,” she said.
The cuddle therapist said her clients range from early 20s to late 80s and come to be cuddled from all over the region – about a third of her clients drive more than an hour away for her services.
People have come from Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia and even Virginia, she said.
First-time experiences
Besides those who come seeking help with recent loss, the therapist said some of her clients with autism want to experience snuggling for the first time.
“Some people want something that’s light and feels like pillow talk,” Shir said. “They just want to connect and feel heard and seen, and meet the needs of their loneliness.”
“I’ve been single for 12 years. I decided to give this a try; when Ishka asked if she could hold me, I realized that I had never been held by a woman,” one of Shir’s clients shared in a testimony on the website. “I’m 6’2” and I guess it’s always been assumed that I would be the big spoon. What a wonderful service.”
A safe space to heal
For others, the need for this kind of therapy can be deeper. Some of Shir’s clients come with touch-related or childhood trauma, and seek therapy to “find a way to feel safe through touch,” she explained.
“Coming to a space where they know they will only receive what they asked for and where they get to practice asking for what they want and learning it is possible to share touch with someone and not be harmed is really important for a lot of people,” Shir said.
Beyond the scientific benefits of cuddling – the release of different chemicals like oxytocin and serotonin, which can help regulate your mood – Shir said clients are more relaxed after cuddling sessions.
People who experience depression, anxiety and even sleep deprivation could benefit from this therapy, she said.
“We need touch for health,” Shir said.
Anik Debrot, a psychotherapist and a professor at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, said that current research generally supports the idea of cuddle therapy, according to Verywell.
“There’s a lot of evidence showing a link between touch and well-being,” she said, adding that physical touch can lower stress and blood pressure and stimulate positive emotions – “but it would usually have to come from someone familiar.”
Setting clear boundaries
Shir said she still faces judgment from people who associate cuddling therapy with sex work or assume her clients “must be creepy old men.”
From a legal standpoint, professional cuddles are in a “very gray area,” because they could lead to other intimate actions or even to sex, Michael Vitiello, a criminology professor at the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law, told The Sacramento Bee.
“You start to do more and more in exchange for money,” Vitiello said. “Then outright, you cross the line.”
But Shir said she is very clear with any new client about the boundaries of her services and that her regular clients are “coming for the right reasons.”
“We live in a society that does have a lot of phobia around touch”, Shir said. “The idea of our grandparents and older loved ones at home being lonely doesn’t seem to bother us. But the idea of them having someone to get cuddled is extremely troublesome for some reason.”
This story was originally published March 18, 2022 at 10:20 AM with the headline "Feeling lonely? You can now pay to cuddle with NC therapist. Here’s what it looks like."
