Off campus down Park Avenue, there exists a lovely business dedicated exclusively to meeting people’s sensual needs. Most people need some sort of human contact to stay content and happy, and this business can provide it for a fee. But this is not a prostitute house – sexual activity is not allowed. No, this business is dedicated to one thing: cuddling.
Cuddling is defined by Urban Dictionary as “simply touching and caressing without any contact whatsoever with either partner’s sexual organs.” The definition also goes on to say that women prefer cuddling more than men and more than they enjoy sex. This can be debatable depending on the person and, more specifically, the UR Student.
Enter UR Cuddling, a new, free service that is friending-up UR students, giving them a way to find cuddle buddies all over campus. After already gathering over 400 friends in only a few days, the new service is growing fast. According to its profile, it was born in November of 1953 and is an alumnus of Hogwarts.
But what is this service promoting? Is cuddling with a random student on campus ok? After all the talk about hooking up and sexual health on campus, this sounds rather suspicious and dangerous. When signing up for this service, will cuddling really be the end of the interaction? Probably not.
UR Kinks, another new Facebook service, exists to fulfill sexual fantasies of students on campus. At least this service lays everything on the table: sign up, tell an anonymous person your sexual desires, match up, and be safe. Cuddling seems to leave the future of you and your cuddle partner a little wishy-washy. What happens if, after your cuddle session, one member of the cuddle team is ready for sex and another is completely ready to leave? What if alcohol is mixed into the cuddling session with this semi-anonymous person?
This is not to say that all cuddling is a bad idea – it’s not. Human contact is great, and when both partners are in agreement, it’s a good time. But if the cuddling occurs between two people who meet not-over-Facebook, there was at least a little “foreplay” to the cuddle session. They probably met, chatted over coffee, and have at least talked. Cuddling is the next stop in the development of a relationship, not the end of the line. Cuddling is an intimate moment between two people who enjoy spending time with each other, not between random strangers.
For now, we can all sit back and wait to see how many friends UR Cuddling acquires in the next few weeks. And who knows, maybe it will turn out to be a harmless, fun, adorable service with happy people and bunnies and rainbows. Maybe.
