Apparently some Alabamians are paying to cuddle with “professional” strangers.
CuddleFix, which launched in Birmingham last year, connects clients with CuddlePros – people who are willing to snuggle with strangers on an hourly basis. Clients pay CuddlePros $60 an hour to snuggle on their couch or bed. Overnight sessions can cost up to $400.
Amy McKnight is one of seven CuddlePros in the Birmingham area. The company has strict ground rules.
“We are fully clothed – there is no sex, there is no kissing. This is not about sex. This is about human connection,” she explained to WBRC.
About 10 to 20 clients book cuddling sessions with McKnight every week.
McKnight has seen clients that just need someone to talk to, need someone to cry with, or someone to laugh with. This kind of human connection tells McKnight that she’s doing something good. Clients can lay their heads in her lap and let her stroke their hair.
“I’ve had several clients that hadn’t been touched in years and they break down and cry and it’s heartbreaking,” McKnight said.
McKnight says many of her clients are successful professionals, and some are even married. So far all of her clients have been men, but that’s just because no women have requested her yet.
Some of her married clients requested her services because they have lost their connection with their spouse. McKnight offers them support and compassion.
“The only reason they are coming to be is because they don’t want to cheat. They love their wives, they love their children. But they are missing something, they feel like they’re dying inside,” she said.
One of McKnight’s clients is a man transitioning out of a long-term relationship and struggling with being single again. He uses CuddleFix to help is issues of loneliness and depression. Just the intimacy of touch helps him feel better.
Dr. Tiffany Field and other researchers at the University of Miami have studied the science of touch. Intimate touch like in a massage has shown to have therapeutic value, reduce stress, and lower blood pressure.
Dr. Field acknowledges that there is little data showing that light touch through cuddling has therapeutic value. “I think it would be important if this is becoming a popular kind of therapy, to research it. I would hypothesize it must be similar to receiving massage,” she said.
McKnight and her clients acknowledge that CuddleFix is probably not for everyone.
“If you’re lucky enough, if you’re blessed enough to have someone to come home to at the end of a hard long day and say ‘honey, I had an awful day,’ – if you’re blessed enough to have that, you’re lucky. Not everyone has that,” she said.
CuddleFix is currently only located in Birmingham, but it is looking to expand to other cities like Atlanta and Washington, D.C.
