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" Sorry, lonely Wisconsinites looking for a safe place to pay for a little extra body-on-body heat during the cold winter months -- the Snuggle House has closed. Besides bearing what may be the creepiest name in recent entrepreneurial history, the usually trusting Midwesterners of Madison never really cozied up to the idea of professional cuddlers working in their midst, worried, as, let&amp;#039;s face it, most would be, that this was akin to a prostitution gateway drug. The ensuing scrutiny from city officials and the police, combined with derision and a general WTF attitude from local citizens, was finally too much to bear for the Snuggle House&amp;#039;s sensitive proprietor, an ex-stripper named Matthew Hurtado who&amp;#039;s other accomplishments include penning a semi-biographical book about a &amp;quot;sex addict meeting a supernatural being&amp;quot; and selling RnA Drops, which harness &amp;quot;invisible minerals&amp;quot; for a variety of health effects. No red flags there. The therapeutic power of touch, AKA snuggling, is in fact a business model that&amp;#039;s trending on the lonely fringes of society, with professional intimate opportunities popping up worldwide. From the Snuggery in Rochester, New York, which boasts the &amp;quot;double snuggle&amp;quot; service for folks who need twice the emotional support to Cuddle Party, an organization that puts on group snuggle events nation wide, to Boulder, Colorado&amp;#039;s Be The Love You Are, which offers special singles packages with their &amp;quot;cuddle stars&amp;quot; promising &amp;quot;dating, conscious relating, and connecting without all the talking,&amp;quot; to individual private cuddle therapists such as San Francisco&amp;#039;s Travis Sigley, who hasn&amp;#039;t &amp;quot;worn a shirt in five years,&amp;quot; and the more sinister Soineya in Tokyo, which lets men cuddle with young girls and has a menu of a la carte extras including &amp;quot;watching&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;slapping,&amp;quot; this isn&amp;#039;t just a lone(ly) Wisconsin crackpot&amp;#039;s scheme. Let&amp;#039;s cut to the chase: Does cuddle therapy work, or is it just a bunch of creepy touching, another New Age-y crystals-and-energy concept? Well, we know that hugging can lower blood pressure and improve memory, though studies indicate that embracing someone you don&amp;#039;t know or trust can have the opposite effect, but what it seems to all come down to is a hormone called Oxytocin, which is released during intimate experiences, and whose effects include increased bonding and empathy, even &amp;quot;making men as emotional as women.&amp;quot; Think of it as the organic, free range version of the Molly that Miley was raving about. So here&amp;#039;s the good news: All this touchy-feely stuff give you the creepy crawlies? Don&amp;#039;t worry, modern science has the answer. These Canadian scientists have bottled Oxytocin, meaning now you don&amp;#039;t need to worry about weirdo surrogate snuggle situations at all to get your fix. Pro tip: It&amp;#039;s also one of the natural chemicals that bathe our brains during orgasm. Which makes scoring some potentially way more fun than hitting up the sketchy raver dude dealer in your apartment complex or running to the local pharmacy. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a32747/snuggle-therapy-is-reaching-for-you/?src=spr_FBPAGE&spr_id=1456_34817016>