Since Maplewood Planning and Zoning killed a “snuggling” business at its May meeting, USA Today reported that a similar business, “Cuddle Club” has opened recently in Seattle.
Planning and zoning member Sandi Phillips told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch the commission’s first reaction to the license application was laughter. “We’re progressive — but not that progressive,” she said.
Jeff Rundquist, owner of Embrace Me Now, compared snuggling to massage therapy, saying 20 years ago, saying massage parlors were in shady parts of town. Now they’re “on every corner.”
He told he Post-Dispatch most of his current customers at his current location in south St. Louis suffer mainly from loneliness.
“We’re not claiming to be healers. And it’s primarily because people that we treat aren’t ill. They’re lonely — and lonely is not an illness. They just want some human contact.”
Phillips said the Embrace Me Now website was a “little weird. It seemed that the whole business is bordering on something more nefarious.”
She pointed to the descriptions of the snugglers employed, whose embrace “will leave you satisfied, spellbound and yearning for more,” and “Aphrodite … adored for her beauty, her gentle manner and her amorous adventures.”
Read the full article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Before a snuggling shop opens near you, the nearest cuddle Meetup Group appears to be in Indianapolis.