My head is resting on the chest of this man I first saw two hours ago. I heard the name and immediately forgot it. I can feel his heartbeat. He breathes calmly, gently caressing my upper arm. I grope for the corpse lying next to the man, find a hand, it intertwines with mine.
Cuddling with strangers? The idea seems absurd, even offensive – and yet a proven concept, not just on this occasion a December evening in Lucerne. New York inventors called it the “Hug Party” nearly 20 years ago. In Swiss cities such as Zurich, Winterthur ZH, Bern, Basel and Lucerne, there is a monthly evening of hugs.
It’s not about eroticism
“We deliberately avoid the word party,” says Elmar Büeler (45), who has been leading the Lucerne series with Marlise Bühler (50) and Patrick Hofer (56) since 2016. “In colloquialism, a hug is often a synonym for: Let’s see if it leads to sex? Not with us.”
Cuddling with strangers is not about erotic energy. Touches are unintentional and careful. Intimate space is taboo, like slipping under clothes. A two-man crew guides 15 to 20 men and women, carrying them through the evening.
Still: If you try the offer for the first time, you’re out of your comfort zone. It’s about our societal traditions. It is taught from an early age that closeness and touching can be potentially dangerous. Those working with children are advised not to physically console them. The #MeToo gesture raises uncertainty over whether even touching is allowed. And Corona really poisoned our relationship with intimacy. Best American epidemiologist Anthony S. Fauci (81) said: “In an ideal world, we would do it without shaking hands.” He probably meant other forms of communication as well.
Healthy
This may be true regarding the transmission of viruses. But research shows that touch promotes well-being and health. And on the contrary, a lack of physical attention can do a lot of damage.
The suffering of some 170,000 children who had to grow up in orphanages under the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu (1918-1989), confirms the findings from scientific experiments with monkeys: neglect and lack of physical affection lead to massively delayed development and weaker growth.
For nearly 40 years, psychologist Tiffany Field (80) has been researching the therapeutic effects of touch and the positive effects of massage in all stages of life, from premature babies to the elderly. The director of the Touch Research Institute in Miami (USA) was able to show that the absence of a loving touch leads to a higher degree of aggression. Moderate pressure touches calm the nervous system, lower blood pressure and stress hormone levels. This in turn leads to more immune cells that fight bacteria, viruses and cancer cells.
A daily dose of touch
In this respect, Anthony S. Fauci is wrong: Touch would be even more important to give the body the resources to fight viruses. When asked how much each person should ideally communicate, Tiffany Field replied by email: “The need is individual. But I always say: like diet and exercise, every person needs a daily dose of touches. The professor is comfortable as in Lucerne. She states that evenings should have a similar positive effect on health as massage therapy.
“Skin hunger” means the biological need for touch. Tiffany Field realized long before Corona that we fell short of this as a society. He conducted further research during the pandemic: the almost complete deprivation of touch currently experienced by single people has led to depression, anxiety, fatigue, sleep disturbances, among other things.
Business model touch
The need for touch has become a market in many countries of the world. From the US to Japan, there are cute shops or cute cafes where customers pay hourly rates to sleep and cuddle with employees. In Japan, guests in some cafes have the opportunity to pet cats or rabbits. And the robot Paro, a plush seal invented in Japan, is also used in Swiss homes, for example, for treating dementia patients.
Marlise Bühler in Lucerne says: “A hug in the evening is not an offer of therapy.” But since their first experience in Zurich a few years ago, the management trio have been convinced of the powerful impact of a hug in a group. Patrick Hofer says: “I was able to calm down in a very short time there. It fascinated me.” Elmar Büeler also talks about the feeling of deep relaxation.
Within three hours, strangers stepping out of the cold and stepping into the mansion, some self-confident, some insecure – no, they’re not friends. Strangers remain strangers, names are heard, forgotten. You don’t learn more, it doesn’t matter here. But the strangers become a collective, like a flock returning safely to each other.
Massage by two angels
Experienced people describe this state as hugging energy, then it seems perfectly natural to lie there with your eyes closed and not know who owns the four hands that caress, caress, scratch, knead your body. The so-called angel exercise is the final preparation part. From the upright encounter making eye contact, we approached false devotion step by step. Those who are not here for the first time are especially looking forward to the last pile of hugs. First I observe the others, then find a gap between the young and old bodies and hug this man’s chest. Feel his heart, his breath and mine.
Afterwards, I come out of deep relaxation and leave this sandbox shortly after. Confused, fed, completely with me, a little lost, as if waking from a slumber.