That group is way to weird. How can it not be sexualised? They have definitly taken parts of landmark, the wording is very similar

Absolutely frightening! Haven't seen any signs for this in the NY area, thank G-d.

What is that Landmark advanced "sexuality" course about, anyway?

-valerie

Some of the oldtimers talk about being flooded with pornographic movies of all sorts of perversions playing all the while they are encouraged to discuss their own sex lives and troubled histories. They also talk about the "disconnect" of sex and love, which pretty much mimics Werner Erhard's own lizard-like propensities. His early followers were quite eager to embark on his promiscuous example and took up the mantle with much-noticed zeal. Funnily enough, he tried to take control of the sex lives of his inner circle, according to Pressman, to the extent of having them ask permission before they could start a relationship of that nature. It just fits right in with the whole cult/guru position - sex being one of if not the most highly charged and intimate aspects of most people's minds. It makes sense that these scammers would want to access, harvest, and manipulate that for their own purposes. Werner's "source," Napoleon Hill, states something like "all sales energy is sex energy," or something similar, which fitted nicely into the sales/pyramid/recruitment push. There are lots of accounts of Werner Erhard using sex to take control of the women he was happy to use and exploit.


Yechhhhhh,


Ellen

That is so icky!

I really would value the opinions of particpants in Cuddle Party versus people who have just read the website copy.

or failing that, people who know well particpants in Cuddle Party or the founders, at the very least.

I have a Pavlovian negative reaction to any group founded by a proud Landmark grad, but, actually I like the idea behind it a lot. I wish I could like it a lot more except that I found out that one of the co-founders did Landmark and as I said I have that Pavlovian response.

to answer a couple of specific remarks, the producers of real sex parties put them on a lot more discretely than this. they do not want to get busted. for that matter they do not want people who would miss the point or ruin the experience (or worse) to show up, let alone the possiblity of a police bust.

if even one of these Cuddle Parties gave way to actual sex you can bet that at least one participant would freak, inform away and thanks to the vice squad, then Cuddle Party would cease to exist very quickly.

in my totally uniformed opinion this looks like more what it appears, a weird kind of group ritual, and nothing to do with recruitment into anything, though clearly they want your dollar.

personally I doubt this could exist without an exchange of money, though, because that would come off as just too freaky.

It has something to do with the non-spontaneous, formulaic, or scripted intimacy, which makes it the opposite, in my opinion. I imagine it's just a lure or some kind of bait to snare the lonely who are, after all, pretty easily manipulated (along with the depressed, worried, anxious, confused, "lost," sick, in pain, etc., etc. - most of us self-identified "victims" looking for a way out of "victimhood.")

It's not about sex when it's within a cult so much as it's about power and control and/or the arousal of guilt or shame that can be used against you. Churches and religions have tried to harness the energy that people might devote to themselves in this regard and turn it towards their own benefit since the beginning.


Ellen

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elena
I imagine it's just a lure or some kind of bait to snare the lonely who are, after all, pretty easily manipulated (along with the depressed, worried, anxious, confused, "lost," sick, in pain, etc., etc. - most of us self-identified "victims" looking for a way out of "victimhood.")

in a way, yeah, they clearly want to make money off of this.

I think that this rubs the wrong way against the sex-negative programming of the majority of the readers of this board.

yes, I do think that some cults operate by erasing the sex-negative programming and harvesting the energy that results but in my totally uniformed opinion the opportunities seem limited here.

Sex-negative programming?

Ellen described sex-negative thinking really well, I think...

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elena
It's not about sex when it's within a cult so much as it's about power and control and/or the arousal of guilt or shame that can be used against you. Churches and religions have tried to harness the energy that people might devote to themselves in this regard and turn it towards their own benefit since the beginning.

Sorry, but I still don't understand what you mean by "sex-negative programming." Are you saying that society programs us to be negative about sex? And that "cuddle parties" may sort of release us from that programming?