Hi there, Sam here. I’m a Boston-based cuddle therapist (also commonly known as professional cuddling) and I want to share with you a little bit about me.

Most people when I tell them what I do have a million questions, but mostly they want to know: what the heck IS professional cuddling?!

That’s a normal and valid question to ask, so it’s okay if you were wondering it too.

Sometimes people don’t ask either. They just sort of stare at me and dance around me because they make their own assumptions and don’t really know what to do with me. And that’s more awkward.

Here’s the short answer:

I’m trained (and have created training) that makes it so I can de-escalate, re-direct, or safely stop cuddling from progressing to anything more, even if my client decides partway through that they want more. I do all this without shaming people for their wants and desires, but my work is all about what’s possible for you to experience in your own body when any kind of escalation is off the table as an option.

If you want to know more about this or have specific questions, I have a whole FAQ page on my site that answers pretty much most of the questions people ask me about this work.

I’ve been doing this work for six and a half years as of this writing. If you’ve seen someone in the media that does this I probably know them in some capacity (many of them through this).

I really can’t summarize how many facets of life my work covers in a one page summary of me, but I encourage you to follow me on any of my socials (all the icons below, tap and you’ll go to my stuff) to see more of me and my thoughts around it.

Before six years ago, I was an engineer. Yeah, really. A construction engineer, no less.

It’s actually why I’m really into real estate, urban planning, etc. I have some background in it that helped me and my boyfriend buy a house recently.

Here’s my LinkedIn if you don’t believe me. Go ahead and connect with me while you’re at it; just tell me where exactly at WDS I met you so I remember that we did meet.

Back to professional cuddling, it takes up the majority of my time. Like any industry leader, I get involved in other projects to help people in my work and grow our emerging field.

Things like:

Snuggle School. I just revamped my course (it’s in its third and hopefully final major revision). As of right now, I run it once a year in February. If it’s of interest to you, click that link and get on the email list to hear about it!

Findacuddler.com is my next big project because I can’t cuddle every person in the world that wants to (trust me, I’ve tried). This will make it easier for clients to find reliable cuddlers in my field soon!

Cuddlecareer.com I have put aside for now for the above projects, but this is a resource for aspiring and current cuddlers to think of their little cuddle practice more seriously as a business.

There’s other projects too that I’ve worked on that aren’t mine personally, like the International Standard Code of Ethics for Profesional Cuddlers and the Cuddle Resource LIbrary. I’ll likely be helping with the efforts for us to gather data on the risks for professional cuddlers next so that we can get better insurance options for our business.

At the end of the day, my work involves touch. You might be wondering what the heck I did when the shutdowns happened. I couldn’t possibly cuddle people safely during a pandemic. And you would be right.

Instead, until cases went way down/until I was able to get vaccinated, I decided to write a book. (No big deal, it was just a book. /s)

It’s called “Happy While Hermitting Handbook: A Guide For Your Isolation” and it came out in October 2020. If you think it was well-timed, that was on purpose. I decided to write this book in March 2020 for everyone isolating. It was briefly a best seller in its category (still counts as a best seller!).

I plan to write another one too :) this time it’ll actually be about my journeys in professional cuddling, which was the book I wanted to write first. This book felt like it was the one that needed to come out of me first.

Holy sugar, you’re still reading this? I’m… touched (ba dum shhh)

If dumb puns from a cuddly person with an analytical, ADHD AF mind is someone you want to connect with in your life more, I’m happy to. While I’m not on social media much these days, Facebook is where you’ll see more of me authentically bringing my full self (and some other shenanigans because I can’t be serious ALL the time).

I like making friends, but I hope you’re able to find other supports in your life too. I’m one person and can’t do everything, and neither can you. If you want some info around that, I made a video about finding your supports. I call it the CORE4