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“Organized Intimacy” events in the Bay Area
- throwaway-1283 8y agoWhy are there are so many "fake trend" articles? If you find 2-3 groups of people doing something weird is that a "trend"?
- floatrock 8y agoFor the same exact reason VC's fund 10 companies and expect only 1 to succeed. Also, clicks.
- unclebucknasty 8y ago2 is a trend. 3 or more and it's a craze.
- gumby 8y agoI know! There was an article in the NYT once about the supposed Silicon Valley craze for socks as fashion statements. I don't think the authors realized they were being trolled. Don't believe me? https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/fashion/in-silicon-valley-socks-make-the-tech-entrepreneur.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/fashion/in-silicon-valley...
- exolymph 8y agoBecause there are economic incentives to write such articles.
- SolaceQuantum 8y agoI recall a daily science fiction piece in which people were romantically involved according to various algorithms that enforced optimal evaluations such as a limited difference in wages. The plot was that a woman falls in love with man, but she recieves a promotion which makes her relationship inappropriate according to the algorithm of her robot-servant. She is issued two days to get over it and is swiftly paired up with another male, who affirms that he is also recovering from the same emotional burden of losing a loved one in this same way.
- mountainofdeath 8y agoI am pretty sure the Black Mirror anthology on Netflix had an episode with the exact situation.
- unclebucknasty 8y agoMaybe "Hang the DJ" [0]? Had a more upbeat twist at the end vs the GP comment above though. Pretty good episode. One of my favorites. [0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hang_the_DJ_(Black_Mirror) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hang_the_DJ_(Black_Mirror)
- strikelaserclaw 8y agosounds like the current state of online dating to me.
- SolaceQuantum 8y agoCould you explain? I don't date online, so I don't understand the relation.
- strikelaserclaw 8y agoMerely a comment on modern online dating in which, each person optimizes according to their selection criteria vs what they can realistically get and ghost people if they find better matches. There are even terms describing phenomena of this bent like "serial monogamy"
- SolaceQuantum 8y agoI see; how does this relate to a story about what happens when the selection criteria is decided entirely outside of the control of the dating parties?
- strikelaserclaw 8y ago
- flitzofolov 8y agoThis seems to me like commodification of affection, or an attempt to "disrupt" the deathly loneliness of late-stage capitalism.
- floatrock 8y agoOr perhaps it's a response to the (admittedly not unfounded) pervasive cynicism where everything is seen as the "commodification of x or an attempt to disrupt the deathly loneliness of y". You know, maybe humans just trying to figure out what being human was supposed to be before suits and patagonia vests got in the way. /shrug
- stcredzero 8y agoan attempt to "disrupt" the deathly loneliness of late-stage capitalism Much has been written about the potential isolation and alienation under the Soviet system, which to me qualifies as late stage socialism.
- almost_usual 8y ago>The average young person moving to San Francisco today may no longer be a hitchhiker escaping a conservative town in search of art, free-thinking, and mind-altering drugs. Instead, they are more likely a recent graduate from a top college who has survived a five day interview process with a large tech firm, moving into a corporate sponsored condo in Mission Bay they’ll see 15 hours a week. The much hyped death of art and culture in the Bay Area may have led to many musicians moving to LA or Portland and artist collectives and shared spaces closing down due to an invasion of start up money and astronomical rents. But all of that hasn’t quenched the city’s thirst for getting off, getting weird or finding new ways to connect. Whether that be through cacao, eye contact, or cuddles, or some other kind of kink, the Valley—for all its known faults—isn't vanilla. Rapacious capitalists have to do something when bored..
- Fellshard 8y ago* secularists When you remove religion of any kind, that void does get filled, and in this case worship of sex is not uncommon, harkening back to thousands of years of deeply sexual pagan practice.
- ergothus 8y agoSounds like sex is a deeply emotional practice for human which intersects with any faith, rather than being a consequence of LACK of religion. (those pagan practices you cite WERE religious, after all). Several (all?) prominent religions are certainly opinionated on when and how one should and should not have sex.
- Fellshard 8y agoMore that those pagan practices were simply personifications to justify the behavior (religions built from the inside desires out), in contrast to religions that prescribe constraints from the outside in. All that's been done now is removing the external personification from the justification.
- 8y ago
- moosey 8y agoI think that these patterns will become more common in areas where economic opportunity for all involved parties equalizes. We are seeing social problems arise from this today, but hopefully those movements (incel, for example) begin to falter as the benefits from such a setup are realized. The idea that there are benefits to this are based on my personal point of view: I am married, I have two children, one adopted. While my marriage works, from my perspective, as a financial and management arrangement. However, it has failed in a variety of other areas that something like this would solve. Physical intimacy is an important aspect of human life, and finding reasonable access to it during our contemporary societal power shifts is going to be an ongoing problem. I expect to see more articles like this as people try to figure it out.
- magduf 8y ago>While my marriage works, from my perspective, as a financial and management arrangement. However, it has failed in a variety of other areas that something like this would solve. Sounds like you have a loveless marriage?
- moosey 8y agoHappens to tons of marriages for a variety of reasons. Fortunately, we are good friends and have a lot in common.
- magduf 8y agoSounds like me and my ex-wife. We're good friends, but that's it, and I wasn't willing to keep living like that. (We also had some serious points of conflict that made living in the same house unhappy.)
- moosey 8y agoRight. I don't think that either of us intend to ever remarry. Our end goal now is two apartments that are close to each other in the same city that we are living in now, so that our children don't have any issues visiting us.
- johan_larson 8y agoThis is too weird to go mainstream as is, but perhaps some aspect of it could be Starbucksed for the mainstream.
- neetdeth 8y agoAny attempt to scale is going to have to come up with serious barriers to hold back the tsunami of lonely and undesirable males. I don't believe it's actually possible.
- johan_larson 8y agoGirls-choose seems to be a workable solution. Assuming an event is suitable for men and women in a roughly even mix, the women get together in a preliminary event to choose the guys they want from a list of candidates.
- rc-1140 8y agoI don't know why people pay for cable or Netflix when the best three-ring circus exists in the form of Silicon Valley. Related to discussion, Japan actually has something in this vein where you can book an appointment with someone and engage in non-sexual intimacy (hugs, etc.) I believe Vice also had an article or video on this.
- drspacemonkey 8y agoThere have been a few such documentaries. I even saw one that followed a woman who worked at one of those cafes, and she would in turn spend large amounts of the money she made at another intimacy cafe.
- throw_away 8y agoThey have this in Portland, OR, as well: https://cuddleuptome.com/ https://cuddleuptome.com/
- GoodDreams 8y agoI host such events in my home here in the Bay Area in addition to attending such events hosted by others. Happy to answer any questions.
- pmoriarty 8y agoCould you give more details about these events? What actually goes on?
- GoodDreams 8y agoThere’s a wide range of events. Some of the event types: lecture with Q&A, discussion groups, communication practice, non-sexual cudde parties, second-base parties, sex parties. Events open to the public tend to be non-sexual and very structured. One needs to build trust in a community to be invited to other events. Nearly all events have a hard start time after which no one is allowed to enter. The beginning of events cover rules and guidelines for the event. Then there’s usually some ice breaker such as introductions. After that it really depends on what kind of event we’re talking about.
- fuzz4lyfe 8y agoI'd be interested to learn what sort of demographic you come from (privacy is paramount obviously) and what sort of demographic you find at these events. I don't believe I've ever traveled in a social circle that would openly engage in something like this so I'm curious as to what one would look like.
- GoodDreams 8y agoI have all the privilege. Some events are more diverse than others. It’s rare to meet someone under 30. Events skew towards the demographic of the location in which they’re held.
- fuzz4lyfe 8y agoI wouldn't of expected it to tend towards 30+ year old people especially in the Bay Area. Any overlap with other shall I say "cultural subgerenes" that you've noticed? Say PC Gamers or people really into sports?
- scarmig 8y ago> various new ways to get cozy with strangers—from lectures on tantra, workshops on “rope play,” Neither of those typically involve getting "cozy with strangers," at least no more than going to an art gallery or meetup or hike.
- lkrubner 8y agoIt's worth remembering that up until 20 years ago, the unusual sexual activities in San Francisco was the main thing that San Francisco was known for. It was, for a long time, the epicenter of LGBQ activism, and especially AIDS activism. During the years from 1956 (when Allen Ginsberg published The Howl) to the start of the Internet boom in the 1990s, San Francisco made national headlines mostly because of the types of sex that was happening there. San Francisco's national reputation had changed dramatically over the last 20 years, and especially over the last 10 years. (I'm not implying that any of this is good or bad, I'm just stating a bit of history.)
- yunesj 8y agoThis is another article that reeks of unsubstantiated, anti-tech sentiment. "culture and fun has been sucked out of the city since the second tech boom ... when the artists [left] the sex parties would dry up ... Burning Man morphed [to] a multi-million dollar, helicopter valeted, elite event ... sex and intimacy parties altered by the world of tech and money ... You can smell hubris on the streets ... toxic and sometimes dangerous events that revert back to a very unprogressive and misogynistic dynamic, in which entrepreneurial tech 2.0 entitlement and hubris is leveraged to excuse treating women, usually lower on the career ladder, as little more than sex toys." It's suffocating. Yes, the events happen. They are almost always sincere, good-hearted, intimate, and problem-free. People in SF are experimenting to see if this is the vitamin that makes people happier in a culture that is hyper-connected, but scrutinized and isolating. This writer takes these intimate events, and publishes an article about how they are "kinky" and "sexual." Author Andrew Chamings should write 1,500 words about he's the problem.
- dang 8y agoPlease don't be gratuitously negative in HN comments. Even when you're right, it degrades discussion. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Your comment would be just fine without the first and last bits! Particularly the paragraph that starts with "Yes, the events happen" is really good and has much better signal/noise than the rest.
- mmmmmmmmm 8y agoI thought the comment was exactly as negative as it ought to be. The author is an idiot and he should be lampooned like one.
- dang 8y agoNot the issue. It isn't that you owe better to the author; it's that you owe better to this community if you're posting here.
- yellowapple 8y ago
- selune 8y agoI feel like such things have been around kind of everywhere but just low-key. I'm from postsoviet space and I used to frequent on forums/social medias where there were also lots of people from role playing subculture (not sexual, just real life RPGs, Tolkien fandom and stuff) and from time to time I read about people organizing gatherings/picnics with the theme of hugging, snuggling etc. There are also more socially acceptable activities which, basically, come down to the same thing - getting super close with other people physically but without sex: partner dancing, massage, some group games, activities in religious/spiritual groups. Whatever works for some people.
- ataturk 8y agoMy observations are as follows: 1) Vice.com, so it is automatically edgy, scant on actual facts and details, and often just completely wrong. 2) SV has a lot of people who work too damn much. 3) Not everyone in SV has "money" as in "Fuck you money" and for those who do, it should not be hard to purchase intimacy in some form. 4) All these cuddle parties, eye gazing, and what have you events are a poor substitute for actual intimacy (not that I am against holding them) in a loving relationship, which makes me think the substitution must mean something--people there are desperate for any human contact. We are PC-ing ourselves to death. 5) Every generation thinks they invented sex. This current go around is risk averse while attempting to appear edgy and yet at the end of the night, I'm sure there's the same hurt feelings and sense of rejection we all have had. It doesn't matter how inclusive everyone is, the hot chick is not going home with the fat, bald guy (unless he has #3). By the way, I went to an engineering school, I know quite a bit about problems dating and how that all plays out. Seems like things are just a bit worse these days.
- stcredzero 8y agoI remember one Contra Dance at the Lake Eden Arts Festival in North Carolina which seems to have been written with rapid sequences of eye contact with many different people in mind. During that dance, I found myself stopping my verbal stream of consciousness, and it became entirely about music, dance, and eye contact. I remember coming back to my normal state of consciousness, amazed at what just happened.