Snuggle Lab: The Evolution of Positive Touch Culture
Since returning to facilitating events in 2023, my offerings have evolved and expanded to meet the needs of a variety of venues, events, and communities. My website is being updated soon to feature a calendar of upcoming events. In the meantime, join the The Portland Snuggle Lab on Facebook for the latest updates!
The Snuggle Lab Journey:
In 2015, as the buzz around “professional cuddling” grew, I recognized the importance of bringing my comprehensive understanding of the “politics of touch” to the evolving snuggle scene in Eugene, OR. I officially launched Snuggle Lab as my personal business and created the Positive Touch Meetup group to create community for exploring positive-touch culture. Over the next three years, the meetup grew to over 700 members, and I facilitated at least one “Intro to Positive Touch Culture” class or snuggle event each month.
In late 2017, I collaborated with local Ecstatic Dance DJs to create a groundbreaking event combining an evocative electronic dance environment with a tea lounge and a facilitated snuggle zone. Snuggle Dance was a very popular event that regularly brought in 70-90 people.
While the Meetup group was successful in attracting new people, it had limitations for event coordination. In 2019, I decided to close the Positive Touch Meetup group, hoping that a more functional system or collaborative approach would eventually take its place.
Current Offerings and Future Collaborations:
I am currently seeking passionate and skilled collaborators to help me host the highest-caliber, best-practice, paradigm-shifting positive touch events in Portland, OR, at festivals, and beyond. I am excited to bring Snuggle Lab to new communities. In particular, I am looking forward to co-creating another Snuggle Dance event with experienced DJ/producers.
If you’re interested in collaborating or staying informed about future events, please sign up for my newsletter or reach out directly.
Also, connect with us on Facebook: Snuggle Lab
Curriculum Vitae:
2004:
Hosted the first all-community Snuggle Party for Lost Valley Educational Center near Eugene. This early experiment in community care, platonic touch, and consent-based culture would become one of the foundational threads of my life’s work.
2007:
Coordinated LoveTribe’s Portland Pride Parade float and community snuggle booth, helping bring touch-positive, queer-inclusive connection culture into public celebration spaces in Portland.
2015:
Assisted LoveTribe in providing the community snuggle portion of PDX Cuddle Con. Studied with Kristen Reynolds of Conscious Touch NW and Shayna Luther of LoveTribe. Also began forming a West Coast cadre of positive-touch and consent-culture leaders alongside Jean Franzblau of Cuddle Sanctuary in Los Angeles, along with collaborators in Seattle and Portland.
2015:
Served on the consent presentation team for Beloved Festival, contributing creative production feedback, final script editing, and writing the official program blurb.
2016:
Completed the “Like A Pro” course with Betty Martin, creator of the Wheel of Consent, followed by the “Teaching the Wheel” addendum course in 2017.
2017:
Served as a member of the Beloved Festival Care Sanctuary Team. Assisted in staffing the care tent, where we offered workshops, one-on-one support, and refuge for people processing past or present consent violations. Also participated in the roaming care team, helping cultivate consent culture through energetic presence, education, and relational intervention throughout the festival environment.
2018:
Facilitated “Intro to Positive Touch Culture” for the Traveling Rose fundraiser event in Portland. Also offered a spoken-word-style consent presentation for a private 40-person retreat near Eugene, blending performance and relational education.
2019:
Closed the Positive Touch Meetup group in order to focus more intentionally on building a dedicated core event-hosting and facilitation team capable of deeper cultural stewardship and consistency.
2020–2023:
The pandemic made close-contact relational work contraindicated for a time! I was deeply engaged in my role as a Registered Nurse during an era of collective trauma, exhaustion, and destabilization. These years intensified my understanding of nervous systems, grief, and the societal consequences of touch deprivation and isolation.
2023:
Returned to facilitation in a major way, co-facilitating a 100-person Snuggle Party for SouthWest Lovefest in Tucson, alongside the founder of the New Mexico Cuddle Community Meetup. Also began forming vibrant new connections in California through SoulPlay Festival and the Bonobo Network, and in Washington through Kaleidoscopic Community (WildFern) and Imagine Festival.
2024:
Returned to Tucson to provide ActivePure clean air support for presenters requiring strict health precautions while presenting at SW Lovefest. I was honored to be invited to interview for the Soul Play “Soul Support” Lead position, though ultimately the timing and structure did not align with my schedule. Instead, I collaborated with the SoulPlay Inclusion & Belonging team to help create a new Accessibility Coordinator role focused on Ageism, Sizeism, and Ableism within transformational spaces. In Oregon, I continued refining event “orientation” practices for hybrid dance, snuggle, and sensual culture events (Elemental Bliss, Black Widow Dance) while developing new offerings connected to a dedicated snuggle space in SE Portland.
2025:
Had the pleasure of sharing a broad range of facilitation skills at Network for New Culture Spring Camp in California. In Oregon, I presented at Liberation Lab, Medicina Campout, and Shiva/Shakti Festival.
2026:
The last year has catapulted my offerings into a more integrated and comprehensive body of work. Emerging teachings in interpersonal neurobiology, tending the resonant field of groups, decolonizing the nervous system, and cultivating collective regulation have become central threads in my facilitation. I continue holding steady the line of work that insists care, consent, embodiment, and belonging are not luxuries, but essential cultural technologies for surviving and reshaping this era of fragmentation. This year marks the birth of We Will Always Find Each Other and the emergence of the SOMAgic body of work into the world.
My positive touch work is also informed by
- Over 20 years as a direct care professional working both in Hospice and with people experiencing intellectual/developmental differences. Working with these populations highlighted how important healthy, nurturing touch is throughout our lifetimes. This natural need is not met in our touch-phobic culture that relies on “the luck” of romantic connection for meeting people’s touch needs. Witnessing this state of affairs gave me the fortitude to take on radical culture change – for the sake of ALL of us that will someday be ill or dying and with, perhaps, the wish to simply be held in our time of need.
- Personal experiences with societal stigma against those with larger bodies, diverse gender expressions, mental/physical health issues, and cultural norms that keep us ignorant of how we exchange our sexuality in order to get our touch needs met. ALL people, in ALL types of bodies, and ALL types of presentations deserve safe, nurturing touch.
- A deep commitment to reclaim BODY SOVEREIGNTY for ALL of us and SHIFTING our culture from one that tolerates and condones rape and boundary violations to one that respects everyone’s right to be safe and free in their bodies. This includes fighting to change over-reaching laws that mistakenly seek to control what consenting adults do with other consenting adults.
Join me in the consent (r)evolution and in bringing access to healthy, nurturing, platonic touch to the people! THE REVOLUTION WILL HAVE PILLOWS! 🙂