Latest / The Christian Reeve Podcast / Felicity Azura | The Christian Reeve Podcast #215
Transcript
- 0:00Hello, everybody. This is a trigger warning /
- 0:03warning just in general that this show is 18.
- 0:06Plus and so, if you're below those ages, please don't watch
- 0:10this. Please avoid this show, skip
- 0:12this one. There are themes covered in this
- 0:16particular episode that may be distressing or upsetting for
- 0:19listeners. So this is your warning.
- 0:22So proceed with caution might be worth skipping.
- 0:25This one entirely Felicity was a wonderful guest.
- 0:28This is a good show. It's Just there are some topics
- 0:32that sort of Catch You by surprise that even I wasn't
- 0:35expecting and it's just a warning for everybody so just
- 0:39bear that in mind. And thank you very much.
- 0:42Hello. And welcome back to the
- 0:43Christian Reef podcast. Today's Guest House, all the way
- 0:47from San Francisco her name is Felicity as order and will be
- 0:50speaking. All about near-death experiences
- 0:52and much, much more today. Welcome Felicity, how are you
- 0:55doing? I'm doing really well, and I'm
- 1:01so glad that we finally got to do this because we've been
- 1:04corresponding over email since March, and it is how the middle
- 1:08of May. My gosh, is it really been that
- 1:10long? Oh my God.
- 1:11Yes. Yeah.
- 1:13It's, you know, actually I just found the side that is actually
- 1:16a real pleasure to have you here for a number of reasons.
- 1:18One, I'm very excited to just do a show.
- 1:21I love doing this show be we're going to be talking about a lot
- 1:24of interesting topics stuff I just Fascinating and see.
- 1:28I've had a lot of like, weirdly cancellations and no-shows
- 1:33lately, which is something that happens in the podcasting game.
- 1:36I've mentioned a few times in the show recently, but it is
- 1:38incredibly frustrating. Especially when you've got an
- 1:40audience a growing audience who are like excited about each and
- 1:44every show and you know, so I get people sending in questions
- 1:48all this sort of stuff and it's just like, I feel really bad
- 1:51because people then say like oh why didn't this person show up?
- 1:54And I'm like, I don't know, I'm just the host, like Dad, try my
- 2:00best but, you know, so yeah, I believe me.
- 2:03I'm very, very happy to have you, okay.
- 2:06I've only interviewed three people on my podcast so far and
- 2:10so I've yet to have a no call no show but now I know to expect
- 2:16that at some point. Yeah, it's gonna happen.
- 2:20I hope it doesn't happen. Very often to you.
- 2:23Y'all. Gosh three episodes in what's
- 2:25your show about time. It's about you show, real quick.
- 2:26My show is about professional cuddling but it's mainly me
- 2:31talking to myself. I interviewed one person in
- 2:35maybe 20 19, and she's not a professional cuddler, but I
- 2:39still thought she was cool. So I had her on my show and I
- 2:43recently interviewed two professional cuddlers.
- 2:46So one of those interviews will be out before the end of May.
- 2:50The second one, I've yet to edit that body.
- 2:53Oh, but I'll try to publish it for June.
- 2:56Okay, this is fascinating because I remember you telling
- 2:59me this in your initial emails to me and I was like what what
- 3:03do you mean professional cuddler?
- 3:04So this is a thing, please explain this to me.
- 3:07How does professional cuddling work?
- 3:09I don't need to be, I'm going to be mean here laughing.
- 3:11If it's a genuine thing is just in my mind, and the way you
- 3:14phrased, it was interesting as well.
- 3:16You said, I'm a professional cuddler and this has got me in
- 3:19dangerous situations and I'm like, oh my gosh, you have to
- 3:23tell me and also I'm worried for your safety.
- 3:27Please tell me more. Okay, so it's a delicate
- 3:33tightrope. It's a delicate tightrope walk
- 3:37because I don't want to downplay the dangers of being a cuddle
- 3:43therapist. But I also want to acknowledge
- 3:46that most victims of domestic violence, kidnapping trafficking
- 3:52all that they're normally abused by someone, they already
- 3:56personally know. And so, when I go on other
- 3:59parts, Podcasts, I often get questions.
- 4:02Like aren't you scared of being kidnapped, trafficked, all of
- 4:04that. And I mean in general, yes I am.
- 4:09But I also know the statistics, I kind of have to be vigilant
- 4:14about these kinds of things. And so, it's, it was I was in so
- 4:22many precarious situations during my first year as a
- 4:25snuggle partner, but I learned a lot of safety tips with, in my
- 4:32five years of experience and I am happy to share those safety
- 4:38tips with almost anyone. I like I said, it's a tightrope
- 4:44walk. I do want to share this Vital
- 4:47Information on podcast, but I also wonder if I'm compromising
- 4:51myself. Safety.
- 4:51If I just stayed to the whole world, this is what I do to, you
- 4:57know, preserve and protect myself.
- 4:59But as a snuggle therapist, I kind of strangers for a living
- 5:09and I've gotten a lot of I've gotten a wide array of
- 5:16reactions, like, I've, I've heard people say, oh yeah, I do
- 5:20that too. Like I, you know, at hospitals,
- 5:24I'll snuggle newborn babies because babies need, you know,
- 5:28warmth and human connection. I'm like, that's that's not what
- 5:31I'm doing. I'm not going to hospitals in
- 5:33like a very controlled environment and hugging harmless
- 5:36infants, I am often, you know, going to hotels, going to
- 5:41airbnb's, going to people's homes and like trusting them and
- 5:47hugging them for hours at a time and it's It's very
- 5:56misunderstood, so I created a podcast for it.
- 6:01Okay, I have so many questions. How do you firstly?
- 6:06Ensure your safety but you mentioned there for example oh I
- 6:09might go to like an Airbnb and it's like the I got to imagine
- 6:15that you know as a young woman you know going to these places
- 6:18alone is like you're I mean you're asking for trouble like
- 6:23how how do you ensure your own safety?
- 6:25Like what measures do you put in place or like how do you if you
- 6:29even can like that to make sure? Sure, that someone is, you know,
- 6:33not a psycho like I don't know. Like how do you navigate that?
- 6:37I would say every practitioner has a different vetting process
- 6:40like for some people, they'll be like, oh, I need to make sure
- 6:44that every person I cuddle has a job so that they can afford my
- 6:48rates and I've met people who cuddled those in law enforcement
- 6:56and the military me I do ask people what their job is before
- 7:01I cuddle them. I mean a so they have money so
- 7:06that They can afford my rates but also, I don't cuddle people
- 7:10in law enforcement because I feel like, if someone ends up
- 7:15not liking me, they can easily just stay whatever.
- 7:19And then be like, okay, well now I have the means to arrest you
- 7:23and I live in the United States. You Maybe if you're a lawyer,
- 7:30you have like some some leverage with the police.
- 7:34But I am not some kind of attorney.
- 7:38So, if someone doesn't like me and their law enforcement, they
- 7:42can pretty much get away with anything.
- 7:43And so, I genuinely do want to give people a therapeutic
- 7:51experience, but I also reserve the right to refuse service to
- 7:56anyone else. Yeah.
- 7:57I mean I suppose a lot of it is just kind of like trusting your
- 8:02judgment, your intuition like how a situation looks and
- 8:05whatnot. But oh my God, I see it sounds
- 8:08like the most stressful kind of scary thing ever.
- 8:12Like, tell me how you got into this like Did this start?
- 8:19Well, liked. a lot of people who enter the adult industry, I
- 8:25started because I needed the money and there are a lot of,
- 8:35side hustle blogs online, which I hate about a lot of those
- 8:41blogs will publish very click beta D, entries, and sometimes
- 8:48make talks about how lucrative of a side hustle.
- 8:52Professional cuddling is. But I would say most
- 8:57professional cuddlers hate that depiction because it's a
- 9:02therapeutic service and it's just we live in late stage.
- 9:09Ilysm. That's why I'd also blogs exist.
- 9:12People making money off of telling other people that there
- 9:15are such a, there are such things as low risk, High reward
- 9:19jobs, but I purposefully named my podcast Pro cuddle hustle
- 9:28because I'm assuming that most people when they're Googling
- 9:31this, they're like side, hustle, professional cuddling, and then
- 9:35my resource pops up. And I Have the balls to say no
- 9:41this is not a low-risk high-reward kind of job because
- 9:44there is no such a thing. Anyone who tells you that it's
- 9:49just someone trying to win the game of late-stage capitalism.
- 9:54They're trying to sell you. This idea that you can be 100%
- 9:58safe and make a lot of money. Everyone's trying to sell
- 10:02something on there. Okay.
- 10:08Here's an interesting angle to this.
- 10:09So one thing I'm dealing with a lot as as I increase with the
- 10:14things I do online and stuff is this idea of parasocial
- 10:16relationships and now right now with what you're doing I mean
- 10:21hugging is a concept is is a very intimate thing.
- 10:25I understand that it you can kind of detach In the same way
- 10:30that someone might say attached sort of more mature, I'll just
- 10:35say sex, you know, people like sex exists right at it and its
- 10:40history is a thing that happens. It's a thing that people do and
- 10:47I'm imagining in many ways, hugging can be can be the same,
- 10:50but like, I don't know. Like, for me, personally, when I
- 10:52think about hugging, like there were different types of hugs
- 10:55obviously, but, like, I imagined the top of hug that you are
- 10:58giving someone. In this particular context is
- 11:01supposed to be intimate is supposed to be quite a lot of
- 11:05Intention compassion involved in that and that's where it begins
- 11:09to blur the lines because it's like, well, I'm a professional.
- 11:13I'm doing this for a living. I'm providing you a service, but
- 11:17at the same time, said service is something that's very
- 11:21passionate and intimate and it's kind of impossible almost not to
- 11:26be. So how do you navigate that
- 11:29particular? That is such a good question
- 11:31because when I think of when I hear parasocial, relationships I
- 11:37immediately think of online relationships you know the
- 11:40people who will like listen to every single interview I have on
- 11:45another podcast follow my social media for years but then never
- 11:50Meet me in person and I hate it. I hate receiving an email from
- 11:56someone saying I've been on the fence about cuddling you for 5
- 12:01years or something like that. And then, you know, we go back
- 12:05and forth with emails for one to two years and it's like, buddy,
- 12:09schedule a day and a time because I can't just be going
- 12:13back and forth with you for a year.
- 12:15That's very rude. And so, When it comes to
- 12:20in-person parasocial relationships, I'll say I when I
- 12:25meet a client, I show up as myself.
- 12:27I don't really hold back on my personal experiences.
- 12:34What? Like when I say to people, you
- 12:39know, I've had a really, really rough gay or rough week.
- 12:43I mean it I don't pretend that I've had a glorious month if my
- 12:47mom Has been shit. I don't expect the clients to
- 12:50console me because I'm supposed to be consoling them.
- 12:53But you know, when people ask me, how are you?
- 12:57I answer honestly, and I cannot control people's emotions.
- 13:03I cannot tell someone you're not allowed to fall in love with me
- 13:07and she's you can barely control your own emotions.
- 13:10So what makes you think, you can control someone else's emotions
- 13:13and what does bother me is, When people say, oh, because I've
- 13:20fallen in love with you, I cannot I cannot compensate you
- 13:26anymore as if loving someone means.
- 13:30You don't have to financially take care of them.
- 13:33Like imagine if your parent told you, I'm only financial aid
- 13:39taking care of you because you have no other access to Capital.
- 13:42Instead of I'm financially taking care of you because I
- 13:45love you. Mmm.
- 13:47Yeah. So so sayings like that does
- 13:49cause some kind of distant with me like so you love me but you
- 13:55don't want to make sure that I have food on my table.
- 14:00Make it make sense. Sir, look how do you react to
- 14:05people saying to? You know, hey I love you.
- 14:08I this is changed now like obviously the first reaction
- 14:13would be to just generally be like this and we're going to
- 14:15have to kind of end this because no longer appropriate but like
- 14:20how do you deal with that? And how have I don't say I love
- 14:27you back in a serious way and and there's a variation of this,
- 14:34because I've had men be like Are we friends?
- 14:38Are we like we like best friends because you're like, the
- 14:43closest? Woman to me, who isn't a blood
- 14:49relative? And it's I hate how it turns my
- 14:56stomach into knots. Because, of course, I want my
- 14:59life to be filled with lots of friends and lots of love, but I
- 15:02feel like when a lot of men, ask a woman, especially a woman that
- 15:06they're paying for their time, are we friends that's like code
- 15:10for? Do I have to keep paying you to
- 15:13be nice to me, can you like Start being nice to me for free.
- 15:17And when you meet a woman in her workplace it doesn't matter if
- 15:22she works at a bookstore at a strip club, professional color.
- 15:25Whatever, if you meet a woman in her book or in her workplace, it
- 15:30is I would say incredibly rude to be alike.
- 15:35How about you stop doing this job for me?
- 15:37Because I'm like so awesome that you should give up your stream
- 15:42of Revenue. Its It's mind-boggling, but a
- 15:49lot of people think they're oh-so-special, wonderful
- 15:53magical, that women whom they have a purely transactional,
- 15:58relationship with. Should just give up their way of
- 16:03putting food on the table. So, what you're saying?
- 16:06It sounds like the majority of your client base is male then.
- 16:09Oh yeah. I've yet to have my first female
- 16:13client but female cuddle clients, do exist.
- 16:16And what kind of age range? Are we talking as far as the men
- 16:19are concerned? I would say that the
- 16:24professional cuddlers who have their own domain Vlog and they
- 16:28have all these fancy expensive certifications and they mostly
- 16:34advertised on, you know, Facebook and Google.
- 16:36I feel like they attract the 40 and up demographic.
- 16:43More. I mainly advertise through
- 16:47social media, so not saying that older people don't use social
- 16:52media, but a lot of younger people are tech-savvy and what
- 16:57sense do I attract a lot of the younger clientele.
- 17:02And I, how do people reach out to exact time?
- 17:05I suppose. It's it's not kind of like the
- 17:07standard Way that you'd reach out to someone about something
- 17:12like, how does it's all come together.
- 17:15I asked people to email me their screening information and
- 17:23sometimes people text that information to me, but I do
- 17:27prefer giving out my phone numbers through email.
- 17:32I tried not to advertise my phone number on my social media
- 17:38because I don't want to get a bunch of like spam.
- 17:40Ma'am. You have a separate phone or is
- 17:42it your personal? Yeah, I do have a separate phone
- 17:44number. This is the only day you
- 17:49clearly, quite a young lady, I'm just like looking at this like
- 17:52stressful older person. Like oh my God.
- 17:54Is she is she did this? She does not like I'm just
- 17:57stressing, right? Sorry.
- 17:59I made a ton of mistakes. Yeah.
- 18:01And I still make mistakes every now and then but nowhere near as
- 18:05often as when I first started Okay, let's run.
- 18:11I want to, I want to, I like to kind of go negative and positive
- 18:15with this sort of stuff. So okay, let's start with the
- 18:17negatives. Worst client interactions and
- 18:21how you dealt with it. So as though the positive angle
- 18:23to it but definitely sexual assault.
- 18:26Oh my gosh, definitely be the worst.
- 18:30All right, I'm sorry to hear that.
- 18:33How did you get like we were able to at least Get the person
- 18:39prosecuted like, you know, get some know this fella.
- 18:43I've met somebody workers who try to prosper.
- 18:48Yeah, tried to take abuse of clients to court.
- 18:52I It's were cases in the United States take forever you can be
- 19:00completely no-fault someone else like crashed into your car and
- 19:05it'll take two years of of going to court to get your check in
- 19:13the mail. It's the justice system in the
- 19:16u.s. is so slow and that is even if you do get that, you know,
- 19:20one thousand dollar check in the end, And so I've tried to take
- 19:27abusers in my personal life to court and that didn't work.
- 19:33And so I assume that if, if it doesn't work in the personal
- 19:37life, it's not going to work in the work life.
- 19:40I'm really sorry to hear that. It just sucks like all the women
- 19:46in my life that talk to you, all seem to have like a similar
- 19:49story in some shape or form. This is really distressing and
- 19:54sad to hear that. I try to find the silver lining
- 20:01because at least they're being open with you about that because
- 20:04a lot of people, they'll like, literally not tell anyone for 5
- 20:07years, 10 years, 20 years. They'll just not tell anyone and
- 20:11they'll try to take this to the Grave, like women should suffer
- 20:16in silence when no one should suffer in silence.
- 20:24Given that that happened. Like how I must have obviously
- 20:29made you question whether or not you should continue your
- 20:32professions. Like how did you sort of move
- 20:34forward thereafter with that in mind?
- 20:37Well, I think back to why I started doing this in the first
- 20:44place. Yes, I did it because I needed
- 20:49the money but also because it's a job that isn't physically
- 20:54demanding. I've worked jobs where I would
- 20:57be, you know, walking back and forth for seven hours, straight
- 21:03eight hours straight, maybe nine hours straight, and I would get
- 21:08paid maybe $600 a month for doing that and I would have to,
- 21:13you know, give up my weekends give up.
- 21:16The time that I normally spend with my grandparents and it's
- 21:21just I chose to be a professional color because I get
- 21:26to choose when I work I get to choose when I go on vacation I
- 21:31get to choose how long I stay with a client.
- 21:34Like I have this rule where if I'm cuddling someone for over
- 21:38two hours, we have to go get food.
- 21:41I am not going to starve myself or her client.
- 21:44I'll never do that. at, and I didn't have this kind of Freedom
- 21:49when I worked in retail. I didn't have this read on when
- 21:51I worked in childcare and I love working with children and
- 21:57children. Definitely didn't sexually
- 21:59assault me. So, Those are just some of the
- 22:06factors that made me. choose the job that I'm working today, and
- 22:17It I knew from a young age that I wanted to become a teacher and
- 22:23I tried doing the whole going to University to get a political
- 22:28science degree to get a teaching credential afterwards and then
- 22:32maybe graduate school. So I could become a high school
- 22:35teacher but I just cannot complete undergraduate school.
- 22:46While there is a pandemic going on and it was bad enough in
- 22:502020. But now we're in 2023.
- 22:52Were people pretend like, like covid is a non-issue, it's still
- 22:56an issue and I got covid for the second time this year in the
- 23:02second time is worse than the first time and I say this as
- 23:05someone who's like fully vaccinated with all the
- 23:07boosters. So it's just being a college
- 23:14student during a pandemic, ruined, my mental health, but it
- 23:19was It was honestly snuggling my clients and hearing them.
- 23:26Tell me, thank you for doing this.
- 23:28Thank you provide, thank you for providing this therapeutic
- 23:30service. That improved, my mental health.
- 23:34It was not only a good experience for them.
- 23:36It was a good experience for me and I I mean, you love
- 23:43podcasting and I love podcasting.
- 23:45If I I mean if I stopped professional cuddling today I
- 23:49guess I still would have things I could talk about for my
- 23:52podcast but then I would have to, I guess stop podcasting
- 23:58sooner because I would have Less information that I could share
- 24:03with the world. And That would break my heart.
- 24:09I really love podcasting even though it's not something I
- 24:14profit off of it, I invested thousands of dollars into my
- 24:18podcasts and I feel like nobody knows that because I have you no
- 24:22less than 30 episodes but I genuinely care about my podcast
- 24:29and I don't think any amount of bad clients.
- 24:35I see. Has enough power to make me stop
- 24:42doing a job that I could probably do until I die and fund
- 24:48the vacations. That I want to go on, and give
- 24:51me something to talk about to myself and to my interview
- 24:56guests. And it's just In a way, it's
- 25:01empowering. It's empowering to keep going.
- 25:04Even when You face obstacles that you never anticipated
- 25:10facing. No, I get what you mean and I
- 25:17think with what without you kind of built up as well.
- 25:22But how this became a thing that, you know, you started as a
- 25:25side hustle and then it became something that Is part of you as
- 25:30part of what you offer and I've been there.
- 25:33I've had moments when, you know life just was not it, you know,
- 25:40everything's just not going well and sometimes the things that I
- 25:45kept doing like this stuff online, ultimately became a
- 25:50point of, like, well, I might not be okay.
- 25:53Things might not feel, okay? But at least I can offer this
- 25:56and make other people feel, okay?
- 25:58And that in essence kind of slowly, but surely makes you
- 26:04feel better and stuff. And it's like, you know, like
- 26:07for instance, what you do for a living, like it's such a
- 26:11powerful thing. You think about hugging as a
- 26:13concept like II don't often received hugs.
- 26:16I like what? So when I do I'm like I say but
- 26:18that last night amazing you know, like don't think it's
- 26:20these families. When I do it's like make the
- 26:22most of this, don't know when the next time is going to be.
- 26:26And it's like as you mentioned like Sometimes people can be
- 26:29going for, like, really difficult times and maybe that
- 26:33ugh is, you know, keeping them go.
- 26:37Oh no, it's just rough, tough one.
- 26:40And I wanted to kind of use that as a way to segue into more
- 26:43positive stuff. What would you say are the kind
- 26:47of most positive experiences you've had through this work?
- 26:50Like maybe the Best case scenarios where it's led to a
- 26:55person really kind of benefiting at Major Way. so, I don't know
- 27:07if you've ever gone through a friendship breakup but I wish
- 27:12friendship breakups were spoken about more often.
- 27:16And I've had some regulars, stop talking to me and it genuinely
- 27:24feels like a friendship breakup to me.
- 27:26And no one owes me an explanation.
- 27:29As to why they stopped seeing me, they could stop seeing me
- 27:31because of many reasons because they moved elsewhere.
- 27:34Like whatever reason they They have, it's valid.
- 27:37It's their life, they can do whatever they want, but it's I
- 27:44really do try to remember the things that the people I meet
- 27:49told me and I, I've had some people stopped seeing me but
- 27:58then in a year or two years something like that, they reach
- 28:01out and they're like hey it's been a while.
- 28:04Can we please catch up and it it melts my heart that they still
- 28:11think of me even though they haven't seen me and in a year or
- 28:15two and it's just, I don't know if I would get this out of other
- 28:25jobs like I used to work out a cafeteria.
- 28:31I definitely would not get someone saying, oh my gosh, I
- 28:35remember you it. I haven't been at this cafeteria
- 28:38teachers but and it's it's So, rewarding to make a difference
- 28:47in other people's lives, because that's why young me wanted to
- 28:51become a teacher, because I had teachers, who made a difference
- 28:54in my life, but there are so many problems within Academia.
- 28:57Like, I would hate to tell children, hey, I had to give you
- 29:00an F for this, which will impact your GPA, which will impact the
- 29:06likelihood of you getting into your dream College.
- 29:10I hate that part of Academia. I would love to just be a
- 29:14teacher. ER and not have to do those
- 29:18shitty things, like tell them, you only have four, bathroom
- 29:22passes for the entire semester like fuck that shit.
- 29:26I want to teach and Through my podcast through my writing,
- 29:32through all of those artistic mediums, I'm able to fulfill
- 29:35that desire without having to do the whole like parent-teacher
- 29:41conference and all that ugly stuff.
- 29:47I get it. I get it.
- 29:51Let's move it forward and because it actually I brought
- 29:55you on to talk about near-death experiences but like, I couldn't
- 29:58not talk about like your profession.
- 30:00And I just, I just think it's absolutely fascinating.
- 30:04And just like the way that you're helping people, keep
- 30:12doing what you do and be safe. Just remain safe.
- 30:15Please love God, right, let's talk near-death experiences.
- 30:23One of the things you told me is that you experienced a
- 30:25concussion, at the age of 18, walk us through this process.
- 30:36Let me preface this by saying, I have a very strained
- 30:42relationship with my mother and so I went to public school and
- 30:53as a kid, I was never taught. This is what happens when you
- 30:59break a bone. This is what happens when you
- 31:02get a concussion. I was never taught any of that,
- 31:07I I was pretty much taught. If you have sex, you'll get an
- 31:11STD and then you'll get pregnant and then you'll like then your
- 31:16vagina is ruined, something like that and over then you'll get an
- 31:21abortion and then your vagina is ruined or something like that.
- 31:24And so I wish I was taught More about my body.
- 31:30And yes, the scientific aspect. Like these are the different
- 31:34types of muscles in. These are the different layers
- 31:38of skin, but I wish I was also taught harm reduction.
- 31:42I was not taught. This is what you do.
- 31:47If you're recovering from an eating disorder, I was not
- 31:50taught. This is what you do.
- 31:53If you think you've had too many alcoholic drinks.
- 31:58My mom is not the kind of person who values harm reduction.
- 32:03She like so many other moms grew up during the Reagan Era, you
- 32:08know, War on Drugs, all that propaganda.
- 32:10And so, when I got a concussion at 18, I genuinely didn't know
- 32:16that. Something was wrong with me, and
- 32:21I literally had throbbing in my head for about nine, maybe ten.
- 32:27Two hours. And that's when I finally told
- 32:29my mom. Hey, I think I need to go to the
- 32:31emergency room and like many other adults.
- 32:35She was like, why didn't you tell me this sooner?
- 32:38But that's what happens when you don't teach children about their
- 32:41bodies. They'll literally break a bone
- 32:43and think, oh, it'll like be normal and, you know, 30
- 32:47minutes. Um, and so I went to the
- 32:51emergency room and then the doctor told me that I needed to
- 32:58get some sleep in that that would he'll that would heal me
- 33:03but my mom was definitely I would say she definitely went
- 33:09the carceral route because I had gotten the concussion in a
- 33:15locker room. And so, I was sticking my head
- 33:17in my locker, getting my backpack, or whatever out.
- 33:20And then I guess someone I was like walking by and and that
- 33:25momentum, slammed the locker door on my head.
- 33:29I don't think anyone like I'm sure kids, like, kids can be
- 33:33Rowdy, they can rough house but I generally don't think anyone
- 33:38Had malicious intent and was like, I'm gonna give someone a
- 33:41concussion today. I don't know, I think it was
- 33:44purely accidental but my mom, she was like, no, no, no.
- 33:49We need to like report this to all that gym, teachers and tell
- 33:53them to be on the lookout for like some some bad faith person
- 33:58who's like out there slamming Locker doors on people's heads
- 34:02like I think High School movies do have a lot of Truth to them,
- 34:08but I think the whole like shoving people into lockers,
- 34:12like, putting veggies and lockers, I think that's
- 34:17something that is super dramatized.
- 34:20Like, I don't think, yes, Bullying happens.
- 34:24But I don't think Bullying happens in that way.
- 34:29But my mom was like, Supercar sore or Cyril about it and I was
- 34:34like, Mom, Making me very uncomfortable.
- 34:36I'm not going to go on a Witch Hunt.
- 34:39I'm not going to try to give a classmate detention or
- 34:45suspension or or any of that. I just I just wanted to focus on
- 34:50my health but you know, my mom is not that kind of person and I
- 34:58wish she was the kind of person who just focused on health and
- 35:07hopefully she gets better in the future.
- 35:13What did your kind of recovery process look like for that?
- 35:19Well, I'm able to laugh about it now because when I got a
- 35:26concussion, I had to take the entire day off.
- 35:29And my parents rarely ever, let me skip a day in school.
- 35:34But they're like, you know, what, you had a micro concussion
- 35:39eight doctor, confirmed that, so you're not going to be going,
- 35:44you're not going to be going to school the next day and The next
- 35:49day, Donald Trump got elected. And so I miss the entire day of
- 35:54school when everybody found out. and yeah, there were some
- 36:03protests at my school teachers were crying and I missed all of
- 36:07that but I think I remember going to a coffee shop.
- 36:13This was a coffee shop. I went to religiously when I was
- 36:16in high school and I was telling the Barista who was there like
- 36:20every day. Yeah.
- 36:23Got a concussion. And you know, Donald Trump got
- 36:27elected and and then the Barista was like wait did Donald Trump
- 36:33getting elected? Give you the concussion so I can
- 36:37joke about that now. Because well, I can laugh about
- 36:40it. No, it's good. well Jesus, um I
- 36:48think you mentioned that you'd had like other near-death
- 36:50experiences that just run us through this like what
- 36:53experiences have you had and then there's sort of like that
- 36:57delve into that a little bit more.
- 36:59So I didn't mention this earlier but one of the reasons why being
- 37:05a professional color is great is because it's not a physically
- 37:11demanding job and I have a disability called food dependent
- 37:16exercise and do Anaphylaxis. And so it's I believe a very
- 37:22rare disability but for me it's I get I got an allergic reaction
- 37:32if I exercise shortly after eating foods that I'm allergic
- 37:39to and it's very fickle because I've had days where I would go
- 37:45out dancing about three hours, Hours after eating a pizza.
- 37:49And I would break out into hives.
- 37:51But then there are other days where I eat shellfish, and then
- 37:54maybe 90 minutes later, I do some vigorous activity and I
- 37:58don't get an allergic reaction, so it's very fickle.
- 38:02And I just interject for a second.
- 38:05You said that, it's Only with foods that you were allergic to.
- 38:10Yes. So I'm allergic to shellfish,
- 38:14alcohol, nuts, and non legume wheat zone, right?
- 38:21So, this is kind of like, in your Discovery phase like you,
- 38:24like, you didn't know that you're allergic to all these
- 38:26different things. And then you find out like three
- 38:28hours later, like, kind of election when I was 13.
- 38:33I saw an allergenic stand, he ran some blood tests and
- 38:36thankfully When the results were concluded, it was all accurate.
- 38:42So many other disabled people. They have to run all of these
- 38:46hormone tests blood tests for years, and years and years of
- 38:50their lives until they finally get the accurate result.
- 38:56But for me, I got the accurate results.
- 39:00After one visit to the allergen assists office when I was a
- 39:05minor and yeah, I wish. I knew this about myself when I
- 39:09was maybe 7 or 6 years old, but at least I got to know this
- 39:14about myself when I was still a kid and I I love dancing.
- 39:21I don't think I should give up all physical activity to
- 39:27accommodate my disability. So I'm going to keep dancing and
- 39:31I'm going to keep professional cuddling because I don't have to
- 39:36walk up hills, or run, or do any of that.
- 39:41So, how have you learned to kind of live with this condition like
- 39:44in what ways other than kind of obviously avoiding certain foods
- 39:48and such how is it changed your life?
- 39:51Or how do you how does it affect your day-to-day life?
- 39:54I, sadly was not really taught how to cook when I was a kid and
- 40:01that's something everyone should learn, not just people with FDA
- 40:04Ein, but as an adult, I don't live with my parents anymore and
- 40:10so I get to cook for I can cook whenever I want.
- 40:19And there have been many times where I would go to a restaurant
- 40:25and the people there, they don't ask me.
- 40:31About my food allergies. And it's, and it's strange,
- 40:33because there have been days where I would be asked about my
- 40:36allergies, and then I would not have any physical activity plan
- 40:42for the rest of the day, but then, there would be days where
- 40:44I do have some, like, physical activities but then the waiter
- 40:49wouldn't would not ask me about my food allergies, and it's just
- 40:55When you cook, you know, what you're putting in your body.
- 41:01and, Looking has. in a way, brought me closer to my
- 41:07significant other because, well, My significant other sadly
- 41:13cannot visit his mom often because she lives on the other
- 41:17side of the Pacific Ocean. And so I've been asking him to
- 41:23teach me how to cook the recipes that she made for him when he
- 41:28was a kid. And I'll be honest, not the most
- 41:33recent one, it was very Bland, but I was like, if I add like
- 41:39onion and garlic, And all these spices to this rice dish.
- 41:44Am I, like, gentrifying your mom's recipe when you were a
- 41:47kid? And he's like, no, no, that's
- 41:48fine. If you think it needs more
- 41:50seasoning, you can add as much seasoning as you want.
- 41:52That's always a point that content to visit us, but
- 41:54especially, when you hit the bad times, I've been sitting here
- 41:58like a dinner table. Someone like, has been cooking,
- 42:01a wonderful meal. They bring it over and then
- 42:03someone immediately doesn't without even thinking just goes
- 42:06and grabs like, for the salt, it's like you don't even try to
- 42:09food, man. Come on.
- 42:12Come on, Jesus. And one question I got to ask
- 42:16actually, just throwing it back to before our discussion about,
- 42:19you're cuddling. Obviously, probably should have
- 42:22asked if you had a partner or because I think that that does
- 42:24actually affect a lot of things. What is your partner think of
- 42:28your profession? Like, how does that was his
- 42:30opinion on it? How do you guys deal with a must
- 42:33be all good. He's, he's so proud of me and I
- 42:36could definitely imagine someone wanting to date a Fringe person
- 42:42like me so they could tell their friends and family.
- 42:45Can you believe that Felicity does this like?
- 42:49Oh my God, but he's not like that at all.
- 42:52He's very proud of me and when okay, so I I speak radical
- 43:00honesty because my job requires that I be a radically open
- 43:05minded person. So I also speak radically,
- 43:07honestly, this goes back to the whole when people ask, how are
- 43:13you, I tell them the truth and so my partner has been like I'm
- 43:18kind of, I'm kind of reluctant to introduce you to my
- 43:21conservative family members because I know you like speak
- 43:25radically honestly, because it's I like giving people the benefit
- 43:31of the doubt. I like to assume that good
- 43:36things happen. If I speak to someone new and I
- 43:43think that people can change when you give them Grace.
- 43:47And it just think that's one of the beautiful Parts about
- 43:51podcasting because it's a it's an audio format.
- 43:55I'm not here to judge you on how you look.
- 43:57Look, and yeah, when I'm professionally cuddling people I
- 44:03see what they look like. But I'm not there to judge them
- 44:07on how they look. I'm there to just connect with
- 44:10them on a human to human level and it's like last night my
- 44:18partner was talking to his mom on the phone and he was saying
- 44:20all these things about me that I never would have expected him to
- 44:24say about me because you know his mom is a boomer She grew up
- 44:29with Reaganomics and all that and it says that such a trigger
- 44:32a disease. Put it like that.
- 44:35What? Just let has negative
- 44:36connotations stuff? Sorry.
- 44:38Bruised. Love you.
- 44:40It's okay. It was just, he wasn't it.
- 44:44Sounded like he wasn't speaking with her like a mom.
- 44:47Please don't get frustrated, please don't judge her but she
- 44:50does this. It was more of a I'm proud of
- 44:52her and she does this and she does that and I think it's
- 44:57great. Yeah, I mean I think the most
- 45:00awesome aspect to this is like that he's supportive and it's
- 45:04not, you know, because you could that you could be with someone
- 45:06who's madly jealous and that would be a problem, you know?
- 45:10If that's that's what you want, really, isn't it?
- 45:12And their relationships, just someone who's supportive.
- 45:14Let's imagine that it's less bucket.
- 45:18Let's get back to near death experiences.
- 45:22With the experiences that you've had, this is the question that
- 45:25I've kind of asked all my guests so far that have have
- 45:28experienced near-death experiences. when you were out
- 45:34during these experiences, was there.
- 45:37Anything untoward you saw anything you recall taught us
- 45:42about your death experiences? Oh, I assumed that I would at
- 45:54some point. Bring up suicide and it was.
- 46:01And so I have a story. It is there's, it doesn't have
- 46:05to do with me being suicidal, but I've had I've had clients
- 46:09who were suicidal and I know that this is a super
- 46:17controversial topic because some people think well, if you know,
- 46:22someone who is suicidal, you need to stay by them.
- 46:25You need to stick unit is stay by their side forever and ever.
- 46:30And there are other people who are like, if your mental health
- 46:37is declining and Being with a suicidal person is making your
- 46:43mental health worse than it's okay to walk away.
- 46:46And I'm not here to take sides but I do have a story.
- 46:53So I used to have a cuddle client who was suicidal and I
- 47:01found his mother on Facebook and I reached out to her and I was
- 47:06like, hey, You don't know me, but I am close with your son and
- 47:12it's saddens me to say that he is suicidal.
- 47:17Please talk to him. and, I think.
- 47:27I think his mom had a conversation with him and it
- 47:29went well, his mom didn't say anything to me.
- 47:32Besides thank you for telling me this and then we just never
- 47:35correspond it again. But I'm assuming after he and
- 47:40his mom, had a conversation. He reached out to me and was
- 47:44like, Hey I want to invite you to this one event that's
- 47:49happening. In a Hotel conference room.
- 47:53And so I was like, okay, I'll meet up with you and mind you,
- 47:58he was not like compensating me for my time.
- 48:01I was like I feel bad for this person because he's considered
- 48:06suicide in recent history and I don't know if his mom spoke to
- 48:11him at all, maybe she did and it made things worse.
- 48:14Like, I don't know what was happening in his personal life,
- 48:17but I was like, you know what? I'll just do this for him for
- 48:20free, big mistake. And so I get there and it's a
- 48:25Like a recruiting event for a pyramid scheme.
- 48:28Oh no time. I didn't know what pyramid
- 48:31schemes were no listening to a bunch of people talk into a
- 48:34microphone, but there were being so vague and I was like, I have
- 48:37no idea what people are talking about.
- 48:40And so, I called my parents because I still don't live with
- 48:43my parents at the time. They didn't know.
- 48:45I was a professional cuddler, but I called them.
- 48:47And I was like, hey, I'm at this conference at this hotel.
- 48:53Please pick me up and thankfully, the hotel Wasn't too
- 48:55far away. But on on the drive home, I
- 48:59decided to call another cuddle client that I had at the time,
- 49:03he and I don't speak anymore, but I called him and I was like,
- 49:06hey, what's that thing? You?
- 49:08I think you briefly mentioned in passing is, is called little.
- 49:13What was that thing? And I try to describe it.
- 49:15He's like, oh pyramid scheme now.
- 49:18It's like yeah, I did tell me what that is and he's like,
- 49:20okay, this is how pyramid schemes work and It just sucks
- 49:26how pyramid schemes they like prey on single moms like broke
- 49:31college students, suicidal people like they prey on some of
- 49:36the most marginalized people and it just I had to cut off all
- 49:40communication with him. Like yes I should have or maybe
- 49:45I should have stayed with him and try to talk him out of the
- 49:48pyramid scheme. But This is a tricky, tricky
- 49:55one. I think I get where you're
- 49:57coming from, the kind of professional obligation because
- 49:59it's like, where do you draw the line?
- 50:01Like you, you have to think about your own safety.
- 50:03You think about you have to think about the needs of the
- 50:05client, but also, It's far as like the services that you
- 50:11offer. I mean that if you were
- 50:13therapist may be a little bit different, maybe you could refer
- 50:16them, someone else this things you could do like with what you
- 50:19do. I don't know that there was
- 50:21really anything you could do. Other than to tell them like,
- 50:25this is a really bad idea. You need to get away from this.
- 50:29Like what else can you say really?
- 50:31And there's an area like that. Yeah, there's there are few
- 50:35professional cuddlers who make it past the 10 year mark.
- 50:39I've, I've heard us, okay, I probably shouldn't name names,
- 50:43but I know of a professional Cutler.
- 50:46Who retired after nine years and it I'm just speculating but it
- 50:52seems like The reason why she retired is because throughout
- 50:57all of the years of snuggling, her clients, she would just
- 51:02absorb all the pain that they were carrying. and it became so
- 51:11unhealthy for her that she just had to leave permanently and it
- 51:17is my job to hold space for people.
- 51:20And it's my job to listen and be empathetic but it is unhealthy
- 51:27to try to be like Atlas and carry the weight of the world.
- 51:32My job is not to carry the weight of the world.
- 51:35One person cannot do that. That leads to burnout you ever
- 51:41end up like dating a client or having a sort of inappropriate
- 51:44relationship yet like and or something to that effect.
- 51:49Oh yeah. I started when I was 19 and we
- 51:56all do stupid shit when we were 19.
- 51:59Like that's why you like that one client.
- 52:03I spoke about whom I called on the phone and asked him to
- 52:08explain to me what a pyramid scheme was.
- 52:11I tried to date him and I know you didn't chase pyramid scheme
- 52:17and feels like I'm not going to introduce you to my parents but
- 52:21I'm glad I left that. You dated pyramid scheme Guy,
- 52:26come on up here, mad scheme guy, the guy, the guy, the guy over
- 52:31what a pyramid scheme is because I think I tried to get I think
- 52:34someone tried to recruit me. Yeah.
- 52:37So there's like a defendant. Okay, let's refrain this
- 52:41question little bit. How did that kind of transition
- 52:43into that form of relationship? Because obviously that was a
- 52:46client of yours and while you were younger and you know, we
- 52:50make silly mistakes when were younger You know, you still had
- 52:54your a degree of professionalism balance.
- 52:56You must have kind of thought, like, this is inappropriate.
- 52:59Clearly, you know, I need to end this excetera.
- 53:02Like how did that transition into that?
- 53:04Well like I said, I was financially unstable when I
- 53:09began and so this guy was like, you know, I could have you move
- 53:13in with me so you don't have to live with your parents anymore
- 53:16and I also like take care of all the bills. and now what was that
- 53:22was like a dream come true to nineteen-year-old me and Like a
- 53:28lot of traditional immigrant parents.
- 53:32They tell their daughters don't move out of my house, until you
- 53:36get married with a man and it's just old-fashioned.
- 53:41So women should just never experienced.
- 53:45Living by themselves. Women have to always be
- 53:51dependent on a man. And yes, there are many healthy
- 53:55relationships out there where somebody is financially
- 53:58dependent on another person but just telling your dog.
- 54:02I don't know if the Sun is get taught this but telling your
- 54:05daughters they can only move out if they're married to a man,
- 54:09like like what if you're not compatible, I fully endorse.
- 54:14With a partner before marrying them.
- 54:17And Like to tell your it's just that kind of mentality.
- 54:25Teaches girls, you instead of marrying for love.
- 54:29You shouldn't marry into money. Hmm, and yes, money can make
- 54:35life easier but it doesn't always make you happier.
- 54:41Like, I'm pretty much every single person I've dated since I
- 54:46was 19 or not 19 pretty much every person.
- 54:50I've dated since I was 20 made at least a hundred thousand
- 54:54dollars a year. and, I can assure you.
- 55:00Money doesn't equal happiness. It makes life easier.
- 55:03It doesn't necessarily sorry the alarm is going off, but it
- 55:07doesn't always make you happier. And so I wish I was told instead
- 55:14that I should learn how to provide for myself.
- 55:21So I have my standards. Like money is bare fucking
- 55:27minimum. I think if you're going to live
- 55:31with someone being a relationship with someone marry
- 55:35someone, they should love you and understand boundaries.
- 55:40And Create a strong stable Foundation built on trust, I
- 55:46think. I'm just like trashing my
- 55:51parents on this podcast, but I think my parents didn't raise
- 55:55me, right? Right.
- 55:58And I think what they say about marrying into money is untrue.
- 56:03I like so many. So many women were told, if you
- 56:08marry into money, you never have to work a day in your life, or
- 56:11as well. I do my research and it seems
- 56:14like If you marry into money, you work every single day of
- 56:19your life. And I don't want to do that
- 56:23based on what was it, like, parenting like the domestics, or
- 56:28just having to also work in addition to all her like the
- 56:32emotional labor, right? Oh my gosh, having to bend to
- 56:39another person's Frenetic emotions.
- 56:44And I'm not saying that being emotional is bad, but like when
- 56:50you marry someone purely because they have money, and you don't,
- 56:54you pretty much Are at their Mercy, easy to think about it,
- 57:00isn't it? Yeah, yeah, especially, yeah.
- 57:04If it's a scenario or a dynamic, I should say where one person is
- 57:08solely relying on the other person and then the other person
- 57:12then I don't know, changes, their mind and changes the
- 57:15scenarios of. What do you do then?
- 57:17Like I look at because I think it's quite clear that your
- 57:21parents were obviously, came from a different generation
- 57:24different mentality. That's a gonna be a big factor.
- 57:26but I wonder why that particular generation didn't think about
- 57:31just the very maybe they overlook this.
- 57:36Maybe I'm being a bit mean, but like the concept that like your
- 57:40child going out to the adult World should, at least know how
- 57:44to just kind of take care of themselves just in case, you
- 57:47know, just be able to for example, as you mentioned
- 57:51cooking and be able to like prepare food for oneself, be
- 57:55able to you know, live alone like I think living alone as a
- 57:59concept is Much harder than people realize, like, even
- 58:04things. Like, and I bet that generation
- 58:07just never really dealt with with this.
- 58:09But like, how to deal with loneliness, how to help like
- 58:13healthily deal with that, like not think.
- 58:15Okay, I'm gonna go to a bar and drink my problems away because
- 58:19that'll make me feel better because there's people there.
- 58:21Hmm, didn't it? Yeah.
- 58:25Like I feel like I'm learning how to become an adult is kind
- 58:28of thing in of itself. It's like a science.
- 58:31In a sense, it's like a series of trial and error.
- 58:34And ultimately, a lot of it comes down to that.
- 58:37And also the people you end up fraternizing with like some of
- 58:40its luck and that luck. Then the turbines The kind of
- 58:46lessons that you go through harder or easier depending on
- 58:49how quickly you learn the lessons, I guess.
- 58:52That's so poignant as an Asian girl and I know this does not
- 58:57only apply to Asians, but as an Asian girl a lot of us were
- 59:01taught. Oh, you should know how to do
- 59:03laundry and cook food. So that a man will want to marry
- 59:07you. It's less, you should learn how
- 59:10to cook food so that you can take in a bunch of healthy
- 59:13nutrients and Ins and s'more of. So that men want to marry you,
- 59:18it's awful. My life, does not revolve around
- 59:22some hypothetical man, some hypothetical father or or
- 59:28husband or any of that, okay? This probe that little bit more
- 59:33because, I mean, I think it's clear, you've probably since day
- 59:37one always been quite opinionated, like, quite happy
- 59:40to say, I've been very opinion about this quite happy to say,
- 59:43like, well, actually. And Nothing.
- 59:45That's good. You know, it's good to have that
- 59:46kind of strong convictions especially at young age.
- 59:48When you've got adults sort of saying like no, this is how the
- 59:51world works and you're like well what about this?
- 59:54Given that in mind. I imagine you often challenged
- 59:59to parents on a lot of these kind of older stereotypes and
- 1:00:01simple. What if I want to go out and
- 1:00:03just make my own career more wife?
- 1:00:05Maybe. I don't want to have children.
- 1:00:06Like, did you pose those kind of questions to them?
- 1:00:09How did they take that? How did that kind of those
- 1:00:13arguments in soon? It's not as though, I want to
- 1:00:16sit and focus on arguments, but like, I guess what I want to
- 1:00:19kind of focus on is more. The challenge aspect, like, how
- 1:00:22you navigated that and ultimately pushed through and
- 1:00:26then you No became the successful person.
- 1:00:28You are now a lot of cuddle clients like me because I
- 1:00:32showcase my personality, they appreciate my conviction but the
- 1:00:38best part is that I'm not highly opinionated so I can attract
- 1:00:43more wealthy male clients. It's that's just that's just how
- 1:00:47I am and and people gravitate towards that energy and it's and
- 1:00:52it's copacetic and so like you you Brought up children and I
- 1:00:58have very strong opinions about children and I don't think
- 1:01:03there's one right way to raise a child but I do have a lot of
- 1:01:09opinions like children should be exposed to like a multitude of
- 1:01:20angles and one of the things I hated as a child, I would be
- 1:01:25told things like this. Is the correct way to interpret
- 1:01:29this like old piece of English literature and I'm like, no, no,
- 1:01:33no, I don't like this book. In my opinion is valid.
- 1:01:36Honestly, why are you trying to get 14 year olds to care about
- 1:01:42Romeo and Juliet? Oh God, it is possible to get
- 1:01:46them to like Shakespeare but we gotta we don't need to treat
- 1:01:53children like adults and that's fine.
- 1:01:55There are books intended for adults in their books, intended
- 1:01:57for kids. And there are reasons behind
- 1:02:00that, but if you want to get children interested in, you
- 1:02:05know, Shakespeare you gotta you gotta speak to them like a child
- 1:02:08because they are children. You got to meet them, where
- 1:02:12they're at, what just just talk about Shakespeare's.
- 1:02:15Well, I was talking about this in a live stream the other day
- 1:02:17because this we obviously in England did Shakespeare to death
- 1:02:21and the biggest problem I found with Shakespeare other than
- 1:02:24having to try and read it in the Old English without a
- 1:02:27translation. What were you thinking?
- 1:02:29Like we need to be able to know what it says anyway, They're
- 1:02:36plays. They're supposed to be
- 1:02:38performed, not red. If we'd have perform them in
- 1:02:42class. Yeah.
- 1:02:43And we could have had fun with it when I have to be serious,
- 1:02:45but if we did perform them, we would have seen how it's
- 1:02:48supposed to be and where the entertainment could barely comes
- 1:02:51from. If you sit down and just read
- 1:02:54the plays, they're boring. They're so boring because
- 1:02:58they're not supposed to be interpreted in that manner.
- 1:03:01Makes, you know, that's that list of most frustrating.
- 1:03:04Because I remember when I finally Did watch like, you
- 1:03:07know, some of the movie adaptations, we're not going to
- 1:03:10count their image of X. That's trash that I'm assuming
- 1:03:14you saw the same one that I saw. Horrible, the Ye Olde English
- 1:03:18one and the Leonardo DiCaprio. Yeah.
- 1:03:22Train wreck good. Because that's the thing I
- 1:03:25think. I don't know if we saw the EOD
- 1:03:271. The 0 d 1 is acceptable.
- 1:03:28It's what it's supposed to be that Leonardo DiCaprio won like
- 1:03:32ah Oh, such torture man. I don't know what they were
- 1:03:40trying to do. I guess I was just trying to
- 1:03:42modernize guns in two shakes. Yes, I'd doesn't know.
- 1:03:46It's just bad but no, but there were some good adaptations.
- 1:03:50I saw a really good version of Macbeth Much Ado About Nothing.
- 1:03:55I could see there's a lot of good in Shakespeare but yeah,
- 1:03:58the way they teach it and the way you to your, your bigger
- 1:04:02point with that is that they tell you, this is how you have
- 1:04:05to interpret this this How you have to do this and it's like,
- 1:04:07well, you know, everyone interprets things in different
- 1:04:10ways. If me, and you both see a car
- 1:04:13crash at the side of the street, we're going to interpret that in
- 1:04:15different ways and we might have a very different analysis, the
- 1:04:18same event. And it's like that's just part
- 1:04:21of being human and when you sit and you go, okay.
- 1:04:24Well who's telling the truth is that while we could both be
- 1:04:26telling the truth is both our church individual troops based
- 1:04:29on how we see the world. And yes you could say that one
- 1:04:33of us is lying, one of us is not but like if we're both knowing
- 1:04:36the truth and we do have a different story that comes down
- 1:04:39to interpretation and Analysis. So it's interested, I want to
- 1:04:45just go back to near death experiences And asked a lot of
- 1:04:52people that have had on the show that was spoken about it.
- 1:04:54I have spoken about kind of like Quote unquote, our paranormal
- 1:04:58experiences. One guess they had on the show.
- 1:05:02Mr. Kyle, jing'an spoke about this idea of seeing something to
- 1:05:07the effect of like a million different screens and just kind
- 1:05:10of taken that in and, you know, but he was out for a while and
- 1:05:14then he came back, but that's what he saw during that time.
- 1:05:16Did you see anything like that in your experiences?
- 1:05:20What do you recall? I don't think I've ever had.
- 1:05:26Sleep paralysis or I don't think I've ever been in a coma.
- 1:05:31I I do watch a lot of, you know, the mystery files ghost files,
- 1:05:40paranormal stuff on YouTube, but I I don't know what my beliefs
- 1:05:50are on ghosts. I do think we could revamp a lot
- 1:05:57of ghost stories, because so many of them are like, so this
- 1:06:01one person in the 1800s and I'm like, okay, people have died
- 1:06:04since then. Where are the ghosts, who are
- 1:06:06alike singing? What Is Love by hat away?
- 1:06:09Because if I died if I died today, I would definitely be,
- 1:06:13you know, partying with the other dead people singing, What
- 1:06:16is love? and, and it's just like what you
- 1:06:20said with Shakespeare because it is possible to make Interesting
- 1:06:25adaptations of really old pieces of work.
- 1:06:28I love historical fiction when it comes to Broadway musicals, I
- 1:06:33don't read the books. I'm sorry, I don't read
- 1:06:35historical fiction books, but I'm sure there's plenty of great
- 1:06:38ones, but I love, I love theater.
- 1:06:42And some of my favorite Broadway musicals are historical fiction
- 1:06:47like six. That's about King Henry, the 8th
- 1:06:50Six Wives and it's It's a comedy but it's also performed by like
- 1:06:57a girl group of rock stars telling their stories about what
- 1:07:00their life was, pre-marriage and enduring marriage.
- 1:07:03And and it's just a very interesting way of teaching
- 1:07:09historical fiction and where was I going with this?
- 1:07:17Like we got a we got to make paranormal shit accessible like
- 1:07:25like musicals, I say that Knowing damn well that tickets
- 1:07:28to Broadway theaters or astronomical but it's just when
- 1:07:37people hear the word adaptation, they most often think of a movie
- 1:07:44and there are a lot of good movie adaptations out there, but
- 1:07:50so many there's so many bad adaptations out there as well.
- 1:07:55And so maybe you know what, maybe we shouldn't.
- 1:07:57Default assume that an adaptation is movie.
- 1:07:59Maybe we should be like hmm. What if we turn this book into a
- 1:08:04video game or what if what if we turn this into a musical?
- 1:08:11Why haven't we tried that like? The final quickfire questions
- 1:08:20for you. What do you value?
- 1:08:25Most in life and why? I'm pausing for dramatic effect,
- 1:08:34even though, I know that, Demo, please as cliche as it sounds, I
- 1:08:40think. I think love is the most
- 1:08:45important thing in life because I don't think you can measure it
- 1:08:50on some kind of metric scale. it's a unifying thing like we
- 1:08:58don't have to speak the same language but we could still be
- 1:09:03familiar with love and I could talk about languages all day,
- 1:09:10like I don't think we need to globalize the entire planet with
- 1:09:13English, but we already have love that that already unifies
- 1:09:19us all and There there. I don't think there's only one.
- 1:09:26Right way to love, but that in of itself is beautiful and I say
- 1:09:37this Knowing damn well that pride month is coming very soon.
- 1:09:40I'm not doing this on purpose but love is the most valuable
- 1:09:47thing in the world and that has that has nothing to do with
- 1:09:52capitalistic value in a way. Capitalism is the antithesis of
- 1:09:56love and I feel like that's going to be like the tagline for
- 1:10:01this episode capitalism is an antithesis of love, but Love is
- 1:10:10supposed to feel free. I don't I can't do what so many
- 1:10:18of my Asian peers do and that is understand that their parents
- 1:10:23could be doing better, but they'll just keep a distance
- 1:10:29from them for self-preservation reasons.
- 1:10:32Like when I came out to my mom as polyamorous and as a sex
- 1:10:38worker and all that she doesn't know I'm a professional Cutler
- 1:10:42yet, but when I came out to my mom, it was it was not like one
- 1:10:47day. I sat them down at a table in
- 1:10:49front of me and told them it was my mom Googling stuff.
- 1:10:54Because I told her that I was volunteering with an
- 1:10:57organization and then she Googled the organization and
- 1:11:00then she put two and two together and was like, are you a
- 1:11:04sex worker? And I was like, yeah, it was not
- 1:11:08how I wanted her to find out I wanted.
- 1:11:10I would rather see know these things because I told her but I
- 1:11:13was like, I'm not going to lie to you.
- 1:11:14I am and we still talk to each other, but she Jesus, she knows
- 1:11:24a little about sex work, but I can't really blame her because I
- 1:11:26think I'm the only sex worker in her life.
- 1:11:30Who is out about it? I genuinely think that we all
- 1:11:34have met a sex worker before or we all have relatives who are
- 1:11:39sex workers, but they're just not open about it and like
- 1:11:44everyone has a right to privacy but Like I said before, I think
- 1:11:50people can change if you give them Grace.
- 1:11:53And so if I just never talk about a very important part of
- 1:11:57my life, I can't really expect them to.
- 1:12:02As much as I want them to go out on their own and and do some
- 1:12:06Empirical research, and all that good stuff.
- 1:12:08Like I can't. It can be overwhelming to have
- 1:12:13to find out about all of these. All of these things on your own
- 1:12:17and when I was a professional cuddler at 19, I literally was
- 1:12:21all alone. I had no Mentor.
- 1:12:24I didn't even have like an accountant who has done taxes
- 1:12:27for professional cuddlers before.
- 1:12:29I was all alone, I was doing all of my own research, I had nobody
- 1:12:33to look up to and And as, as much as I wish that other people
- 1:12:41would go out on their own and explore, its it can be
- 1:12:47overwhelming to do that. And that's why I have my podcast
- 1:12:50and that's why I'm, you know, radically honest and try to give
- 1:12:54people the benefit of the doubt. So I go to the mosque.
- 1:12:58You've classified yourself quite a few times now, is being a sex
- 1:13:01worker and Is that so does that mean that professional cuddle
- 1:13:10cuddling is classified under that?
- 1:13:12Or is this something you do in addition to that, like, oh, I do
- 1:13:15things in addition to that. Okay, I don't mind when people
- 1:13:21consider professional calling as sex work, but that is because
- 1:13:29Both sex workers and professional cuddlers, lack
- 1:13:32legal protection. There are no laws at least in
- 1:13:36the United States. That's a sex workers.
- 1:13:39Can do whatever they feel comfortable doing or
- 1:13:41professional cuddlers are legally allowed to do.
- 1:13:44Whatever it is that they feel comfortable doing.
- 1:13:47There's no legal protection, so I don't really mind.
- 1:13:51Is that crossover between those two things?
- 1:13:53Do you have like a lot of clients that you've had who've
- 1:13:57been? Throughout the world will be
- 1:14:00clear-cut of clients that have been transitioned into more than
- 1:14:03that, or these things, two, separate worlds for you.
- 1:14:07Like, how does that work? I do try to keep them separate.
- 1:14:11I say that as someone who uses the same stage name, when I
- 1:14:17started as a professional cuddler, I went by Marlene.
- 1:14:21And then I went by Felicity for everything else.
- 1:14:23Now I go by Felicity for everything because I it's just I
- 1:14:34knew from the get-go not to use my legal name, it's too
- 1:14:39dangerous to use your legal name for cuddling or sex or cranny of
- 1:14:44that and it's like it's like mind-blowing to me that so many
- 1:14:49professional cuddlers, use their legal name.
- 1:14:52Some of them use their first name and last name and that just
- 1:14:55it scares me man. I'm not trying to judge them but
- 1:15:00Like they tell me. Oh yeah my parents, my my family
- 1:15:03knows that I do this and so that's why I'm using my
- 1:15:06government name but Don't tell me stuff like oh yeah my family
- 1:15:12they mainly use Facebook and and I say things on Twitter that I
- 1:15:18don't really want my family to know, but I'm trying to think
- 1:15:22from the cuddle clients perspective, they might think.
- 1:15:24Oh, I guess it's okay for me to add this person on Facebook or
- 1:15:27add this person on Instagram or LinkedIn or or were whatever,
- 1:15:30because there's not like distinction between personal
- 1:15:33life and snuggling work life. So okay, interesting question
- 1:15:39and do you think that that then by using your original name that
- 1:15:45kind of encourages parasocial relationships, maybe?
- 1:15:48Oh, Probably just and also there are some professional cuddlers
- 1:15:57who are okay with being interviewed on news stations,
- 1:16:02I've tried doing that, I don't like it, I prefer the podcast
- 1:16:04host, why wasn't? I could I mean here's where I
- 1:16:09stroke your ego but it's just podcast host are so much more
- 1:16:13open-minded and nice than news journalist because they have
- 1:16:18like a boss breathing, down their shoulder and being like,
- 1:16:20you need to do this by this date.
- 1:16:22And my editor will needs to, you know, edit your piece by this
- 1:16:26hour. And it's, there's this
- 1:16:29bureaucracy to it. And when you get featured on the
- 1:16:34news, you have no idea who Who sees and yes, with podcasts
- 1:16:40host, I have no idea who listens but I think a lot of good things
- 1:16:45happen from speaking on various product casts.
- 1:16:50Like I just cut all the client who said I first heard about you
- 1:16:55through your interview on this other podcast and then I
- 1:16:57discovered your podcast and now it's like I'm here and wow or
- 1:17:02maybe that could happen if I was interviewed on a new station.
- 1:17:05But chances are the article is going to have some kind of
- 1:17:08clickbait title, and then they'll have I don't know about
- 1:17:13stock images but they'll definitely like sign off with
- 1:17:17something slimy like, wow. It must be great to be this
- 1:17:20person. I know what you mean.
- 1:17:24This is the kind of agenda thing.
- 1:17:27I mean it's something that I've always tried to completely avoid
- 1:17:31like with my show because at the end of the day, a I don't like
- 1:17:36this idea of trying to catch people out or like deliberately.
- 1:17:39I think when you try to deliberately make other people
- 1:17:42look bad, I think that says more about you than it, does that
- 1:17:44other person, you know, like if someone has agreed to come on
- 1:17:48your show and you just like berate them the whole time.
- 1:17:52I just feel like that's just low, I don't know.
- 1:17:55I just doesn't sit well with me you know, and the whole point of
- 1:17:58my show is supposed to be sharing people's life stories
- 1:18:03sharing positive. Stories trying to be positive,
- 1:18:07trying to, you know, and like it's not always going to be
- 1:18:10Sunshine daisies. You know, we've discussed some
- 1:18:13pretty heavy stuff today and there's some stuff in and that's
- 1:18:16real life, you know, there is some horrible things we have to
- 1:18:19go through, but I think it's really powerful woman like
- 1:18:22yourself talking about these things.
- 1:18:24And for people that will be listening to this and watching
- 1:18:27it, you know, it could mean everything to them.
- 1:18:29It could be like, wow, okay, this person seeing this person
- 1:18:32talk candidly about this has inspired me Has given me
- 1:18:36strength going through this particular experience etc.
- 1:18:39Etc. When I see those.
- 1:18:41So God yeah. Go for it and something that I
- 1:18:44hate that a lot of news websites are doing is that they're paling
- 1:18:49the entire thing. I hate to give shout outs to the
- 1:18:52new to the new certificates. But the New York Times is guilty
- 1:18:56of doing this, and I would hate to not be paid for an interview
- 1:19:01with a, you know, a news publication company, that rakes.
- 1:19:05In millions every single year. But then they pay wall news,
- 1:19:09which should be free. And then like, I don't want to
- 1:19:12have to fucking pay to read an interview that I was a part of,
- 1:19:17and then tell my audience, hey, go read my interview, but then,
- 1:19:21they have to pay to read my fucking op-ed on the New York
- 1:19:25Times. And I don't think there are any
- 1:19:28podcasts, where every single episode is pay walled.
- 1:19:32Yeah, I mean like with with With me like I do this show for free.
- 1:19:37The question route, podcast will always be free.
- 1:19:39So there you go. But I do a show for patreon.
- 1:19:43That is behind a pay wall. And the difference there is
- 1:19:47that, you know, the two shows are very different.
- 1:19:51So this show is all about my guests and the topics, it's
- 1:19:54nothing, even though it's got my name on it, really nothing to do
- 1:19:57with me, but then like my show on patreon.
- 1:20:03Again, has my name in it, but that is about me.
- 1:20:05So, if you want to sit and listen to me talk for, like an
- 1:20:07hour or two, that's the show to go to patreon.com/crashcourse.
- 1:20:11I read that on my patreon. There you go.
- 1:20:13But it's different because when people support you on patreon,
- 1:20:18that is money paying for your electricity, bill your, you
- 1:20:23know, your internet all of that. Whereas when you give your money
- 1:20:28to, you know, the New York Times that is just by I'm the CEO.
- 1:20:33Another like yacht to show off to their other wealthy friends.
- 1:20:37I think what you said before is spot as well, like you shouldn't
- 1:20:41have to pay for the news and secondly it'd be one thing if
- 1:20:45you were like an independent newspaper and you were just
- 1:20:48trying to keep the thing going. You say like oh hey guys.
- 1:20:51Please donate like it helps us keep going like that.
- 1:20:53I'd understand. But when it's as you say like
- 1:20:55the New York Times, or whatever, or well, the independent here in
- 1:21:00the UK and it's like, do you really need that much?
- 1:21:03Money. Like can you like can't you do
- 1:21:05like a service where it's like the majority of the stuff is
- 1:21:09free but some of its paid, I mean, because that's the
- 1:21:11mentality, I go forward with what I do like I kind of see
- 1:21:15that the stuff on patreon is being like, okay, well that
- 1:21:18states free, it's that stays paid and I know it does
- 1:21:21disappoint some of my audience but it's that.
- 1:21:23Well, 80% of what I do is is free and this 20% is like not
- 1:21:30free, that's reasonable if 90% of what you do is paid, what's
- 1:21:36the point? Like, how people were going to
- 1:21:38that Jen? I mean, that you have to look at
- 1:21:39it in more general terms, like your average audience is your
- 1:21:45working. People people that are earning
- 1:21:47money, and if they decide to subscribe to, that's huge, you
- 1:21:50know, that one dollars, five dollars, whatever that could be
- 1:21:54like, so much to them. That could be like, you know, a
- 1:21:56meal. I know for me that's a lot.
- 1:21:58Like, you know, it's I'm always very thankful like, when my
- 1:22:02audience is like on, Sorry. This is all I could donate and
- 1:22:04like you'd understand how huge this is like not only and for me
- 1:22:08it's not about not just about money, it's about like that
- 1:22:11support and what it represents, you know, like whenever I get a
- 1:22:15nice comment or someone watches a video or they take the time to
- 1:22:19sit in a livestream and interact with me, or any kind of support
- 1:22:23to me is valuable. And it's all stuff that you
- 1:22:26should celebrate and be thankful for, you know, if you're just
- 1:22:28asking your audience to just continues to pay for everything,
- 1:22:32it's like I do. No man.
- 1:22:33I feel like that's very alienating and just kind of
- 1:22:35jarring to be honest. You know, that point feels like
- 1:22:39a pyramid scheme or and Ida. Yeah, yeah.
- 1:22:43Just I mean It's just the amount of times I've wanted to check
- 1:22:49out a Creator, but then I found out like all of the stuff that
- 1:22:53they're advertising is is paid is generally in.
- 1:22:57It's like, I don't know, man. I mean, like my ship, for
- 1:23:00example. Again, I'm talking about myself
- 1:23:02here, so keep the swing. I did a podcast once a week.
- 1:23:07It's free. It's clipped up.
- 1:23:09The patreons twice twice a month and it's like I do that by
- 1:23:15Design. To kind of leave some time, let
- 1:23:18it, you know, build up some stuff.
- 1:23:20I work on it. I'd put the same level of effort
- 1:23:23that I put in the podcast, same strategy and everything but it's
- 1:23:27just, you know, I guess in my mind it's like, are, you know,
- 1:23:30you subscribe for this but you get like, not, you're supporting
- 1:23:33me. And I'm transparent about that,
- 1:23:34but you also get like a kind of something that I've taken time
- 1:23:39to work on. It takes time and I think like,
- 1:23:42that's a lot fairer. Like, just be transparent with
- 1:23:44your audience. Let them know what you're doing.
- 1:23:46Being like, you know, and people I think we will respond well to
- 1:23:49that, you know, it's when you start trying to like grift and
- 1:23:53and I deceive and stuff for like just outright, just take all
- 1:23:57their money that it's a bit like, wow, why should I bother?
- 1:24:02Yeah. And no shade to other
- 1:24:05professional cuddlers but a lot of professional cuddlers, their
- 1:24:09social media is just them sharing a bunch of different
- 1:24:12articles. Talking about the The medical
- 1:24:18benefits to cuddling, like it raises your dopamine levels.
- 1:24:22It raises your serotonin levels, your oxytocin, like your
- 1:24:26endorphins, all the happy hormones, and that's great and
- 1:24:29all. But I don't. don't share
- 1:24:35articles from people where you have to pay to read it and I
- 1:24:41said, I hope there are some professional cuddlers listening
- 1:24:43to this, but if you're going to share an article, please be
- 1:24:49decent and make sure that you're not using a source where your
- 1:24:53viewers have to pay to just read the article.
- 1:24:56Like when I sew on my podcast, I very often I'll include quotes
- 1:25:03from articles that I feel are relevant to the episodes topic,
- 1:25:07but I never choose news articles where you have to pay to read
- 1:25:11like fuck that. You shouldn't have to pay to
- 1:25:14read my bibliography. I want people to check my
- 1:25:19sources and I can't, you know, halt them by pay Walling.
- 1:25:24Yeah, I get it but I agree. I completely agree.
- 1:25:30What's the best advice you've ever received?
- 1:25:40Oh my gosh, this is so early 2010's Tumblr.
- 1:25:45Girl. Hey, don't set yourself on fire
- 1:25:48to keep others warm. And I am it, when I was a
- 1:25:54teenage girl, I interpreted that as a As a just a specific
- 1:26:03situational type of advice. I didn't think of it as cyclical
- 1:26:09and so if someone is a chronic people pleaser that's a lot of
- 1:26:13my cuddle clients. If someone's a chronic people
- 1:26:16pleaser that's a cycle, it like keeps feeding into itself and so
- 1:26:22it's hard to break out of a cycle.
- 1:26:25You know, one situation, that's one thing, but a cycle.
- 1:26:28That's all. That's a whole nother ball game
- 1:26:30and people don't stop being people Pleasers overnight and I
- 1:26:37wish I could just wave a magic wand over someone's head, and
- 1:26:39then they just stopped doing something that's harmful to
- 1:26:42them, but life is not that simple.
- 1:26:45And so I would say, the best advice I've heard is going set
- 1:26:49herself on fire to keep others warm What's the biggest life
- 1:26:54lesson you've learned so far? I've listened This is a quote
- 1:27:09from a singer that I've been paying attention to since I was
- 1:27:14around 14. So 10 years.
- 1:27:16Wow this singer got a tattoo which I think has been lasered
- 1:27:21off. I highly doubt this person is
- 1:27:24doing in but I remember them getting a tattoo saying, do it
- 1:27:30for yourself. You are alone and this applies
- 1:27:34to so many mediums. Whether you're an author, a
- 1:27:38Podcast host, YouTuber, whatever.
- 1:27:41When you start out chances, are you have no audience the
- 1:27:44audience. You can't wait for people to
- 1:27:46subscribe to you and then release something.
- 1:27:49You gotta do it for yourself because you are alone.
- 1:27:53Like when you're writing down song lyrics, or when you're
- 1:27:56writing down, poetry, you are literally alone.
- 1:27:58You're not Staying in front of an audience already, unless you
- 1:28:03do like, improv comedy, or whatever, but I guess that's not
- 1:28:06applicable. Like, last night, I was speaking
- 1:28:10at this one Festival. It's a 10-day Festival, ordeal.
- 1:28:14I'm speaking to nights and I read erotica that I've written
- 1:28:20and I wrote that erotica a year ago.
- 1:28:26I never would have guessed that I would be reading it in front
- 1:28:29of a live audience for a festival that is annual and
- 1:28:34started around the time that I was born.
- 1:28:38Well Matt yeah. Well, congratulations man.
- 1:28:43Thank you. It's amazing.
- 1:28:46As we do things to a close today.
- 1:28:48Do you have any upcoming projects or some final thoughts
- 1:28:50that you'd like to share about this?
- 1:28:52Okay. So, Another thing that my color
- 1:28:59clients really like about me is how passionate I am about
- 1:29:02dancing. And so July 29th of 2023, I am
- 1:29:09going to be performing at this one fundraiser and I try to
- 1:29:11perform at least one fundraiser per month, but I've always done
- 1:29:18gigs in the Bay Area in San Francisco, you know, Northern
- 1:29:22California. But this is my first gig in
- 1:29:25Seattle, Washington. Washington, which is the Pacific
- 1:29:28Northwest part of North America and I'm going to be performing
- 1:29:33at this one. A fundraiser for a charity.
- 1:29:37That's local to Seattle but you know, it's for a good cause and
- 1:29:41I can afford the plane ticket so I can afford the hotel.
- 1:29:44So Saturday, July 29, 2023. I'm going to be dancing at this
- 1:29:51one. Fundraiser and it's, you know,
- 1:29:54it's in the downtown part of Seattle.
- 1:29:56So not exactly like Pike Place. The Space Needle but like,
- 1:30:01decently close. And I am in the middle of
- 1:30:06writing a book about professional cuddling because I
- 1:30:09care about my work out, living me.
- 1:30:15I I don't want to be on this planet.
- 1:30:17Just to survive. I want to create art and hope
- 1:30:21that people still pay attention to my art after I pass.
- 1:30:24And so, I'm writing a book and I would love to have beta readers
- 1:30:31and honestly the less, you know, about the cuddle industry the
- 1:30:34better because I want this book to be understandable by anyone
- 1:30:39and you can reach me at Felicity Azariah at gmail.com.
- 1:30:47I am also going to be speaking at this one convention in
- 1:30:51Baltimore, which is near Washington DC, which is the
- 1:30:54capital of the United States. So I'm going to be in Baltimore
- 1:30:58from June 15 to June 18. I am dancing at and also
- 1:31:05speaking at a panel at International, poll convention,
- 1:31:10and I would love it. If people attend, the sex worker
- 1:31:15panel, I don't know who the other panelists are yet, but
- 1:31:20we're going to be speaking about sex work for approximately an
- 1:31:25hour. And it's also my first speaking
- 1:31:28gig in Baltimore, Maryland. So that's exciting.
- 1:31:33And if you are a professional cuddler in the Baltimore area, I
- 1:31:38would love to be out with you while I'm in Baltimore, if you
- 1:31:41are Professional cuddler in Seattle.
- 1:31:45I would love to meet up with you while I'm in Seattle, even
- 1:31:47though I'm only there for like 20 hours, I think that's all.
- 1:31:54I need a plug. Also listen to my podcast.
- 1:31:58Yeah, I second that go check out from the city's puff course.
- 1:32:02It's been an amazing amazing show.
- 1:32:04I was want to say a massive, thank you for being on the show
- 1:32:06and being so candid. And yeah, I wish you all the
- 1:32:09best of luck. Thank you, Christian.
- 1:32:13And to the listeners of Christian re podcast as always
- 1:32:16be safe. Be well, and I'll see you in the
- 1:32:18next one.