A new store in Japan now offers a pay-for-cuddle service, reported Japan Daily Press Monday. The shop, called Soine-ya, which means ‘bed-sharing shop’ in Japanese, is located in Tokyo’s Akihabara district, Japan’s mecca of ‘otaku’, known in the country as obsessive adolescents living in the fantasy worlds of manga and anime.
The services of the store do not come cheap. Customers must first pay a membership fee of ¥3,000 (RM116) before they can make their selection from the menu, such as a 20-minute cuddle time which will cost ¥3,000. An hour of cuddling time will cost ¥6,000 while a six-hour block of cuddling is priced at ¥30,000.
For the price of ¥1,000, customers at Soine-ya can pick from these choices: having a lady rest her hand on the customer’s arm for up to three minutes, gazing at each other or putting one’s head on a lady’s lap, also timed at three minutes.
A similar pay-for-cuddle service was launched in New York earlier this year. Advertising the “the healing power of touch” on its website, The Snuggery, a one-woman show put on by a student studying for a Master’s degree in social work, charges 45-minute session for US$50, and 90 minutes of cuddling for US$90.