goal

(Fun fact: you can read a different account of the following at PurrVersatility, my girlfriend Kitty's blog)

As you may know if you're following the current World Cup to any degree, there was a US/England match a few nights ago. Since Kitty and I are in fact from the US and England respectively, we thought it'd be cute to make a little wager on the outcome of the game, with some sort of sexy reward for whoever's national team ended up triumphant. Kitty suggested that the winner would take the submissive role in a scene of their choice (I'm not that good at finding ways to bring my occasional dom side out, so really, this little wager was exactly what Kitty needed to prise it out of me in a fun way). Kitty chose an incestuous disciplinary scene between father and daughter (she's no stranger to taboo play, that one) and I - as you may have gathered considering the blog's main focus - chose an ageplay scene.

Now, I promise that I would have been a gent and opted for us to do both scenes regardless of the result of the game. However, we'll never know if that's just a lie or not, as the game actually ended in a 1-1 draw, meaning that, in a sense, we had both won.

Due to time and energy constraints, I got to go first, with Kitty's fantasy-fulfilment happening the following night. I won't really tell you much about her scene just now, as that's not really what this blog is about, but again, feel free to read her take on things over at her blog.

Now, as for my night, I must admit I got incredibly nervous. There's something about doing a sort of play-regression scene whereupon I become a little kid and Kitty becomes my caregiver (or anything else, really. When I first did a big of AB regression-play around her, she was in cat headspace, actually) that gets me all worried. I guess I still worry, on some level, that while she's more or less accepting of the fetish items of my kink, Kitty may still balk when confronted directly with 'little me'. Luckily, my panicky whimpering does a great job of drawing out Kitty's sincerely comforting side, and she really did do a great job of helping me through it.

So yes, to the actual scene. Basically, there was diapering, first and foremost. And for the first time, I didn't just put on a diaper/nappy in front of Kitty, but we actually talked through how to put one on, and how to do all the little ritual bits (the lotion, the powder, etc), which turned the whole thing into a very sweet little lesson-cum-bonding-experience for the both of us (with added cock-groping, which both of us found quite pleasant, really).

Once the key artefacts were assembled (tippee cup, cuddly toys, book to read for my bedtime story, dummy/pacifier), I took out my contact lenses.

Now, usually at this point I'd shove on my glasses. Even though I wear contacts, I still keep my glasses about as a sort of liminal eyewear: great for making sure I don't bump into the furniture on that walk from the bathroom where I keep my lens solution to my bed. However, I had in fact broken the damn things a few days ago, rendering them unwearable (don't worry, it was just the arms that broke, and some glue has fixed them by the time of writing).

Now, in terms of the scene this presented a problem. We were planning on doing a simple 'bedtime' scene where Kitty would diaper me, dress me in my sleeper, read me a story and tuck me in and then we'd genuinely go to sleep. If I took my contacts out inbetween the story and the tucking in, that'd be a pretty severe breaking of character.

So yes, our solution was for me to take them off my lenses beforehand, leaving me partially debilitated, as I really am quite short-sighted. The great part of all this though was that it really did add to the scene, actually. Without full vision I really couldn't do a lot of things for myself and really did need some caring assistance from Kitty. Plus, I genuinely wouldn't be able to read the story myself and would rely solely on Kitty's voice and a hazy interpretation of the illustrations. We'd been thinking of a way to manufacture this sort of dynamic in a scene - our best idea up to this point was to have Kitty reading me something in a foreign language, so that I genuinely wouldn't quite understand it and would learn it gradually as we went along, but that really would only simulate a very young age indeed - but as it turns out, my clumsiness with my glasses had actually allowed us to stumble upon a much better idea.

So yeah, there I am, in Kitty's bedroom in nothing but a bambino nappy, fumbling my way back to the bed and my fleece footed sleeper. I start to put in on myself put then, when I get to the zip, Kitty reaches forward and offers to help zip me up and snap, right then and there I enter little headspace. Suddenly I'm just a little kid who needs zipping up and Kitty is my loving caregiver. It's a wonderful feeling.

Kitty even made a little game of doing up the zip that honestly sounds inane now that I think of ways to try and describe it in adult terms, but aroused lots of giggles from 'little me'.

So yeah, I ended up tucked in bed, in Kitty's arms and being read a story (The Boy Who Cried Fabulous, for the curious among you), with a cuddly toy in one hand, a tippee cup in the other and a dummy in my mouth. We played the usual games that one plays with little kids when reading them a story: asking them to find things in the illustrations, etc, and it was all made so much more authentic by the fact that, with the visual ones at least, I really did struggle a little and felt genuinely quite proud when I did manage to locate something.

After the story (and Kitty is a really wonderful narrator, by the way) came bedtime proper.

One thing I haven't mentioned so far is that, beforehand I had asked Kitty what I should call her when we were in the scene. We'd only really tried an ageplay scene like this once before (as Kitty commented the next morning, she often forgets that I'm only just feeling my way around this kink, learning what I like and don't like too) and during that I'd called her 'Daddy'. Now, Kitty's queer as anything and I'd called her 'Daddy' before in other contexts, but she admitted later, both to me in person and on her blog, to being perplexed by this. To me, it had seemed the natural choice seeing as how she was taking on a sort of queer parental role and, frankly, it might prove just a tad too weird and Freudian were I to start calling her my 'Mummy', even in a scene that would lend itself to that. But what surprised me the most about the whole experience was this: it really didn't feel weird at all. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I didn't find it a strange thing to say (whilst in that headspace) and she seemed to react really very well to it, so that was a positive.

Anyway, the next morning, I wake up and I'm regular me again, just now in a diaper and footed sleeper (although frankly, adult-me wears that too, occasionally). Kitty and I talked about what we took away from the scene: what we thought worked and what didn't. Again, we're still new at actually trying all this out, and she herself is really still quite new when it comes to ageplay at all, but luckily we're finding that the more we communicate about it, the more we're likely to make future experiences that'll appeal to both of us.

So yeah, I feel I've bored you enough now. Once again, for more on what happened the next night, feel free to check out Kitty's blog. And if you're curious about whether we'll continue to make bets like this in the future, just remember that the next England and US fixtures are set for the 18th and the 23rd, so stay tuned!

Me, I'm hoping for some sort of puppyplay scene next time, methinks...

picnic in the park

Ok, so, ageplay munch this last Sunday. How did that go? Well, it went fine. My girlfriend and I, the organisers of the bloody thing, turned up late, so that was a big hiccup, but luckily it all seemed to go a bit more smoothly after that. Basically there were just under a dozen of us and we all sat down to eat lunch/nibbles on a big picnic blanket in a park in London where we enjoyed some weather that thankfully managed to stay reasonably nice for the time that we were there (although it did threaten).

And yes, there was lots and lots of talking about what it is the community really needs. One of my girlfriend's hats is that of a party/event organiser, so basically she was able to launch in with a whole host of questions about what people would want out of a friendly, ABDL space that we could come to on a regular basis, and people largely seemed eager to offer suggestions. So yeah, it seems I may have inadvertently volunteered to help set-up and run a regular ABDL event. I'll let you know how that develops, I guess.

Some people at the meet were more quiet but others were very much happy for a chance to rant about a clearly dear topic and others still have already emailed me, eager about the proposed next one, so that makes me feel fairly confident that this must have gone well.

I swear the next one there will be more time for fun, games and kites (seriously, someone brought a kite, I am quite chuffed at that fact) and the whole thing will feel somewhat less like an impromptu event meeting with humus and crudités.

Still, like I said, it went well. People are looking forward to the next one.

And yeah, the onus is on me to arrange the next one, so I guess I'd better jump in the deep end and actually learn how to navigate the waters of the online kink/ABDL communities. Let's see how I do, shall we?

in

Today, someone commented to me that they wish they were as 'out' as I was. This came as no small surprise to me, actually, as I still feel that I'm somewhat closeted about my AB side. To be fair, yes, I did kind of tell a fair few of my friends about it, and yes, there are photos of me wearing romper suits, dungarees and onesies on facebook of all places, a place that my own family frequent...But still, I feel that last one at least is somewhat of a cheat: I'm at/going to costume events in each of the photos in question, and as for my family, well, they either don't check their facebook pages that often or, frankly, are doing equally questionable things on their pages and shouldn't really be commenting on me, really. It's not like I pasted a picture of someone giving me a handjob whilst changing my nappy onto my grandmother's wall or anything.

Still, the point remains, I am actually still quite 'out' compared to a fair few ABDLs out there. 'Out' in that I actually involve myself in the community at all. Or, at least, I am now only just beginning to. But this is after years of not really exploring my AB side, so I can very much understand people still going through feelings of trepidation, thinking how daunting it can be to actually involve oneself in this community at all. For years I too only really had the occasional fling with the online side of things (to be fair, this is perhaps equally the fault of the way certain online AB communities are set up, but that's not what this post is about) and would have been hella nervous about actually talking to someone about this stuff in real life.

And the truth is, I still get nervous and full of trepidation when talking about it. I'm not a perfect human being by any stretch, and I admit to getting really quite defensive and weird when my girlfriend asks questions about my AB side. This is because of a worry that, if she's not getting it, that must mean that she's against it and therefore judging me. It's a kneejerk reaction, equal parts understandable and yet wrong. I really should be encouraging her rather than getting defensive, yet it's hard to get over several years worth of training yourself to think that people really are going to stigmatise you because of this kink. And frankly, there is some truth in that; ABDLs are often stigmatised even within kink communities. My girlfriend - in another amazing showing of how she's earnestly trying to get all of this - was reading a book about people's experiences with ageplay today, and she was telling me of an example where an individual was severely frowned upon by people in the leather community for their ageplay leaning. So it does, anecdotally at least, seem to happen.

My girlfriend and I are lucky in that we have a circle of very kinky, very open-minded friends, many of them literally San Franciscan, so take from that what you will. However, not everyone is like that, hence some people, especially those without the aid of an obvious kink or ageplay community around them (except for the online one) can seem to struggle. And yes, a real, physical community that have munches and meet-ups together is incredibly important, but more on that in the next post.

If there's a point to this post at all, I guess it's just to help me process the mixed feelings I have today from speaking with both my girlfriend and this other friend that I mentioned (let's call her 'Em'). Oh, and I should be seeing Em and her 'daddy' for coffee this week and having a big ol' chat about ageplay, so stay tuned to see how that goes, I guess.

Why is it the only AB types I ever see online who don't seem as (potentially) neurotic about it all as me...

...are the AB professionals like Ms Penny here?

Maybe I should become an AB kink-worker, then I'll know.

a 'little' rant

This site doesn't, but most AB-related sites feature somewhere prominent a big ol' disclaimer stating that adult baby stuff does not involve real children! (well, except for the fact that we're all somebody's child, I guess *fnar fnar*)

I kind of understand the need to do this sometimes, as I guess that an ignorant Googler might accidentally wander onto a site that mentions both diapers-and-pacifiers and sexual play and might, in a moment of panic, grasp the wrong end of the proverbial.

Still, people do worry a great deal about any potential links between the fetishisation of adult babies and the sexualisation of real children. I remember reading about Baby Ella, who lost her job as a teacher after talking about her AB kink on television. Now, to me, firing someone because of their actually-really-very-harmless-and-don't-ever-escape-the-bedroom kinks really is akin to firing someone because of their sexuality. Despite what the pearl-clutchers might say, kids aren't actually in danger from simply being around people with kinks, especially if that person isn't exactly in their kink persona 24/7. I mean, we have lives people, come on; we don't live every minute like we're in the Folsom Street fair.

So yes, I glibly say that adult-baby-play has as much to do with real children as ponyplay has to do with real ponies or, hell, any kind of sexual dominance/submission has to do with actual slavery! But really, that would only be a part of the issue, as with AB stuff it's a bit more complicated.

When it comes to bringing AB stuff into a relationship with another person, it can often seem a bit freakish and weird because, while they probably don't think that acting like a baby makes you want to go out and grope one, they probably do realise that you were - believe it or not - once a real baby yourself, and playing with this kink might in fact be a) a bit taboo and b) possibly bringing to the forefront some sort of childhood trauma, and yes, that can prove a worry.

To be honest though, I'm not really in the mood right now for a response other than "fuck it." Yes AB stuff might be bringing to the forefront some sort of repressed trauma, but fuck it, so might a handful of other kinks. Yes I like AB stuff but fuck it, no it doesn't affect my attitude towards kids now or to any kids I myself might even potentially have in the future.

I'm not trying to write off thinking and talking about these things. Hell, I'm all about opening dialogues and asking "why does this weird you out" equally as often as "why am I even into this?" But still, sometimes I'll be reminded of people like Baby Ella and the kneejerk "perverts equal paedophiles" reaction that some people have, and it just makes me want to scream "fuck it, just accept that people have kinks, ok?"

Ok, this one really is written stream-of-consciousness-style, I guess

For all our good will, my girlfriend and I still struggle with my AB side. She admittedly flips between genuine curiosity about it and a tendency to find it a bit too freakish for her. And I struggle with trying to communicate exactly what it is AB means to me, which is something that I feel that, if I could do well, things would go a whole lot more smoothly for both myself and for her, as I'd be more easily able to communicate exactly what it is I want out of my AB side and why I want it.

There are loads of theories as to what exactly 'makes one' an AB. As a teen (or 'TB', I suppose, to use the community jargon), I was obsessed with trying to understand the psychological underpinnings behind kinks, quirks and fetishes. I wanted to find out what had made me this way, what had made me 'abnormal'. Nowadays my passion for psychology has faded, and I tend to think that any over-analysis of potential reasons behind kinks ends up sounding too much like that 'finding your root' scene in the queer satire But I'm a Cheerleader, wherein a bunch of gay boys and girls try to find a specific moment in their past that took them off the beaten path and into the wild woods of perversity. Basically, it sounds kind of ludicrous and also tends to pathologise 'abnormal' sexualities, by positing them as something which must have been caused by some sort of straying from the 'norm'. "If x event hadn't happened, I would have turned out normal."

Ok, yeah, AB stuff is pretty 'abnormal,' in the strictest sense, I'll be honest. But it sure isn't crazy.

One theory that my girlfriend raised is that it's to do with neediness, about having a space or a persona wherein you feel it's ok to be needy and ask to have all your needs met by others. I don't know. For all I know there are as many reasons one becomes an AB as there are ABies, but it's certainly something I've been thinking about since she brought it up.

Anyway, I haven't achieved any sort of conclusion as yet, so sorry for the confused/confusing post, I guess, but really, I just wanted to check into this blog before this weekend.

"What happens this weekend?" you ask...

Well, this Sunday I'm actually attending my first ever ageplay munch: a get-together for a bunch of ageplayers where we'll actually have a pleasant sit and a talk. Well, that was the theory, anyway. A recent look at this Sunday's weather means we may have to make a last-minute change from the outdoor picnic that we had been planning, but still, the show will go on somewhere and somehow.

I'll admit, I'm actually feeling a lot of apprehension about this whole thing. I mean, I've met ABies, DLs and even 'parent' types in reality before, but never have I met a whole group at once and I've certainly never met any while with a partner, either. If I'm going to hang everything out there and expose my feelings completely, I'll be honest: I'm a little worried about how my partner's going to take all this. Fuck it, I'm really worried about how I'm going to take all this. In my most outlandish fears, I keep guessing that all the people that I'm going to meet will be utter crazies and will put my girlfriend off completely. Even worse, what if they're completely sane about the whole thing and it turns out that I'm the crazy one, with all my neuroses and nonsense? *sigh* At the heart of all this is of course my fear that I'm going to drive away my girlfriend with this weird fetish of mine. For all my supposed pride about it, I do realise how strange it seems to have this fetish and how odd it can seem to other people. I have a girlfriend who has played with furries, ponygirls and even done some pretty risqué taboo-play, but this has the potential to freak her out. Put in blunt black-and-white terms, this weekend will either make her see how normal AB stuff is and give her some sort of positive epiphany or alternatively she'll be completely thrown by a group of nappy-wearing weirdos. The likely result is somewhere in the middle, but that doesn't really have the same sort of rhetorical weight to it.

I'm worried. I'm hella worried, and it pains me to even admit that. Still, my girlfriend is a real trooper. Hell, she even arranged this munch. As I've said before, she really is going above and beyond to try and understand all of this. But yeah, I'll guess we'll see how it goes...