Outsider's Perspectives

[Trevor]

I came across this article during lunch. I see people asking questions like this from time to time, but most often they are sent to people who specialize in sexual question (particularly Dan Savage with Savage Love) or it's in some format that doesn't have reader discussion. The letter writer's question and the professional response are not really the most interesting to me, it's the discussion that follows. Unfortunately, she's covering an array of subjects, so the responses are a mix of those topics. Here's the main article:

Advice on manners and morals (May 29, 2008). - - Slate Magazine

Here's their discussion forum for this article:

Slate -> The Fray -> Dear Prudence

I skimmed most of the responses pertaining to this and be advised, this is not a particularly encouraging look at how people can react to what we're interested in. I do think it's instructive to see the range of responses, though. This site is oriented to adults, so the replies are typically reasonably thoughtful, even when they're extremely negative. For example:

In fact, it does say it is a fetish. The LW uses the word "fetish" twice and "fantasy" once. In my mind, people use the word "fantasy" because it sounds less threatening than "fetish". A fantasy is an option, a fetish is a requirement.

He broke her in gently telling her he "likes to wear diapers" and her horrified reaction stopped him short from elaborating that he also likes to be cuddled and powdered and Desitined and that he gets a huge boner at the sound of the diaper tape being removed because that means mommy & baby playtime. This is a pedophilic fantasy, plain and simple.

There's a lot of resistance to this. A lot of it is based in ignorance, at least. The potentially difficult part is getting someone to listen long enough to see how it's not really so bad. If you know anyone who has accepted this part of you, go give them a hug.

[Lukie]

Beyond a kink-free, heterosexual relationship, there is little doubt that anything wouldn't be met with a high amount of criticism. As you said, a lot is bred out of ignorance, people not only unwilling to accept it, but going as far as to completely shun it. With this fetish it's very easy to do that, especially since there are diapers so a connotation with babies is made. People don't realise that the fetish is with the diaper itself - as an object - or with being treated like a baby. There is, in no way, any attraction to the baby itself. Unfortunately, many people just take the easy explanation, no matter how falsified it may be.

In fact, it seems people are willing to believe anything just to explain something that they've been confronted with and are confused about. It's been said before, our society, however developed you want to call it, has a serious lack of understanding and acceptance. We just don't seem wired up to be able to handle anything outside what is considered societal-norm - we live in a world where the collective thought thrives and majority rules. We blindly throw our reasons and justification at a problem rather than trying to understand it better. In that, we have hardly developed at all. Knowledge is something that moves us forward in life, but knowledge comes at the price of actually wanting to understand what is presented to us. A concept people just don't want to grapple.

With that said, previous examples of this fetish have been thrown into the spotlight before, as we've all seen. A large portion of that has been relatively negative, thanks to those select few that feel they must flamboyantly proclaim something that is rather personal, not to mention sexual to the rest of us. It's a shame to think that there are those in our own community who are destroying us. As a society that lives off what is fed to us by the media, there is no surprise really as to why people would have such a negative image of this fetish. Since that plays well into the [false] connections that this fetish has to do with babies, is there really any surprise that people do think that paedophilia is somehow involved? Any surprise that people think we are sexual deviants? Or any surprise that people think we are seriously messed up mentally, physically, socially or emotionally?

To a great extent it is ignorance at its finest; I simply see it as a lack of understanding and an unwillingness to accept something that is very confronting and something that has been portrayed very negatively in the past. All these factors that have led to a general consensus that we are people who have some issues that are in dire need of professional attention. Not true is the sense that the most intelligent people I've ever spoken to have been from this fetish-community and I feel that has a lot to do with the fact we are open about it and that we do accept it. Regrettably and in great contrast to this, some of the most stupid and idiotic people I've ever spoken to have been from this fetish-community. It's a two-way street where the big question is which way are you going. Do you wish to strive for understanding and acceptance, or are you fine with it being a solely deviant and sexual experience. The latter, I find are the one's who do go into the spotlight and who do give the rest of us an unfavourable reputation.

If it were up to me, I would stamp it out. But in that sense, I would be contradicting myself in that I strive for tolerance, yet am reluctant to harbour discernment for those who - albeit part of the same fetish - are travelling in a completely opposite direction to which I am. I wouldn't be practising what I preach and to me that is something that has struck me as one of human's greatest logical flaws. You could say that nothing positive comes from a person's actions, but I would disagree. What we are given is an example of how not to behave so that the rest of us can benefit by not falling into those pitfalls that this other person has. That doesn't, however, make a difference to the fact that it's these people who are put out there and not someone with a little bit of common sense and intelligence.

That all swings back to the ignorance outsiders have to this fetish. It's safe to say that no community is deprived of such misinformation, that every fetish group has members who are just as uneducated and nescient as those who do not participate in it. Only through proper channels could we conduct such an orchestra of reason and sense into the matter. Nonetheless, for now, as long as we all empathise that there is a lot of hear-say and opinion going around, and that we know that their ignorance is unfounded, then we can sleep easy at night being quite content with having this fetish.

[avery]

Originally Posted by Trevor

If you know anyone who has accepted this part of you, go give them a hug.

*hugs trevor*

i liked the bit where people were saying she should feel betrayed that her boyfriend waited four years to tell her his secret. based on her reaction (couldn't accept it, didn't even want to think about it) i can't say it's any wonder to me that he waited so long.

personally i don't think there's a human being on the planet who doesn't have something to be ashamed of. that's what being in a long-term relationship is all about -- learning to love one another despite our quirks and imperfections. it sounds like the woman who wrote that letter isn't ready to do that yet.

it's always instructive to step outside one's own worldview and look at things from an outside perspective. woe to the AB who forgets to do that once in a while! :P

[cpndl]

Originally Posted by avery

*hugs trevor*

i liked the bit where people were saying she should feel betrayed that her boyfriend waited four years to tell her his secret. based on her reaction (couldn't accept it, didn't even want to think about it) i can't say it's any wonder to me that he waited so long.

personally i don't think there's a human being on the planet who doesn't have something to be ashamed of. that's what being in a long-term relationship is all about -- learning to love one another despite our quirks and imperfections. it sounds like the woman who wrote that letter isn't ready to do that yet.

it's always instructive to step outside one's own worldview and look at things from an outside perspective. woe to the AB who forgets to do that once in a while! :P

Sounds like my EX-wife. I didn't tell her and she found me out by finding my "stash". She like totally freaked out about the whole thing and pretty much didn't ever want to have anything to do with me again. Her reaction was the exact reason I never told her.

cpndl

[Sandy0450]

One of the biggest hurdles we have to get over is the 'peadophile' impression. To the average Mr Ignorance Public, diapers = babies = paedohile. End of story. The other big hurdle is society's stigma that any toiletting matter is dirty, filthy and to be shunned.

Nothing could be further from the truth, as we know. Coming out and telling a loved one is a nightmare at the best of times. Nobody's perfect, and we all have skeletons in the closet... so if your partner truly loves you they will accept it as your thing, and at worst have nothing to do with it (but still love you unconditionally). At best they will join in and share it. Whatever the outcome we as AB/DLs also owe it to our 'vanilla' partners to give them time. open honesty and understanding to get their 'heads round it'. ... then respect their decision without further hassle!

My $0.02 worth anyway...

[silent deadly alchemist]

well for the toiletting bit.. weve spent several centuries trying to get rid of practices that leave waste arund or promote wste production like this.. its natural to not like that

[Maverick]

Originally Posted by Trevor

I came across this article during lunch. I see people asking questions like this from time to time, but most often they are sent to people who specialize in sexual question (particularly Dan Savage with Savage Love) or it's in some format that doesn't have reader discussion. The letter writer's question and the professional response are not really the most interesting to me, it's the discussion that follows. Unfortunately, she's covering an array of subjects, so the responses are a mix of those topics. Here's the main article:

Advice on manners and morals (May 29, 2008). - - Slate Magazine

Here's their discussion forum for this article:

Slate -> The Fray -> Dear Prudence

I skimmed most of the responses pertaining to this and be advised, this is not a particularly encouraging look at how people can react to what we're interested in. I do think it's instructive to see the range of responses, though. This site is oriented to adults, so the replies are typically reasonably thoughtful, even when they're extremely negative. For example:



There's a lot of resistance to this. A lot of it is based in ignorance, at least. The potentially difficult part is getting someone to listen long enough to see how it's not really so bad. If you know anyone who has accepted this part of you, go give them a hug.

Horrible, absolutely horrible. But it was expected. Too many people are ignorant in the world.

[kite]

the ab in that story should dump this girl and find someone who loves and accepts all of him.

[Eclipse]

Originally Posted by Maverick

Horrible, absolutely horrible. But it was expected. Too many people are ignorant in the world.

Exactly why the word depresses me so much, well part of the cause.

[Maverick]

Originally Posted by Eclipse

Exactly why the word depresses me so much, well part of the cause.

I'm still trying to figure out whether ignorance is the root of all evil in the world or if Christianity is. (No offense to any Christians)