Possible dl reason

What scientists do know about biological imprinting is that it is a normal part of our early development. Once imprinted, a characteristic tends to last a lifetime. Imprinting occasionally results in characteristics that are not clearly beneficial. Sometimes they appear to be detrimental to a person's well being or social compatibility. Attempts to eliminate desires caused by biological imprinting have not been successful. These desires may be evident early on, or they may remain hidden until a later time, such as puberty. The more bizarre imprinted characteristics defy popular psychological or genetic explanations.

Sound familiar?

Why I think it's important:
We need to get over the hurdle of the public perception that people's basic desires are simply choices they make. On a very fundamental level we don't get to choose the basic preferences that make up our core personalities. This doesn't just apply to sexual fetishes but to many other aspects of human nature as well. Too many people believe that just having deviant, racist, or sexist feelings makes a person evil, and rational discussion breaks down at that point.

Drifter said:

We need to get over the hurdle of the public perception that people's basic desires are simply choices they make.

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Well, I agree. Just beware the slippery slope of assuming that understanding a thing makes it more acceptable to those on the outside. I mean, AB/DLs aren't on some civil rights crusade. (Are we?) Both as a community, and as individuals, we seem to be more concerned with gaining the acceptance of those around us. And when it comes to that, the things we do will always be far, far more important than whether or not those things have a basis in biology, psychology, or whatever. I guess if you're simply trying to replace a person's disgust with pity, you can whip that stuff out in a pinch. Gaining acceptance, though, takes real person-to-person time and effort, and is never a sure thing. There are no magic silver bullets.

When it comes to acceptance people want to know just what it is you want them to accept. They can accept that some people have perverted, evil impulses that they can't control, or that some people can control their perverted, evil impulses but choose not to. What they won't accept in either case is that these people are fit to be free members of society, and who can blame them? If there is no real understanding of unusual desires then the understanding will default back to assuming such desires are a sign of the devil or a sign of suspicious mental illness. Acceptance will be on the condition that those afflicted are willing to work to become healed. Without understanding, society will never accept that these afflictions can't be cured, and will never be able to move past that point to determine the best way to handle the problem.

I also go with the imprinting theory. I was a bedwetter until about age 8. In and out of diapers on the whim of parents until they started using a bed alarm on me. When I woke up wet at age 3, every morning i was beaten and given a cold shower. They managed to beat it out of me for a while, but it came back later. With all that, I figure that diapers are very comforting to the subconscious.

I get what you mean, drifter. But I don't know how many of us actively worry about society's views. Instead, we tend to consider specific individuals and worry about how our "coming out" about diapers will affect our relationships with those individuals. And when we come out, we have an opportunity to share some of the many resources out there that back up our claims about these things being incurable, non-discretionary preferences. Coming out to somebody who already accepts that things like sexual fetishes are deeply rooted and incurable may speed the conversation somewhat, but I expect you're still ultimately subject to a bigger test: Can your parent/friend/partner/spouse embrace or at least put up with your need to wear diapers, especially if that need includes their involvement?

That's an order of magnitude more pivotal, and more complicated, too--like saving money. We all know the theory. The practice is something else entirely.

The "gay gene" thing was mentioned earlier, and I feel like that's a bit different. There are large, organized prejudices--in the form of churches, for instance--swirling around the gay community. Confronting these things on a societal level and with science makes a lot of sense in that case, simply because any single individual's powers of persuasion are usually ineffective at that level. Maybe if Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton had been caught wearing diapers in the Oval Office, though...

Cottontail said:

... I don't know how many of us actively worry about society's views. Instead, we tend to consider specific individuals and worry about how our "coming out" about diapers will affect our relationships with those individuals. And when we come out, we have an opportunity to share some of the many resources out there that back up our claims about these things being incurable, non-discretionary preferences. Coming out to somebody who already accepts that things like sexual fetishes are deeply rooted and incurable may speed the conversation somewhat, but I expect you're still ultimately subject to a bigger test: Can your parent/friend/partner/spouse embrace or at least put up with your need to wear diapers, especially if that need includes their involvement?
...
The "gay gene" thing was mentioned earlier, and I feel like that's a bit different. There are large, organized prejudices--in the form of churches, for instance--swirling around the gay community. Confronting these things on a societal level and with science makes a lot of sense in that case, simply because any single individual's powers of persuasion are usually ineffective at that level

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I agree that understanding does not mean compatibility. But it's the social stigma created by society's misunderstanding of the issue that causes problems with one of the most important aspects of human life - finding a compatible partner(s). In the early days of a relationship it's entirely normal to be forthcoming about things you feel are important. In fact, it's expected. It's best to find out at the start if there are obvious things that will make the relationship impossible. It's no big deal if the relationship ends at that point. Deliberately hiding important things from a potential partner is dishonest, unfair, and unacceptable because it causes the other person to invest time, money, and emotion into a relationship that is most likely doomed. This is something criminals and psychopaths do, not good people. And yet many of us here would do just that. Why? Because we worry about serious social fallout, which is a real possibility.