Why It Is The Way It Is

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Aki

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  1. Diaper Lover
  2. Little
Hey, everyone, I'm Aki. Long time member, but I went inactive for awhile. I don't know how active I plan on being, but here I am.

I don't know if this is better as a blog post, but I'm opening this up for discussion to see how many people can actually pinpoint what happened in their life to bring this fetish/fixation to light. I don't believe that it's something that we're born with; I think that usually, with fetishes, something happened during critical points in our development that caused it.

I know where my fixation came from, and it took a long time and some sly questioning of my mom to put together an answer. My mom potty trained me when I was a very young two. I loved my aunt's house, and my cousins, and really wanted to stay and spend the night. My mom said basically, "you can't spend the night until you're out of diapers". An innocuous enough statement, but to two-year-old me, it sounding more like a threat feels right. She said I was potty trained a week later. Getting out of diapers wasn't my choice. If anyone knows anything about child development, you would know that a young two is 1.) very young to be toilet trained, 2.) a time when children are focused on autonomy, and 3.) toilet training has to be child-driven or you can run the risk of serious complexes.

The result? A preschooler obsessed with stealing diapers and putting them on, who was pulled forcefully out of his comfort zone in a very intimate way (can't think of anything more private than that area to feel like you have no control over. Follow the chain of logic, and wonder no more why I have a diaper fetish and am so anxious about sexual situations).

So, there's my breakthrough. I'm sure your feelings about diapers are different in nature than mine, I think we all feel differently about them even though we share the fixation in common. For me, it's security and safety. For you, is it relinquishing control? Something else? What is it for you? And why?
 
My story is a little bit complicated. My mother tells me I was pretty easily toilet trained at two. I discovered masturbation at about four, and I'm going to assume that I must have been exposed to something related to pee or potty training, probably on TV, around the time I was beginning to pleasure myself, as the fetish stuck. Commercials for training pants, certain episodes of Rugrats, etc. fascinated me, and I recall a time seeing my baby cousin wet a diaper during a change that caught my interest. My mother always told me that I didn't wear Pull-Ups during my training, and said they were silly, as they were just diapers. I echoed her sentiments, but deep down inside I liked them in a way I of course didn't understand at the time; perhaps something about their ''taboo'' nature helped set me off, I don't know. Oddly enough though, I never really thought about wearing them myself or scheming to get some.

I started experimenting with wetting around 11 or 12, but I didn't really discover my adult baby side and a strong desire to actually wear diapers until about three years ago. I think growing up in a rather dysfunctional dynamic, along with some emotional trauma, is probably to blame.

So there's a part of me that wants to wear and be babied for comfort and safety and security, and a part of me that just finds stuff like potty-training scenarios arousing.
 
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I think it's fun to wonder about why we have these inclinations, but I don't think that any of us really know, and I don't think we ever will. Terms like "imprinting" and "love map" are endlessly tossed around, but these are terms for biological and psychological processes that virtually every human is subject to, so by themselves they aren't all that interesting to talk about. Similarly, we often hear people pin their AB/DL tendencies on things like potty training early, potty training late, bed-wetting, etc. The trouble with these things is similar: They're not unique to AB/DLs. Gazillions of kids potty-train "early" and "late", and yet we don't have gazillions of AB/DLs. Clearly, developing an attraction to diapers is not simply our brain's response to one particular diaper-related experience, because as babies and toddlers, our lives pretty much revolve around diapers and diaper changes. Name any diaper-related thing, and there will be many, many non-AB/DLs who've experienced it. To explain the origins of diaper fetishes and similar things, I suppose we're really looking for coincidences--windows of opportunity for our sexual inclinations to be mutated that coincide with diaper-related experiences.

These experiences might be ordinary or somewhat less than ordinary, and they probably needn't be exceedingly unusual or strange. Some of us, for example, can point to sexual or emotional abuse in our childhoods. I can't. Some had generally unhappy childhoods. I didn't. I had a younger sister in diapers, and I was probably a bit jealous of the babying she got--but then that scenario is super common with siblings. Truly, I can point to no one thing that seems to be the origin of my diaper fetish. It just... is. I've wanted to wear diapers for as long as I can remember.

Now, to the question of what diapers are to me: They are, for me, largely an accessory to self-stimulation. Ok, ok... "masturbation". *blush* Put in clinical terms: I would characterize my own DL-ness as autonepiophilia--an autoerotic response to the mental image of myself as a toddler in a diaper. That there's a toddler angle to it might suggest that I'm an AB also, but it's such an intensely sexual thing, and so lacking in any inclination toward age-play and other AB activities, that it really doesn't seem right to call myself an AB. I'll sometimes refer to my "toddler side" or "baby side", but in my own little corner of the spectrum, these terms describe only my rather particular preference for babyish diapers.
 
My mom said I was easy to potty train as well. I lifted up the cushion and peed on the couch ... I got yelled at and spanked ... and ever since I was potty trained. >.>
So that's a thing. xD Clearly she was wrong ROFL. :laugh: Considering I did that on purpose as far as I remember.

So an interesting fact is because of this I know I was interested in diapers while I was wearing diapers as a baby. Which makes me wonder if all babies like wearing diapers to begin with, and maybe it just eventually gets taught to them that it's a grown up thing to do to use the potty. So if potty training is done too early and/or it isn't taught in a manner that makes you want to switch to a potty, maybe the liking diapers thing just persists.
 
For me I was rather 'slow' in terms of development when was young. I couldn't even speak the all too stereotypical baby gibberish and my parents thought I was either going to be a mute or that I have down syndrome. Some time later (age 4) one of my best friends at the time happened to be one of those kids who would steal some of their sibling's diapers. At the time, the idea of wearing diapers was interesting so I tried one on. I ended up wearing it home and was later discovered/punished. A couple years later I was climbing a tree in my family's back yard (4 story pine tree). About three stories high, I lose my grip and fell all the way to the ground, smashing my back on the branches as I went. Sadly no one was home and I ended up crawling back into the house. After this I suffered from bedwetting for about a year. During this time my parents thought it was just me being lazy and bought me some plastic sheets and taught me how to do my own laundry. Fast forward another year, I tried skateboarding. In a painful wipe out, I cracked my back on a half pipe, knocking me out cold. I wasn't brought to the hospital, rather I was merely brought home and laid on a couch. The bedwetting ensues and so does the almost constant laundry. My parents thought it was just due to nightmares because of the movies I watched. Around age 8 I became and uncle and you can guess what followed. So for the next two years I was able to enjoy wearing some "borrowed" diapers. Course, also at this time my parents started demanding that I act more mature to set an example for my niece and her brother who was born a while later. Bye bye childhood... Fast forward to the birth of my twin nieces and with the opportunity arisen I tried my luck, only to discover "oh hey, not THAT small anymore." So I made my own makeshift diapers and dream about my parents actually spending some old fashion quality time with me. In about 2010, I suffered my first concussion when I ran head first into a hurricane class five proof glass door and nearly cracked it. My parents' decision? Oh he'll be fine. As a result, I started having some memory issues. In the winter of 2013, black ice was a problem on the sidewalks at my high school and I fall on it, striking my skull against someone's car; second concussion and wasn't checked on if I was OK. Junior year (2014), some jerk catches me in the back with the hood of his car. From that day onwards, I couldn't properly feel anything from the waist down. I could still walk, but it was mostly numbed. Bedwetting issues ensues and my parents rub it off as just the stress of high school. That summer I decided to finally go get myself some diapers from walgreens (certainty). They helped with the occasional nighttime incident, and helped comfort me. The december of my senior year. I caught the norovirus. For me, it caused me to lose control down there at random times. Regrettably for me, I ran out of supplies (and funds to get some more) and had to wake up with soiled pajamas for two weeks. My parents might've been worried, but they thought I'd just get over it. Tell that to my ten ruined pairs of underwear. Might I add that I ended up messing myself at school three times! So eventually I get better, but I now to this day have constant runs which I can barely sense coming. I am now in my first year of college, and I try to stay padded as much as possible due to my ever increasing loss of control. Side note to the loss of control, I've had 14 accidents in the past three weeks alone. I've told my parents and they either it is in my head or just me trying to get attention. Why do some parents have to be so nonchalant.

- - - Updated - - -

Btw, sorry for the long post, but I just wanted to get it all typed fast before the browser tried to refresh deleting it all.
 
I didn't have any trauma, or any unusual potty-training experience, or really anything out of the ordinary that I know of. I've just always liked diapers. One of my earliest memories is pooping in one. By now I'm sure I've skewed the memory to what I want it to be like, but I remember enjoying it a lot, almost like the "kid equivalent" of the precursor to an adult orgasm, if that makes any sense. Even now, whenever I have "wet dreams" I am peeing or pooping in a diaper during the orgasm.
 
babysittee said:
By now I'm sure I've skewed the memory to what I want it to be like, but I remember enjoying it a lot, almost like the "kid equivalent" of the precursor to an adult orgasm, if that makes any sense.

Interesting that you mention this, because I was struggling with how to describe a similar thing, and ended up avoiding it altogether. It was late when I wrote my reply, and my brain just wasn't finding the words.

I was wearing a diaper when I reached orgasm for the first time. I've described it before: I was 12 years old, and had this feeling like I was going to wet my diaper, something I generally avoided, as I was wearing old cloth baby diapers and didn't have a great way to wash them. At the same time, the feeling was uncommonly good, and the sense that I was somehow losing control was intriguing. So I didn't stop. Afterwards, I nervously investigated the aftermath and figured out what had actually happened. Looking back, I've often considered this to be the turning point in my DL career: The point at which diapers became sexual for me.

But perhaps they always were sexual, and the biological signals simply hadn't finished hooking themselves up? It's kind of funny and distressing at the same time, but I actually can't remember what I got out of wearing diapers before that first orgasm. And yet, I'd been wearing diapers for years. I can remember sneaking them from wherever they were stored, putting them on, playing in them, sleeping in them, etc. I was totally addicted, from the age of 6. But what I actually got out of wearing, or how the diapers made me feel during those early years, was quickly obscured by that first orgasm. I wonder if that's common among the sexuals here? I've never wondered that aloud.
 
Playing the psychology game is always fun. There are no rules and you can make up any story that makes you feel happy or content.

If you are interested in a scientific explanation, biological imprinting theories are the only ones I've seen that offer substantial scientific support. I've never seen diaper desires specifically addressed, but there is pretty convincing evidence that certain desires, especially sexual desires, are imprinted biologically rather than psychologically.
 
Drifter said:
Playing the psychology game is always fun. There are no rules and you can make up any story that makes you feel happy or content.

If you are interested in a scientific explanation, biological imprinting theories are the only ones I've seen that offer substantial scientific support. I've never seen diaper desires specifically addressed, but there is pretty convincing evidence that certain desires, especially sexual desires, are imprinted biologically rather than psychologically.

If we simply leave it at "imprinting", though, then we're stopping short of the goal line. The processes you describe are not unique to AB/DLs or other groups, so in the context of "why am I AB/DL?", they're just tools for understanding the actual answer, not answers unto themselves. It's a bit like saying that a car accident happened because "cars". Well, ok, yeah, one kind of has to have a car to crash it, but then a lot of people have cars and don't crash them, so why did I get into an accident? Was it something I did? Another driver, perhaps? An act of God? Some combination? The car is kind of the least interesting part of the answer, and so it is with the imprinting and love map theories. They offer a framework for explaining how other factors may have contributed, and those other factor are, to an individual wondering why he himself was saddled with a diaper fetish, far more interesting than the biological or psychological machinery he shares with every other human. Right?
 
Cottontail said:
If we simply leave it at "imprinting", though, then we're stopping short of the goal line. The processes you describe are not unique to AB/DLs or other groups, so in the context of "why am I AB/DL?", they're just tools for understanding the actual answer, not answers unto themselves. It's a bit like saying that a car accident happened because "cars". Well, ok, yeah, one kind of has to have a car to crash it, but then a lot of people have cars and don't crash them, so why did I get into an accident? Was it something I did? Another driver, perhaps? An act of God? Some combination? The car is kind of the least interesting part of the answer, and so it is with the imprinting and love map theories. They offer a framework for explaining how other factors may have contributed, and those other factor are, to an individual wondering why he himself was saddled with a diaper fetish, far more interesting than the biological or psychological machinery he shares with every other human. Right?
With biological imprinting we know the "why", we just don't precisely know the how or when. If we ever know those details we could probably prevent sexual deviation and conflicting gender identity from occurring, if that is what the social culture would want at that time. Using your car crash analogy, it's like knowing the crash was initiated by a wheel breaking off from one of the cars. At that point, we know why the car crashed but we don't know why the wheel broke off. We have a very good idea of what mechanism causes a diaper fetish, but we don't exactly know how it works. Just like we know what gravity does to us but no one yet knows how it works.
 
Drifter said:
We have a very good idea of what mechanism causes a diaper fetish, but we don't exactly know how it works. Just like we know what gravity does to us but no one yet knows how it works.

I get what you're saying. My concern is that, when these terms are tossed around by themselves--as they seem to always be--there is the implication that we do understand them, and nothing is ever said up front to avoid that misunderstanding. If we instead say that "imprinting" is a blanket term for both the process and the set of circumstances, sensory inputs, etc., then we're in slightly better shape. Although, again, that only begs the question: What are those other factors? They seem to be the most interesting parts, and arguably the things that distinguish us from non-AB/DLs, or people who are "imprinted" differently. For that reason, and because "Why am I AB/DL?" kind of implies "Why are others not AB/DL?", the term "imprinting" doesn't really mean anything. It's background noise. Better to lead with uncertainty ("I don't know why we're imprinted with an affinity for diapers.") than to imply a certainty that wilts under close scrutiny ("We're imprinted with an affinity for diapers."). Saying that we understand a thing and then being forced to define "understand" is kind of goofy.
 
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Drifter said:
Just like we know what gravity does to us but no one yet knows how it works.

We know how gravity works. I think you mean to say, we don't know why it works the way it does and how it all came to be. Very different questions.

Also, I just read about Biological imprinting, for some reason I was imagining something different due to the word imprinting. To me ... having the idea it might be biologically imprinted is no different than having the idea it's biological. Thus it just leaves us back at square one, just with a different word that may explain a little better of how it might have happened. But it doesn't explain why.

I always assumed it had nothing to do with biological circumstances, because liking diapers in itself is impossible to be something biological. What you like would have to be described as something more natural such as liking to be treated as a baby, and thus you like diapers as a consequence since it's associated with babies.
 
I know we are not born with it, but I feels like this has always been a part of me. Earliest I can remeber was stealing some pull ups from my brother when i was 4. From there i was always trying to find diapers (This was without knowing why, I just wanted to). Fast forward to when I was 11 and I finally figured out why I did what I did; I also clearly remember accepting that this was me and kept saying in my mind (I'm an AB/DL and I was atleast happy I wasn't alone). So all in all i've always been into diapers and liked reading stories of other in them. Never questioned why I did this, or had any shame until I started smoking weed in my teens but thats a whole other story. Now im 20 wear almost 24/7 with my mom knowing and accepting it (everything is extremely discreet though). Honestly I feel better than i've ever felt in my life. I finally feel that i'm complete and that accepting and embracing diapers was the final step. In many cases this sticks with a person for life and i'm very happy that I have my own way of relaxing and being myself. Hope everyone else can embrace and love themselves with it. We aren't freaks we're just regular people that have a different choice in underwear :)
 
Cottontail said:
Similarly, we often hear people pin their AB/DL tendencies on things like potty training early, potty training late, bed-wetting, etc. The trouble with these things is similar: They're not unique to AB/DLs. Gazillions of kids potty-train "early" and "late", and yet we don't have gazillions of AB/DLs.

Pretty much this.

I, like the majority i think, was potty trained at around age 2. Which is the common age to start potty training. It may happen sometimes but it's not common for a child to be almost 3 and still be in diapers full time.

I don't think there's anything traumatic about that, or that it made me abdl.
 
My... attraction, towards the concept of diapers and the act of regression is definitely an enigma. It has been settled that in the present day it is my form of stress relief but how it came to be will likely forever remain a mystery.
One theory is my early potty training age or perhaps the way I was trained, since I wasn't. According to my mother, I effectively trained myself. This could be due to a number of things, most likely would be my brother of close age. That may or may not be what kickstarted my general attraction. This early age could've left some kind of mental idealism that promoted the thought of going back as others my age (around 18-24 months at the time) were still in diapers and had no chance of being trained soon, essentially producing the thought "they are, why don't I?"

Being the last born in the family did not produce the advantage of younger siblings, and I did not try on another diaper until around age 8 when I moved from my old home due to financial instability, homing with a family friend at the time where taking and using some became a nearly daily habit.

I think just about anyone could be turned into an AB or a DL just by the first time use. Nobody can deny that a diaper is alot more comfortable than your standard underwear if worn properly. That would mean this attraction of ours could be curiosity turned to addiction, in a similar way that cigarettes and alcohol tend to do the same work on people.
 
Zendot said:
Pretty much this.

I, like the majority i think, was potty trained at around age 2. Which is the common age to start potty training. It may happen sometimes but it's not common for a child to be almost 3 and still be in diapers full time.

I don't think there's anything traumatic about that, or that it made me abdl.

I remember reading up that psychologists also couldn't answer this question because they simply don't get many AB/DL coming into their offices. So they have hardly any data on it. The reason they don't get AB/DL coming in is because most AB/DL just accept it as a part of their life and don't feel like there is anything wrong.

However, with the wide variety of cases, ... I don't even think psychologists could come up with an answer.

Anytime I do consider these questions, I always end up leaving it ... because I can only guess on what caused it.
 
Themanswifesman said:
[snipped]I think just about anyone could be turned into an AB or a DL just by the first time use. Nobody can deny that a diaper is alot more comfortable than your standard underwear if worn properly. That would mean this attraction of ours could be curiosity turned to addiction, in a similar way that cigarettes and alcohol tend to do the same work on people.

I'll deny it and I'm essentially a lifelong ABDL. The DL in me loves diapers but I don't like them nearly as much. Underpants are more comfortable for me without question. Diapers have other enticements than just basic comfort and they push those buttons very well but if I'm exhausted or sick, underpants are where it's at to save me additional effort. With a high-endurance bladder, I don't even find them convenient. Using the toilet is faster and easier. I love them just the same, in spite of or perhaps because of their faults.
 
Cottontail said:
I get what you're saying. My concern is that, when these terms are tossed around by themselves--as they seem to always be--there is the implication that we do understand them, and nothing is ever said up front to avoid that misunderstanding. If we instead say that "imprinting" is a blanket term for both the process and the set of circumstances, sensory inputs, etc., then we're in slightly better shape. Although, again, that only begs the question: What are those other factors? They seem to be the most interesting parts, and arguably the things that distinguish us from non-AB/DLs, or people who are "imprinted" differently. For that reason, and because "Why am I AB/DL?" kind of implies "Why are others not AB/DL?", the term "imprinting" doesn't really mean anything. It's background noise. Better to lead with uncertainty ("I don't know why we're imprinted with an affinity for diapers.") than to imply a certainty that wilts under close scrutiny ("We're imprinted with an affinity for diapers."). Saying that we understand a thing and then being forced to define "understand" is kind of goofy.
Most of the time, people think they understand something when they have heard a believable explanation for it. It doesn't matter much if the explanation is true, just that it sounds rational to them and they don't have a better explanation at the moment. Most people, including us, have no need to get overly philosophical about the meaning of "understanding". For all practical purposes, a good explanation is an acceptable substitute for understanding. Let the philosophers and scientists worry about the details.

Imprinting isn't restricted to sexuality, but sexuality makes a good example for what I'm trying to say. Even though we don't really understand the complexities of genetics or the human mind we are generally satisfied with popular evolutionary and psychological explanations for our sexuality. Heterosexuality is seen as natural because we can explain it in evolutionary terms we are comfortable with. Since most people seem to be instinctively heterosexual, outside of scientific curiosity there would be no need to explain heterosexuality at all except for the fact there are some who have different sexual desires. Since most people can't find a rational explanation for homosexuality in evolutionary terms, we switch to finding a pop-psychology explanation for it. The problem with this is that it is nearly impossible to make that switch without a strong negative bias. If homosexuality cannot be explained as part of natural evolution it will be seen as unnatural by many. If we have to explain it in only psychological terms we can't escape the stigma it will have for many people that it is a mental "defect".

The result is what you have seen in many cultures for a long time: Heterosexual = natural; good. Homosexual = unnatural; psychological disorder; the work of the devil. And the current, popular, understanding of sexual evolution is adding to the problem.

Imprinting is not some kind of voodoo science. It is an observable phenomenon known, or reasonably suspected, to be a part of the normal development of some animals, including humans. It is open to study, and results of past research are easily repeated.

The difficulties in testing imprinting theories involving human sexuality are not due so much to scientific limitations, but to moral considerations because it involves young children and their futures. Still, imprinting research has given us some insight into the evolution of human sexuality, and it shows a different picture from what is commonly believed.

My concern is that, when these terms are tossed around by themselves--as they seem to always be--there is the implication that we do understand them, and nothing is ever said up front to avoid that misunderstanding.
But it's not a misunderstanding. Imprinting research really is shedding light on the causes of otherwise unexplainable sexual desires. In the past we relied on psychology to give us an explanation for these things, but psychology was never able to give us a solid, consistent, explanation. You've seen that yourself on this website. Yet we still "understood" that psychology must be the answer because most of us pretty much ruled out genetics alone, and we had nothing else to fall back on. Now we do.

Nature vs nurture translates to evolution vs environment. I am one of the ones who believe it is a combination of the two, and the phenomenon called "imprinting" is an observable link between them. I'm not talking about some vague, psychological, Pavlovian, meaning of "imprinting". I am referring to a genuine and promising area of study of early animal development.
 
Aki said:
Hey, everyone, I'm Aki. Long time member, but I went inactive for awhile. I don't know how active I plan on being, but here I am.

I don't know if this is better as a blog post, but I'm opening this up for discussion to see how many people can actually pinpoint what happened in their life to bring this fetish/fixation to light. I don't believe that it's something that we're born with; I think that usually, with fetishes, something happened during critical points in our development that caused it.

I know where my fixation came from, and it took a long time and some sly questioning of my mom to put together an answer. My mom potty trained me when I was a very young two. I loved my aunt's house, and my cousins, and really wanted to stay and spend the night. My mom said basically, "you can't spend the night until you're out of diapers". An innocuous enough statement, but to two-year-old me, it sounding more like a threat feels right. She said I was potty trained a week later. Getting out of diapers wasn't my choice. If anyone knows anything about child development, you would know that a young two is 1.) very young to be toilet trained, 2.) a time when children are focused on autonomy, and 3.) toilet training has to be child-driven or you can run the risk of serious complexes.

The result? A preschooler obsessed with stealing diapers and putting them on, who was pulled forcefully out of his comfort zone in a very intimate way (can't think of anything more private than that area to feel like you have no control over. Follow the chain of logic, and wonder no more why I have a diaper fetish and am so anxious about sexual situations).

So, there's my breakthrough. I'm sure your feelings about diapers are different in nature than mine, I think we all feel differently about them even though we share the fixation in common. For me, it's security and safety. For you, is it relinquishing control? Something else? What is it for you? And why?

Aki, you are my brother from another mother! I was toilet trained before I was 2, just a few months before my sister's birth. As a toddler without diapers, I often asked to wear my sister's plastic pants. I remember being allowed to wear her plastic pants in the morning before my Mom dressed me and a few times I was allowed to wear them during map time. I so envied my playmates who were not trained yet and was always trying to get my hands on their diapers. So for as long as I can literally remember, I've wanted my diapers back. I view this time of my diaper obsession as innocent and I remember it fondly.

My adolescence, however, was a troubling time for me. The things I went through were not really terrible, or different from most others, but I really struggled with acceptance from my father. It seemed I was never good enough for him. It was at this time that I sexualized diapers. My early wet dreams and "self exploration" always involved diapers. As a result, I have a very strong emotional connection between diapers and intimacy. It's as if I used diaper play to replace the intimacy I longed for from my Dad who was always to busy for me.

For the record, my Dad realized his mistake and a few years latter did his best to make it up. Eventually experiencing his love and attention had a very positive influence on my development.

So yeah, I'm stuck with this diaper thing that I often wished I didn't have, but it's O.K. I own this and am dealing with it.
 
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