How did you discover that adults wore nappies?

[ChocChip]

Just wondering what everyone remembers about how they found out that adult nappies/diapers existed and some people needed to wear them? Was it in the media, e.g. advertising or someone just mentioning them, through seeing products on shelves, or from having a family member etc. who wore them?

Personally I think it was a gradual thing, there was a girl at my primary school who wore nappies so I knew quite early on that not everyone was able to potty train at the “normal” time, so thought there probably were people who wore them into adulthood. Then I remember a teacher telling us about how the human body worked explaining incontinence, and that people who had it wore special underwear, which I assumed was essentially big nappies. Eventually in early teens I saw Boots Staydry products on the shelves.

 

[PonderStibbons]

Nice question!

My parents never rolled me through the adult diaper isle at the supermarket so it must have been seeing a waistband somewhere and making the connection.

It was the media however that taught me that doing so was deviant and associated with disturbed/criminal minds. See “astronaut diaper love triangle”

Not a single article about the sad affair leaves out Her “Diaper drive”.

Understandable in its sensational appeal, and ultimately useful in securing an insanity plea. But yah, a set back for our garnering normalization/acceptance.

 

[ChocChip]

Oh yeah, that’s another one for me, I remember reading that spacesuits had a sort of nappy inside them for if the astronaut needed to go to the toilet, when I was quite young (many years before the Diaper Drive incident!)

 

[BabyHailey1977]

One of my dad’s friends got him a Depends for is 40th birthday and that changed my world.

 

[sbmccue]

I saw adult products on drug store shelves, circa 1982. They were wing fold, single-tape disposables marketed as 'briefs,' but the package had 'Diaper Style' as a description.

 

[KaleidoscopeKitty]

Growing up I had a relative who used to foster severely disabled teens and they would often need to wear nappies so I think I was always aware that they made nappies in adult sizes.

 

[PCS]

I first became aware of the existence of adult sized nappies in a Spanish supermarket on holiday when I went for a look at the nappy aisle and saw that alongside the kids products was something that mentioned “Adult Hygiene” in several different languages and had a line drawing of a 4 tab brief. I think I was about 10 or 11 when that happened.

I then went looking for such products in the UK. Nothing was available in Supermarkets back then, not even incontinence pads, but I remember seeing Peaudouce Slipads in an old fashioned chemists. The packaging was a rather faded brown bag and may well have been old stock, but it was too big for me to get home and hide discreetly and probably would have cost more than I could afford at that age.

I then discovered Boots Staydry “Maxi Brief Style” that came in cheap and easily concealable sample packs. I was 12 when I first bought some of those.

I wish I could replicate the excitement of that first time I put on a Boots Staydry Maxi Brief aged 12... to cut a long story short it caused my first orgasm.

 

[Hakanloaim]

Like some of you, I noticed packs of adult diaper in the supermarket my mother and I went to each saturday. They were stored in line with the checkouts, so when the supermarket was busy, we would sometimes wait where adult diapers were. It was written “anatomic diapers” and I asked my mother what automatic diapers were, like do they fasten themselves or something.

But the first time I knew for sure was actual adults wearing diapers was in hospital. When I was 8, my grandfather (my father’s father) was in hospital (he would die soon at 92) and my father and I went to see him. Since my grandfather did absolutely nothing (didn’t talk, could have been sleeping), my eyes wandered in the room and landed on his roommate. This other man, very old, was actually taking off his soaked diaper. I must have been staring at him real hard because he noticed and started talking in my direction (he was just saying there weren’t any diapers left, I suppose he must have had a stash and changed himself), not only because of the diaper but also because he had a leg missing. When we walked out of the room, I noticed the diapers in the cart. This was the first time ever I actually saw adult diapers (not just packs) and someone amputated.

 

[WeakEndPartyPerson]

It seems us Brit's talk about adult incontinence less (and that's) in general, even these days you only find Tenas in large Asdas and they're not the PB ones, what I mean by that is the 'nappy aisle' in a British supermarket is only for babies and toddlers (proper name = the baby aisle) where as in an American supermarket all the diapers are presented at once.
My parents were probably relieved adult nappies weren't on show in Brit' supermarkets when I was around 11 to 14, as I've said elsewhere on this site back then they weren't that supportive and there was one time (long story) where they flat out lied about the existence of adult nappies! For better or worse I was caught falling down an internet-ical rabbit hole of adult nappy p.orn aged 15 but the existence of adult nappies was then 100% undeniable!
I switched from large infant nappies to Tena Slips just before turning 16.
Short answer: I was 15 and 'blue' websites were involved.
-
BW

 

[LilBubba88]

My mom worked at a nursing home and I seen them there

 

[messydiaper]

In the early to mid-80's I found the medical supply section in the Sear's catalog. There was a picture of an adult model's waist wearing an Attends brief (nappy/diaper). I almost died from the excitement of this discovery! It was another five or six years before I was old enough to go buy a box on my own from the pharmacy, and I nearly passed out at the cash register paying for them. As I left the store I could hear the cashier laughing with another cashier about the 17 year old boy who just bought adult diapers.

 

[CookieMonstah]

I think I first had an idea when I was only like 4 or 5, then when I was like 7 or 8 I watched this program that showed funny adverts from around the world and one on there was about adult nappies. From there I knew.

 

[Deleted member 5614]

It's an interesting question to which I don't really know the answer. I can clearly remember buying my first pack of Depends in my late teens. Being in the UK where very few stores stock adult nappies, finding them on the shelf at a local pharmacy was a major discovery, but I knew about them well before then. As in, I was sufficiently aware of them to keep an eye out for an opportunity to buy some.

I remember a comedian mentioning adult nappies in a rather crass way, on a TV show that aired when I was in my early teens. I must have known about them already, because although his comment grated, it was not interesting or memorable. Going back to around age 10, I remember looking at ordinary nappies in the supermarket and wanting to try them for size, without any recollection of knowing that larger options existed, so I don't think I knew about them then.

The discovery was probably then between ages 10-13 when adult nappies would not perhaps have seemed so relevant to me. But where the information came from and how I reacted to it are now mysteries that will bug me. A likely explanation is that I got a few hints here and there and gradually realised that they were a real thing, rather than making a single clear-cut discovery. I would pay proper money for an opportunity to revisit those tantalising moments.

 

[Straycatz]

Likewise, I noticed them in the Sears catalog when I was a kid. No internet back then!

 

[Weatheronthe8s]

I actually learned from the movie Aliens in the Attic. It probably wasn't the greatest movie, but I remember one of the kids saying that they needed to go buy some adult diapers. I was 8 when that movie came out.

 

[ARBBB2]

When my mother in law was in the local hospital, I saw a portable roller cabinet that was full of cloth diapers and disposable, at least a few disposable, and plastic pants in the hallway , after a bit I couldn't help my self, as my wife was visiting I said I needed to go to the bathroom, and borrowed two diapers and a pair of snap on plastic pants. In the bathroom I folded them and tucked them in my jacket, I had cloth diapers at home but the were all baby diapers so this was very exciting!

 

[sinceiwassmall]

First, in my early teens, there was the boy in the StayDry Panty ads in magazines, wearing what was obviously a kind of diaper sized for teenagers because he still wet his bed. (I hope he was well paid. Can you imagine how embarrassing it must have been to be that kid.) I think the fine print said they were also for adults, which I had never known.

Then, a hushed awkward conversation I overheard about a disabled adult cousin I never met, who was severely retarded and had to be “cared for like a baby” including wearing diapers because “he was never able to be trained.” I felt confusion and pity and also suddenly knew there were diapers my size.

And then there was the summer camp moment flipping through one of the first Penthouse Letters style magazines I ever touched and the headline on a letter said “Adults in Diapers.” And I was no longer the only one who imagined adults diapering each other and wetting themselves as erotic.

 

[Deleted member 28729]

I can’t honestly remember a time I didn’t know adult diapers existed. Probably from looking at catalogues when I was younger.

 

[Zeke]

Just wondering what everyone remembers about how they found out that adult nappies/diapers existed and some people needed to wear them? Was it in the media, e.g. advertising or someone just mentioning them, through seeing products on shelves, or from having a family member etc. who wore them?

Personally I think it was a gradual thing, there was a girl at my primary school who wore nappies so I knew quite early on that not everyone was able to potty train at the “normal” time, so thought there probably were people who wore them into adulthood. Then I remember a teacher telling us about how the human body worked explaining incontinence, and that people who had it wore special underwear, which I assumed was essentially big nappies. Eventually in early teens I saw Boots Staydry products on the shelves.

J.C. Penny, Montgomery Wards, and Sears Roebuck catalog incontinence sections were my first introduction to this fact. It took me a while as a 9 year old (1964, pre-disposables) to figure out what incontinence meant but I enjoyed looking at the teen and adult sized plastic pants, I wasn’t interested in diapers at that time. It always made me wonder if either of my parents noticed that all these catalogs would naturally open to the incontinence section if dropped on their spines.

 

[MikeDJ]

The first time I saw adults in diapers was on "The Phil Donahue Show" when I was young ....I couldnt believe my eyes and they were dressed as babies also not just in diapers. So it made me think wow adults wear them too? My grandmother who was somewhat mortified seeing this said they are not wearing because they have to.