Mapping Paraphilic Infantilism and Diaper Fetishes

-By B. Terrance Grey
Part of the Survey Project at Understanding.Infantilism.Org

An important piece of groundwork for a detailed understanding of the paraphilias is, simply put, a map of the terrain. Maps are essential for communication, exploration, and understanding. Currently paraphilias are categorized by interest. Paraphilias involving an interest in diapers are generally grouped as paraphilic infantilism or diaper fetishism.

This article presents the results of an online survey, with questions addressing the importance of five aspects of paraphilic infantilism and diaper fetishism. These were 1) the feeling, smell, and sound of diapers 2) sexuality involving diapers, 3) diapers as a means of transferring control, 4) diapers as a way to express a changing role, and 5) diapers as a convenience. The results showed that 85% of self-identified ABDLs consider the feel, sound, and smell of diapers either important or very important. Furthermore, 61% of ABDLs considered feeling/sound/smell the most important or one of a few most important aspects. For contrast, only 18% considered sexuality most important or one of a few most important aspects.

This observation was interesting given that sexuality and paraphilia are often strongly associated in literature. (e.g.:^[1]) Crosstabulating the importance and presence of sexuality in ABDL scenes, games, and fantasies confirms this disparity. A substantial segment of the population practices sex but does not consider it an important part of their ABDL interests. One explanation is that sexuality might be involved in these intimate situations for the same reasons that it is involved in the scenes, games, and fantasies of non-paraphilic individuals. That is, sexuality is not inherently a part of a paraphilia. This is one example of where focusing on practices has distracted from the true measures of a paraphilia, the interests.

This figure shows the distribution of ABDLs mapped by interest. The importance of three themes - control, sexuality, and babyhood - are plotted on three axes. Responces were grouped as either considering each theme important(+), neutral(0), or undesired(+). The size of the disc at each combination of interests represents the percent of ABDLs who reported that combination of interests. For example, 11.7% of ABDLs reported that control, sexuality, and babyhood were important (C+S+B+).

To help visualize the interests associated with paraphilic infantilism and diaper fetishism, the control-sexuality-babyhood plot was presented. Since so many ABDLs consider the feeling/smell/sound of a diaper important, and so few dislike the convenience of diapers, these aspects were not plotted. The remaining three aspects are plotted, each with three levels. Each of the 27 nodes has a size proportional to the percentage of ABDLs that it represents. For example, the node labeled C+S+B+ gives a positive importance to control, sex, and babyhood. Some authors would consider this to be the typical paraphilic infantilist^[1]. However, this node only represents 11.7% of ABDLs. Similarly, the node labeled C-S+B- might be considered a typical diaper fetishist. This would involve an interest in sexuality(S+) but a dislikes control and babyhood (C-,B-). While the third largest, his node only represents 8.5% of ABDLs.

The second largest node, C+S0B+, consists of infantilists who are neutral about sex (S0). As discussed, they might involve it for reasons unrelated to their paraphilia. The fourth largest node, C+S-B+, consists of infantilists who consider sexuality either 'tolerable' or 'must be absent' from their ABDL games, scenes, and fantasies.

The interests involved with paraphilic infantilism and diaper fetishism have been shown to be more enlightening than the practices. Furthermore, the CSB disc plot is the most detailed map of the interests to date, and might help express many future advances. However, while useful for analysis, the CSB disc plot of ABDL interests might not replace the simpler but less powerful maps, such as the venerable 'triangle' diagram.

Report sections: Abstract - Background - Results - Discussion - References

Email BitterGrey [mail]

Level: Advanced | Status: Finished | Last Update: 5/27/07| First 5/27/07

Do you have Questions, Tips, Suggestions, or other feedback?

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. For online material based on this work, include a link to either this page, the ABDL Surveys Project index, or the website's main index. For printed material based on this work, include a citation with one of those three URLs.