Finding my identity as an adult babyboy

Finding my identity

Within the kink community you have probably come across several identity or role terms like: ABDL, ageplayer, babyboy, babygirl, big, little, middle, brat, puppy, dominate, submissive, switch, babyfur and likely others. These might seem a little overwhelming as you try to find your own identity; they were for me. As I’ve started to meet others, I’ve also realized that these terms can mean different things to different people.

In this post I thought it may be helpful to share with you a little bit about how I found my identity.

Before I get started, I have always liked what Spacey says about identity on several episodes of The Big Little Podcast,

“Terms of identity are just a placeholder for a conversation.”

So here is a little bit of my conversation. “Hi! I’m Rex. I am a married adult babyboy. If you’re interested, let me tell you a little bit about how I got here.”

Never say never

Up until the point I told my wife about my DL side, I had thought of myself as only a Diaper Lover (DL). Looking back, I maybe had some occasional Adult Baby (AB) tendencies, but in my mind, I was a DL. Only a DL, never a baby.

Turns out never say never because as I came to accept my DL side, I realized I had more of an Adult Baby (AB) side than I previously thought. In fact, I now identify primarily as an AB.

So how’d that happen? I’m not sure. It just kind of happened. I first I noticed that I was thinking and feeling little, especially at bed time. A lot of people call this, “little space”.

As I became more aware of these thoughts and feelings, I slowly let myself go deeper down that path. I visualized a trusted caretaker helping me put my pajamas on, brushing my teeth and combing my hair. I wanted to sleep with my stuffed animals in my crib. Even though my adult side was physically doing these activities, and I wasn’t sleeping in a crib, I just mentally visualized them that way.

I liked how that state of mind felt. I felt relaxed and the cares of the world seemed to melt away. As I explored this new-found AB side, I craved this feeling as a temporary escape from the world, even if just for a brief period a before bed. It didn’t take long for these feelings to progress to a point where I wanted some physical things to help me feel even more little.

A short time later I ordered my first adult sized onesie and pacifier. Using these items turned my world even more upside down. It’s one thing to imagine little space in your mind, but to visually see this was a whole new level. Looking in the mirror and seeing myself dressed as a baby deepened my feelings that this was the “real” me.

That being said, it’s not all bliss all the time. Sometimes I just can’t seem to get into that little space that I love so much. Sometimes my adult side sees myself and says, “You look ridiculous. You’re a grown-up!” When that happens, I just shelve things for a bit. Sometimes that’s just a day or two but other times it may be a month or more.

For me, the feelings do eventually come back.

When they do, I enjoy them that much more.

So how did I turn my feelings into an identity or role label? I started with common terms that I heard others in the community use. From there I figured out what those meant to me and narrowed them down one by one.

Here was my initial list: AB, DL, ageplayer, babyboy, little, middle, brat, puppy, submissive. Your initial list will likely be different.

Narrowing the field

Let’s start with the identity labels that were fairly easy for me to eliminate:

Brat – My little side is well behaved and desires to be nice to others (big & little) so I eliminated that right away.

Puppy – I do like to snuggle and I certainly enjoy playing with other pet players (especially when I’m little), but I don’t see myself as a pet player so I eliminated this one.

Middle – Based on my own experiences in little space, I feel this segment represents an age older than my little. Out it went.

Submissive – This one was difficult for me. I have a lot of “subby” tendencies, especially when in little space. However, even when I’m not in little space, I enjoy serving others from my heart. I don’t necessarily require a “dominate” driving me to do something (although sometimes that’s kind of fun). Given all that, I am certainly a submissive, but I feel babyboy edges this one out narrowly because I feel that’s more at the core of who my little is.

Some of the other terms seemed more broad. Ageplayer is one of those terms. I am definitely an ageplayer, but I considered this term more of an umbrella term for some of the more specific identities like little, babyboy, etc. I feel this might work for people who age play as several different roles. Therefore I eliminated ageplayer from my primary identity label as I believe I have a stronger identification with (and enjoy more) the babyboy role.

Finding my adult babyboy

Why does someone like a certain color? Ok that’s probably a bad analogy, but if you ask people to explain why they prefer certain colors over other colors, most won’t be able to say why exactly. That’s how I feel about my little side. I don’t know why. It’s just the way I am. I’m slowly figuring this all out. Aside from knowing that I’ve had a desire for diapers my whole life, this AB side of me is still fairly new and I’m still exploring this.

Deep inside I believe I have an inner toddler that wants to come out and play. He’s a little shy, but he wants to play more now more than any other time in my life. Why now? Again, I don’t know.

I do know that wearing diapers and little clothes makes me happy. Being little makes me happy. Maybe it’s because when growing up I was forced (by various circumstances) to take on more adult-like responsibilities at an early age. Therefore, regressing back to a simpler time makes me happy in a way I maybe didn’t consciously experience enough as a kid.

With all of this, I have settled on babyboy as my identity or role. That’s the headspace where I feel most comfortable and truly reflects what I feel. It also incorporates my desire for diapers too. That was important, because it all started with the diapers. 🙂

That said, I’m still figuring all of this out and just like your favorite color might change, your identity can evolve too.

What’s next?

What’s next? I don’t know. My feelings still occasionally shift slightly but I always seem to come back to babyboy. If one day my feelings change, I will change my identity. If one day your feelings change, it’s okay to change your identity too.

Has my DL side gone away? No way. There are lots of times, especially during the week, I just want to put a diaper on for the evening. I don’t want to be, or maybe can’t be, in my babyboy headspace. I just want to enjoy a diaper while still “adulting”. I’m my adult self…just one wearing choice underwear. Perhaps that diaper represents my babyboy’s superhero costume. Circumstances might require me to be an adult, but secretly inside is a mild-mannered diapered, babyboy! 🙂

Updated: 2016-09

The past month or so has been interesting, to say the least, in my personal life (more on that in another post). A lot of self-discovery and reflection has been done about my sexuality, relationships, etc. These changes got me thinking about this post some more.

I realized that several of these identities are not mutually exclusive like I might have implied. You can be more than one of these identities (e.g. submissive babyboy) and that’s certainly okay. I didn’t really make that clear in my original post. Remember an identity is just a placeholder for a conversation and that conversation can grow and evolve over time, just like you.