Wikipedia doesn't get it

The inflatable fetish entry in Wikipedia has been removed. The official reason is that it was not verifiable information. The resulting discussion, complete with a few "I'm just too disgusted" quips, is here.

I know Wikipedia is fighting a constant battle against bad information and vandalism, and as someone who turns to it as a resource fairly often, I definitely respect that--but when you're a fringe group, the only thing you have is new media to back you up. My website has been going for about 10 years; that's not enough (in fact, I'm super offended by one person's suggestion that everything on the Internet about inflatable fetishes was copied from Wikipedia--no, buddy, it was quite definitely the other way around). Several of us were interviewed for Deviant Desires; that's not enough ("one cranky author's book," said one detractor). Oddly, the page on fetishes for physical inflatable fetishism, such as balloons and pool toys, was deemed keepable; I think many of us wtihin this community realize that Helia Melonowski and Xydexx are working in two different realms. And despite those who say they were disgusted, there are far worse things on the Wiki, but they're more easily verifiable with, say, psychological research cited.

So, I suppose if we had a backlog of media interviews and whatnot, we could establish our existence. And isn't that ironic for bold new informational space of Wikipedia: The only way to prove to new media that we are real is to prostrate to old media first.

No, that's not ironic. For Wikipedia, that's actually just embarassing.

The money crunch

Yep, some shifts in my personal finances have led to my needing to cancel one of the pay sites I subscribe to. I had to say goodbye to the Latex Lair, which really does have some of the best fetish photography I've ever seen. Latex + redhead + DDs is my kind of equation. But hey, something's got to give, right? I can always come back when the money situation gets a little more comfortable.

My subscription to both of Bambi Blaze's sites are still active, for now. Content has been light and not terribly inspired lately so I'm going to have to really look hard at what I'm getting.

I know a lot of the people in our community don't have tons of money to throw around. Lots of the consumers are students. I'm glad that I've been able to enjoy the stuff this long. I don't think I got ripped off by either site and I'm not crying poor (well, I am crying "financial adjustment"), nor do I think that all content should be free or any of that nonsense. Artists and creators need to be rewarded--well, why use euphemisms? They need to be PAID. No crime in that.

Inflatable porn storage

I recently upgraded my hard drive (because I upgraded my iPod and you know how that goes--gotta have enough room on the HD for the data to live before you copy it to the portable) and carved out a nice slice of space for my inflatable fetish data in the process. It was always sharing space with something else. This time, I had enough extra meggage that I gave it its own drive--"Smut"--but was somewhat horrified to find that, after a dozen years collecting stuff online and hosting the Video Vault, I only had about 7 gigs and change. That's it? That's not even two DVDs. What the hell?

I've been fairly selective. I decided some time ago not to be a completist or an archivist; I'm generally just grabbing things that tickle my Elmo. On occasion I'll snag a photo with a good facial expression that could be used for a morph later on, but even then we're talking, what, 50K? 100K? Even the Vault clips don't take up a ton of space since so many were created with short downloads and scattered hosting in mind. A few MB here, a couple hundred K there.

I'm betting that most people's porn collections dwarf mine. But it's quality, not quantity, people!

The Tomorrow People

Wow, flashback to being a kid and watching this British TV series on Nickelodeon. Picture Doctor Who for kids--low-budget sci-fi with bad green screen technology and a lot of little telepathic kids jaunting around the universe. I remember watching one episode where a bad guy kidnapped one of the kids and, after demonstrating what a leaking airlock would do to a balloon, threw her in there as a way to make the other kid talk. The episode ended on a cliffhanger of the girl looking nervous and starting to swell.

The next day I had to be somewhere in the afternoon and I begged my mom to rush home so I could see what happened next. I couldn't tell her why, of course, but I couldn't think about anything else that day and it was vitally important that I make it home in time! We were slightly late and I missed the first few minutes of the program (This was in the days of VCRs but before TiVo, and I hadn't had the chance to set it to tape.) For years I wondered what happened. Eventually fansites for The Tomorrow People helped me identify which character, which season, and which episode--and this week, thanks to BitTorrent, I snagged the actual episodes.

Memories are better than reality, of course. The cliffhanger of her "swelling" was nothing more than her raising her arms a bit, and the resolution wasn't even that--she was sweating and, when the kid instantly said he'd tell the bad guy what he needed to know in order to save her, all she did was collapse on the floor. No inflation after all.

It took me 20 years to realize I missed nothing! :)

Careful what you ask for

I don't have a ton of time to spend in the community lately--stupid real life, I hate you--but whenever someone asks for feedback on a story, I at least read it and try to come up with something specific and constructive to say. I have offered generic and unsolicited advice to writers in the past because of my career and experience, but that's not as good as "I wrote this" followed by me saying "Okay, here's what I think about that specific thing you wrote."

Years of being on deadline have taught me one thing about copy: If it's broke, fix it. Lose the ego, lose the hurt feelings--if you've come to me and said "Here's work I've done, tell me what you think," I will tell you. You will get feedback. You may not like it. Apparently, some people are even shocked by it. Welcome to the world of Other People's Perspectives. Welcome to the world, period.

Short version: Do not ask for feedback on your work if all you really want is a compliment. I give those too, sometimes at the same time as the criticism. But don't take me or anyone else with relevant experience to task for actually trying to improve your output. Don't blame me for giving you exactly what you asked for.

Art: The good and the bad/ugly

Yay, looks like another one of my favorites has a permanent home now too. CattyN seems to go through vicious mood swings and has a short fuse sometimes, but his work is always creative, pleasantly cartoony, and pretty varied when you step back and look at it as a whole. I'm glad he's got a stable place to show off his formidable talents.

CattyN's success reminds me inversely of another artist, who shall remain nameless. I rarely point out bad artists in the community because I truly feel that anybody who wants to contribute should be encouraged to do so; if their work needs improvement, they can only get better with practice, right? That's what I thought, but there's one particular artist who has officially proven me wrong.

This person is sort of CattyN's evil twin in that all the things I like about CattyN's work are the exact opposite with this person. Their work is rarely creative (there's no depth to what they draw, no approaching the subject from multiple angles the way so many other artists in our community do), unpleasantly cartoony (doesn't matter which cartoon they're borrowing characters from, all the pictures look rather crappy), and never, ever varied (characters are always drawn in the same pose).

When this person discusses their work, they quite honestly sound mentally challenged. They certainly were when they tried to have a conversation with me, which really was more of a non-constructive accusation by them about my work. I replied only by suggesting how this person could grow as an artist based on patterns and tendencies I'd noticed, and what they could try in order to shake themselves out of their established habits. They didn't/couldn't/wouldn't understand my point. Why change, why try to improve? The DeviantArt hit counter speaks for itself, right?

So we've got someone who isn't good at drawing, isn't good at writing, isn't so hot on the offering or the comprehension of constructive criticism, and might be retarded. And the only reason this personally bothers me is that I'm afraid this person is somehow going to represent the fetish to the outside world someday, and when the world one day finally finds out we exist, we will all be assumed to be mongoloids.

Unwanted relics

Visiting my wife's parents, we found an old letter I'd written her that, luckily, only she saw when cleaning. It's very detailed, downright annoyingly anal semi-blueprints for an inflatable bra and an inflatable jockstrap that I'd apparently designed and sent to her. They never got made (though the letter certainly believes they were about to be made) and I feel ridiculous seeing them again. I really wish my new apartment had a fireplace so I could dispose of this properly.

The return of Helia

Hey, cool, look who's back. Good readin'. I got really pissed off last year when I saw someone using her pen name, slightly misspelled but clearly trying to ride her coattails.

I admit I felt a bit big-brother protective because she was one of the first (if not the first) females to come forward and actually say "Yes, I have this BE fetish too." She embraced it and, naturally, got all the good and bad attention that comes with being the living embodiment of a million male fantasies. But I was fascinated just to hear her take it on all; I knew my perspective but was dying to hear what it was like on the other side of the gender fence. And she was nice enough to tell me, honestly, amusingly, friendlyly.

Just goes to show you, folks: you can meet a girl with 44G breasts and fall for her great personality.

Ford vs Chevy...but, like, inflatable

In talking with some friends, I've recently been reminded of the gap between various fringe fetishes. It's easy to lump them together, but the lines are rather clearly drawn. Most of the time it stays civil--until someone assumes that group A is the same as group B, or feels that group A should be a member of group B.

I don't necessarily disagree with these friends who reminded me of this schism. As has been documented, I was here at the beginning of inflation fetishism online; there were 12 of us with AOL, Prodigy, or CompuServe accounts. Through Usenet, I'd made contact with Buster, who had already been seeking out fellow balloon fetishists via classified ads for years, and Sievert, who'd spotted a porno tape in college featuring an inflatable corset and he wanted to know if anybody could help identify it. We were so small then that one mailing list was fine and we were all happy to have found someone, anyone, with a similar interest. But about a year later, we'd hit over 200 and the more specific interests started to show themselves. Some people were into pool toys; others more into balloons as objects; still others were into BE and not all of those people were into other body inflation. It was for the best that we split off--it wasn't an angry thing, it just became clear that the seeds we'd planted did exactly what they were supposed to do: they took root and grew!

Now, however, it's not nearly that insular. The web, Wikipedia, YouTube, bearchive, you name it--there are tons of ways to see inflatable fetish content, and I'm happy for that. But the "hey, whatever you're into is fine with me" has devolved into more of a "blueberry vs. helium vs. fat" type thing.

Is that separation for the best? Maybe. I think beggars can't be choosers, but clearly, with the explosion of the web, nobody's begging any more; it's okay to be selective. And with so much content out there, I am surprised that people assume one is the same as the other.

For the record? Weight gain, not so much. Yes, I see some nice shapes and pleasing curves out there, and I've read some stories that I liked, but I don't generally gravitate toward the feeder/feedee community, and I'm not into WG in general. Blueberry girls don't do it for me either, though again, I sometimes catch something there that sticks with me. (The original scene is still awesome.) And I certainly like seeing what the various artists are up to in each community--Pixel Prevert was a strong supporter of the blueberry girls, and man, his stuff was over the top in terms of quality and special effects. I wouldn't want to miss his stuff, no matter what the topic.

I guess I'd like to see us respect the differences without judgement. It strikes me as very much like Ford vs. Chevy--maybe it doesn't matter if you drive a Toyota, but to some people, it's how they identify themselves, and to say "American-made car" without distinguishing is, to them, offensive. I can't say I'm any different.

I'm an inflatable fetishist. Weight gain and blueberries just don't have the same effect on me. But they can have a wild effect on you, and I don't feel threatened by that. I can still celebrate it.

It's not a dress

For Christmas, my wife got me a really expensive watch. It was very cool, but it was not really something I would use. (It was a very specialized, nerdy watch.) With her permission, I returned it and used the money for something...a little different.

I had an inflatable suit once. It ripped and I sent it out for repair, at which point I never saw it again. Since then I've wanted to get a latex garment of some sort. My wife suggested latex sheets, but we both realized they would be a nightmare to clean and care for, plus they were super expensive. She does not want to get latexwear right now, but we both realized...well, if it's my fetish, why don't I do it? What could I get that would let me feel that lovely sensation of pressure and stretchiness that only latex provides, particularly around my midsection, but something that could still be worn during The Act? The answer, I was rather surprised to learn, turned out to be a dress.

Now, because I am a straight male and feel I am already sufficiently strange enough, the concept of buying and wearing a made-to-measure latex dress is something that immediately makes me want to change its name. It's...a tunic. Yes, a latex tunic. Or perhaps a very long t-shirt, because that's what I was thinking of and realized, yeah, that's what ladies call a dress.

I contacted Nimue of NimuesLatex.com after seeing her amazingly reasonable prices, wide color variety, and noting that everything was made to measure (which, when optional, is always something you should get--while cheap, off-the-shelf latexwear is usually ill-fitting and therefore not much fun). And so, four months later, this arrived:



That's a Short Tank Dress in .43/.50 weight Pearlsheen Purple (color selected in part by spouse). The custom color and weight meant the order took longer, but it's worth waiting for exactly what you want, right? And with two custom elements (color and thickness), it was still only $140. Hot damn. I was expecting a rounded neckline instead of a V but I don't really mind, and I don't think I specified.

It doesn't look like a dress, right? It kind of reminds me of the new style of NBA jerseys. And Iverson don't wear a dress.

Work with me here.

Protoblog

You kids and your computers. Imagine my horror when I recently located my old journal (which was the boy's way of saying "diary" in the early 80s) and realized, wow, I'd been blogging since before there were blogs. It's all incredibly embarassing, filled with song lyrics, self-doubt, things that happened at school, geeky outbursts that I thought were cool, girls I had crushes on and weird, melodramatic self-assessments. But it was interesting to see me dance around the inflation thing because I only spoke of it vaguely. I was always afraid of someone else finding the thing and reading it, so I never wanted to give too much away (but wow, look at all the other embarassing stuff in there...would anybody have even noticed the inflatable stuff?). There is one reference to a "fetish" and one reference to an "ultimate turn-on" and that's about all I could find. The rest was just pure growing-up-in-the-suburbs nonsense, no deep thoughts or shocking revelations.

I'm going to destroy this journal, probably by fire. It's a big reminder of the awkwardness that everybody has when they grow up, but I have the experiences; I don't think I need the document anymore. It's one of those things I never wanted to keep but never wanted to get rid of. But it's just time to move on and stop beating myself up about what a dork I have always been.

I am taking back the block I gave you for Christmas

You know how when you take your car start acting up, the moment you take it into the shop, it suddenly start working perfectly? And when you want to show someone else how this frog you found on a construction site can sing and dance while wearing a top hat, the minute you open his cigar box, he does absolutely nothing and makes you look like an idiot?

I posted that I had writer's block. That fixed it.

I tend to write PG-13 stories, whether I intend to or not. Happy Holly Days is akin to a sweet coming-of-age romantic comedy, like a pneumatic John Hughes movie. It's randy, but it's chaste. It's flirty, but it doesn't show everything. Much is left to your imagination at the story's conclusion, but it's definitely a happy ending.

I don't know if that makes it particularly exciting, or exciting enough compared to the other stuff out there. I have read some tense, scary revenge inflation fantasies that really thrill me. One of those was Plowboy's "JH-12," one of the first dark stories I'd read, and one that really made me feel naughty when I enjoyed reading it. I don't know if he wrote anything else, and I've tried to contact him to no avail--he wrote that story years ago and has since abandoned that e-mail address. But when I needed a name for my mystery chemical, I couldn't shake that strong memory and decided to co-opt it as an homage.

Otherwise, the stories have nothing in common. His is a series of unapologetically vengeful vignettes that caters to several audiences at once--no matter what kind of inflation story you like, you'll find something there to make you happy and horny, and it has three different climaxes. It also has a lot of the hallmarks of my favorites: Characters who overstate the obvious (often ridiculously, melodramatically, and unrealistically), stretchy clothing like spandex or rubber, and lots of detail of the expansion.

By total contrast, my story describes the expansion lyrically, tries to keep all the emotions and reactions somewhere in the ballpark of reality, and ultimately pulls its punches when it comes to a big payoff.

So I guess what I'm saying is, go read JH-12, it's a better story!

My holiday gift to you: Writer's block!

So I thought last week, man, I haven't written a new story in well over a year. I'd like to put one together as a little holiday surprise for the community. Not that anybody is eagerly awaiting my next piece of crap, mind you, but I feel happiest when I'm releasing projects into the community instead of just maintaining a few message boards and whatnot. I can't draw, and most of Cyndi's projects remain private affairs, so other than coughing up a few bucks to commission pieces of art to share with everybody, all I've got is my writing.

So I started thinking about the various idea fragments sitting on my hard drive. I have a few paragraphs here and there that need a story built around them. I have a stray concept here, a story name or a character name over there...nothing concrete. Might as well start from scratch.

And then it all went black, when I slammed into a giant writer's block.

The reason I write so infrequently is twofold. First, I write and edit stuff all day long--I'm a writer/editor--and I always seem to be spending time in front of words, trying to make them better, one way or another. And when I do write at home, it's more likely to be on the book I'm writing instead of the dirty stories. Either way, it's work.

Second, and more importantly...I just don't have any more good ideas. Those fragments lying around are fragments for a reason. Everything that comes to mind has been done. Magic? Science? Fizzy lifting drinks? No explanation? Hardcore? Software? Clothing? I get a been-there-done-that feeling, because I can think of great stories on each topic that other people have already written, and I don't think I'd be able to do any better. I like bringing something fresh, even if the expansion sequences often use the same words.

I have considered taking one of my existing stories and doing a sequel, so as to remove that problem of coming up with an original idea. I already took that shortcut once with Cindairella so that's out. I don't really know where to take Self-Control, because it's self-contained. The whole story kind of exists because it plays on that first-thrill concept. I suppose I could do the next stage in Everything but that's a dark one and I'm kind of surprised I went there in the first place. I like Remote Possibilities and Sievert would likely grant me permission to work on a sequel, but I don't know what the next stage in that narrative would be anyway. And while I could do a second part of Liquid Helium, because it's practically gift-wrapped with the ending, I haven't really figured out where I would want that story to go either.

I don't know about other creators, but I also find I have to be ridiculously horny in order to write an inflation story. I kind of have to commit everything to the build-up and payoff--I kind of have to be there, mentally, in all those stages all the way through. And I don't think I have to explain that those exciting moments are hard to prolong for 45 minutes while you go back and edit every line for maximum impact.

So I guess what I'm saying is, happy holidays, everybody, I got you nothing. But it was the thought that counts...?

Okay, enough with the identity theft already

Here's a disturbing trend in our community: Identity theft.

I've been proud to call Helia Melonowski a friend for some years. Like a lot of folks in our community, she's been really active sometimes, not so active others--but she's never really gone away--in fact, she still has a small website. That has not stopped someone from using a very minor variation on her name under the guise that it's a furry role-playing thing. Um, no. You don't just take someone's online identity, change a letter, and borrow it. There's no excuse for it, and there's no reason, other than simply not being creative enough to come up with your own idea. Helia's reputation is her own--she created it. Make your own mark on the community with your own name.

And speaking of which, my name is...known enough to get me some attention now and then, both good and bad. The latest is bad--a webmaster who runs a forum has apparently dipped into his registration records to fish out my password so he can go post as me on another site, from which he was personally banned.

What the hell is going on? When did this even become remotely seen as acceptable? Does our community really think so little of ethics that this is deemed an okay thing to do?

This is not enough to scare me away--but has anybody considered that shit like this DOES make artists and writers lose interest and log off?

We Need a Holiday

Secretaries have Secretaries' Day. Working mothers have Take Your Daughter to Work Day. Federally observed holidays, like Veterans Day and Presidents' Day, plus all the religious or ethnic holidays like Easter and Kwanzaa and Yom Kippur...they all serve one purpose: They call attention to an event or a cause or a community.

As the end of the year rolls around, it occured to me that we, as a community, do not have a holiday.

Let's make one.

Now, this is not something I expect to see marked on national calendars alongside Boxing Day and Talk Like a Pirate Day. But I think an arbitrary holiday would...legitimize us, in a way. Gives us an excuse to celebrate, a reason to create new content for an annual event, an excuse to come together. And it's better than a convention, because none of us has to show our faces or fly anywhere.

So, that leads to two questions:

What do we call it? Inflation Day is likely to be confused with an economic event, so that's out. BE Day or B2E Day don't speak to everybody's interests, nor are they terribly self-explanatory. Blow Up Like a Balloon Day is too silly, even if it is what we'd all like to see happen. Inflationists Day makes people ask "What's an Inflationist?" And Inflatable Fetish Day does the job for me, but that's me. I think the title should define itself. When you hear Inflatable Fetish Day, most people would say, "There's an inflatable fetish?" That's a good reaction, you know?

When do we celebrate it? Here's a few ideas:

June 5 - In 1783, the Montgolfier Brothers flew the first balloon.

June 30 - This was the day Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory debuted in theaters in 1971.

Thanksgiving - Name another holiday that features a parade with giant balloons--not to mention the one time of year where people say "Any more and I feel like I could pop." Still, this one's kind of taken.

Any day in August - There are no federal holidays, and it's toward the end of the summer, before the wacky fall back-to-school time and the resulting holidays.

I'm open to other ideas. (July 3, 1994 was the day I first made contact with other inflatable fetishists--specifically Bill from the Balloon Buddies and, shortly thereafter, Sievert--and those conversations led to the first online group of inflatable fetishists, just a dozen people strong, later that year. I'm proud that pretty much everything else grew out of that. But July 3 is clearly a personal milestone and a little close to another existing holiday!) I'll probably post about this over at BodyInflation.org and see what happens. But comments are welcome here, too.

So I Married An Inflatable Fetishist

This month marks a double-digit milestone wedding anniversary for me. Statistically, that puts me at 51% right there, simply for not ending in divorce. Now factor in the number of happily married couples where one person is an inflatable fetishist and the other isn't--and both people are still somehow able to stay happy and fulfilled--and I think the number would plummet severely. Unfortunately I don't know of anybody who keeps statistics on a pervy niche within a niche, but let's assume it's pretty rare.

On this milestone, someone asked me what our secret was, and I had to be honest: Communication. I have always been very straightforward with my wife and vice versa; we don't hold grudges and we don't play mind games. It just so happens that she knew about my fetish very early in our relationship. I sort of let something slip in the throes of passion, which caused her to giggle--and then I had the awkward task of explaining, "Well, yeah, okay, it sounds funny, but actually, um..." It was difficult to say, but instead of dodging it or repressing it, I said it. I told her the truth.

Imagine my surprise when she did not run screaming.

After it had some time to sink in, I asked her how she really felt about it. To which she famously replied, "Well, I see it as a personality quirk. It doesn't hurt anybody, it makes you happy, there's a lot of really bad stuff out there by comparison, and it's pure fantasy. What's wrong with that?"

It should be stated that she does not share this fetish. She just accepted it. That alone helped me resolve all sorts of misplaced guilt and confusion I had been holding on to, and slowly, over the years, we wound up exploring it together--finding out what my triggers were, laughing about how silly some of them are, and even finding what ultimately gives her the upper hand when she wants it. We've done some roleplaying, but rarely use props, and often, she's not the target of the roleplay anyway. I'm literally just happy to explore it on any level and not be thought a total freak for it.

I have spoken to a lot of other people who are fetishists and are married or in long-term relationships, and more often than not, they have said things like "Oh, no--she has no idea. I could never tell my wife." And as I've suggested in this blog before, if you cannot tell your life partner, who can you tell? I think that's literally one of the saddest things I can hear--a fetishist who refuses or does not feel they trust their spouse enough to share their deepest desires, particularly since the spouse is the only person who will ever help you satisfy or realize them.

For those of you out there who find yourself in that position, I beg you: Be honest with him or her. Tell them the truth, or analyze why you don't feel you can, because it may be a symptom of a larger problem. You've made a life commitment here. That's gotta be worth some understanding and open-mindedness, no matter how weird they might think it is at first.

And for those of you who are single and fear you will never find the right person because "the right person" is a fetishist, all I can say is, don't assume that. Widen the net, go for a person who you like and respect in all other areas, and when the time is right--or in my case, when the moment presents itself--introduce it. There is going to be more to your romantic or sex life than your fetish anyway. But take heart that there are people out there who will understand you for who you are and what you like and even what turns you on.

Thanks to my wife's generosity and understanding, I've had tangible fun with this fetish for longer than some folks in our community have even been aware of their own perverse interests. Trust me on this one--build it into your relationship, and everything gets sweeter.

Yahwho? Part Deux

They're out to get me, I tell you. Seems my alternate ID has been removed as well, so I am, for whatever reason, totally locked out of Yahoo groups twice. I don't know if I will try again. It's clear they don't want me there, but at the same time, I never get a nice note telling me why. Maybe they don't owe me that, but okay...I generate traffic and I don't hurt anybody, so if that's how you want it, I can only rage against that machine so hard.

However, the far more insidious development is the appearance of a smut directory/links page on--get this--www.inflate123.com. On one hand I'm horrified, but on the other hand, I gotta be happy. This means someone, somewhere out there looked around for a name important enough that it would be worth buying, and they chose mine! Hot damn!

I guess I should really take these events as signs that it would be okay to change my online nickname.

But I won't.

Hot sheet!

There's a fair crossover between inflatable fetishists and latex fetishists, and it doesn't take a genius to make the connection. (Hint: Starts with the letter B.) So while I collect stories and images of BE and B2E stuff, I also have a directory for latex pictures that I come across. Latex is more part of the bondage world so I have seen a little more than I bargained for on occasion, but it's worth the risk: A nice photo of a snugly filled latex dress is a fine reward.

I used to have an inflatable latex catsuit from Cocoon in the UK. You may have seen the photos online with the prefix B70 on the file name. It was not cheap and it was a really important purchase for me--the first real tangible proof I had of my fetish. Short version: It didn't give a good sensation of pressure, so I put clothes on over it. With a zipper. I nicked it. Embarassed, I sought someone else in the community to repair it and he said yes, no problem, that's what this community is for, support, I'll fix it and we'll settle up later. Then, for lack of a better explanation, he stole it. He claims it was damaged in a hurricane, I got a story about a sick child, I got a promise of a check in the mail...I still hold hope that one day he'll do the right thing and reimburse me, but I don't hold much hope. It makes me angry to think about it, actually.

So, for years, I sort of denied myself any more latex stuff. Holding a torch for this magical insurance payment from a total stranger in Georgia gave me just enough to think that, hey, I will be able to replace this. My wife didn't take a strong interest in latex, but she was interested enough that we talked about getting her something (non-inflatable) to wear instead. That plan fluctuated with her weight, and I understood. Latex clothing is still pretty expensive, and you definitely get what you pay for--there are some real artists selling true wearable artwork, like The Baroness. But with pending money mentally earmarked for the plan, I wasn't going to rush into anything anyway. We could be ready, order the right garment in the right size, because in a few months, the money would return to us.

A few months turned into ten years.

My wife is still not really interested in wearing latex, but she's no fool and understands is wacky power over me. We think we have found a suitable compromise: Latex bed sheets. You get the feel, you get the smell, you get the intimacy, and as long as your partner is on the same wavelength, you have a hell of a good time together. And again, it's not cheap, but the price on something like this doesn't really change. I am planning to order from Nimue's Latex Fashions, as they've answered all my questions, they've got a great selection of colors, they really seem to know what they're talking about, and they're reasonably priced for what I'm looking for.

The only downside will be the hassle of care and maintenance--this isn't something you can just throw in the washer. You gotta store it in the dark, you have to keep it talced (and not just any baby powder will do, you have to watch the chemical composition), you gotta be able to have a place to hang it up if it needs to dry where it's not in the sun and the neighbors won't look at you funny.

I don't know if it will be worth the trouble, honestly--again, I have tried talking her into a nice latex top, which is much cheaper and I know will result in that nice twin balloon look, but it doesn't seem to gain traction, no matter how often I bring it up. :) So if that's, um, a bust, we're going to check our budget and see if the sheets fits into it.

At this point I'd like to say how nice it is to have a partner in life who understands my deviant side. Guys, if you've got this fetish and you can't tell your wife or girlfriend because "she wouldn't understand," find another. If you can't be yourself, you can't be happy.

What's in a name? Embarassment.

The Yahoo thing got me to thinking about my online nickname, which I've never liked, and now find myself in the odd position of trying to protect and reclaim.

I first got involved with inflation stuff online in 1994--I'd just moved into my own apartment and it was the first time my PC was away from prying parental eyes. All my friends in college said they were signing up for AOL upon graduation because they thought it was going to be big. At the time, it had a whopping 300,000 subscribers--things were looking up! So I joined too, and then realized I could have an alternate screen name. This, I realized, would be good for trolling Usenet and message boards, as I looked for somebody, anybody, who shared this interest.

I wanted the name "Inflatable"--at the time, AOL gave you 10 characters for a name. It was already taken, by a stage performer named Fred Garbo. The odd part is I'd seen Garbo's act onstage and enjoyed it long before I considered getting an online account. I don't know if Fred still uses it, but it was unavailable, and by the time I finally got the chance to enter the online world as a fetishist, I was desperate and wanted to get started right away. So, since I couldn't find anything else, I exchanged creativity for expedience and went with "Inflate123." The 11-year anniversary of that will be next week, first week of July.

Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with the name; it's just completely devoid of imagination and I have never been proud to own it. It's as vanilla as it gets--name followed by numbers, and the world's most obvious number string at that (barring "69"). Why not, say, "Infl8able?" I think I tried some of those and they were also taken, and this was in the days before l33tsp33k. But I still regret not coming up with something more distinctive.

And in the time since, I've thought about changing my name to something a little better, but let's face it: I'm stuck with it. My high activity rate over the years, culminating in the Video Vault, sort of cemented my fate. Sure enough, when I got a gmail account, guess which name I chose? Besides, other friends have done this and not fared too well; nothing's worse than asking person A, "Whatever happened to person B?" and have person A say "Dude, that's ME. I changed my name four years ago."

If anybody knows a really good way to transition from one online persona to another, I'm all ears. I'd also love to hear suggestions on a better name than "Inflate123" because, after 11 years, I still haven't thought of anything better. I tend to channel my imagination into more enjoyable tasks. :)

Yahwho?

Bit of an identity crisis--I just went to log into my Yahoo Groups account and found that my Inflate123 ID has been deactivated, and I think breastinflationgroup has been shut down as well. Odd, considering how many years both have been running undisturbed. I wonder if a spammer complained about me deleting their posts!

Oh well. I'm Inflate123_too on Yahoo now, but I would love to find another community site to replace it altogether.