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Ageplay and me
a year ago
General
((A very long winding musing of my history, no need to read))
I was thinking a lot about my history and where I came from in terms of where I am now. As most of you know I'm in my forties so for the first 18 years of my life the internet didnt exist. It blows my mind to know that there are adults alive today who didnt know he world before the internet. I suppose its the equivilent of the 1900 folk suddenly getting electricity or cars, its one of those things that irrevocably affects the world.
So anyway I knew I had baby tendencies when I was about 4, The usual story of having too much responsibility from a young age, looking after younger siblings etc etc, but it was hammered home on 2 occasions, one during a storm where i was so terrified i ran to my parents room for comfort then turned me away and refused support, so I had to go back to my own bed whilst a hurricane battered the house and so I hid under my covers and imagined being rocked to sleep like a baby, an that sorta just stuck.
Then when I was 8, Mum forced me into nappies as a punishment for acting childish sure I've read plenty of stories over the years where that happens to someone, but at the time as an 8 year old against an adult, it was not a pleasant experience. I was fighting and kicking and screaming but it still happened, it was completely against my will. i remember feeling so mortified at the time. But again something clicked in me, like a recognition that 'oh hey, mum is actually giving me attention' although it was obviously abusive.
So fast forward to the day the internet came, an I finally had a computer and reliable access, it was super important to me to make a space online for folk like me, I'd seen on programs like jerry springer and eurotrash and the occasional newspaper story where there were some people in the world who wanted to act like babies (always men and always being fairly degenerate because thats the sort of sensationalism the tv shows were after) but was there really lots of us? Up until I was about 16 I thought I was the only one in the world who had this weirdness about me and it was very much a shameful part of my life, thinking there was something wrong with me.
So I set up a yahoo group, I was called babysmig back then (back in the wild west internet days were nothing was sanitized) and ended up creating an Adult baby hub thing in this group, it quickly grew to over 3000 users. SO there WERE people like me out there, although it was more of a sexual thing for a lot of folk on that group, I was still happy to have created something. One morning I woke up and tried to log in only to find my username no longer existed, an actually the group no longer existed and that yahoo had essentially killed lots of accounts and groups overnight. No chance for appeals or objections. It was over. (feels familiar patreon)
It's hard having a community being ripped out from under you, the isolation and then the self loathing creeps in, the purge cycle begins, get rid of everything, I must be wrong to want this...etc etc...
I'm told a lot of the younger generation doesnt go through purge cycles as they were able to use the internet to find support. I wonder how true that is, where a lot of the community here is 18+ (for good reason) but sometimes I think how would 15 year old me have dealt with trying to reach out to folk and being told go away dont come back till your older. Perhaps just knowing that there was a community to come to once I hit that magic age would have been enough. Honestly though I probably would have done the dumbass thing of faking an older account.
Anyway after the yahoo group death I floated around and stumbled on Ageplay.org. (known as guardian island) This was quite an interesting concept for a site as it had a light side and a dark side quite literally. It was two forums split on the site, so you had the safe ageplay side (I guess what would be called Agere these days, where there were role play rooms and toy swaps and such) and you had the kinky bondagey more sexual side of ageplay in the other forum with a grey area in the middle for people on both sides to mingle if they wanted to. This worked really well and is where I kinda got the inspiration for the various colour coded rooms in Flares room party in Shine. The fact was we were all together, not quite all into the same things but respecting of one another and open to discussions and learning from one another, I feel thats something thats almost getting harder to do these days, the polarisation and gatekeeping ive seen over the years...It not something I like to dwell on cause it can feel quite bleak, who gets the moral high ground, who gets to punch down etcetc...
Ageplay.org was where i came across my husband Paul, he was a moderator there and was very much a stable force on the site, he had a little girl, in fairness I had a mummy person and over a long while we all eventually met up in real life and got on really well and that kinda made our poly relationship.....But thats a different story...
When Yahoo killed my group I eventually after healing from the loss of that I moved to blogspot and made a blog there, I think I was called ikklesammy by that point having babysmig die with yahoo, and I created a community there where we ran easter/haloween/christmas competitions and had a chatroom and it was just very joyful and free and no stress, this was before I was making stories or art and there wasnt really much in the way of responsiblity...Or at least it didnt FEEL like responsiblity and then blogspot died....By this point we had seen that coming so had the forethought to create our own website where we could migrate to and so did that and ikklespace was born and fastforward to Patreon killing my account and then creating squiggles....
I think this is a long winded way of saying that theres a real strong need in me to build community. I grew up for so many years not having one and feeling so lost and alone that there's nothing altruistic in what im doing, if i'm being honest with myself it's almost about helping the past version of me, that lost teen, that suicidal teen who thought no one could possibly love her because she was such a mess of a person for needing this very specific kind of love. Creating a community, bringing folk into this together. Shine is largely like that too, a sort of letter to the past version of me, that things will be okay, that you're okay for having these needs, you can be you and its okay to be accepting of yourself. You're fine the way you are.
I dunno why I wanted to write this today. I just...I'm just glad i'm here, but also still very aware of how shakey or how easily a community can suddenly be wiped out, but no matter how many times it happens, I'll keep building.
I was thinking a lot about my history and where I came from in terms of where I am now. As most of you know I'm in my forties so for the first 18 years of my life the internet didnt exist. It blows my mind to know that there are adults alive today who didnt know he world before the internet. I suppose its the equivilent of the 1900 folk suddenly getting electricity or cars, its one of those things that irrevocably affects the world.
So anyway I knew I had baby tendencies when I was about 4, The usual story of having too much responsibility from a young age, looking after younger siblings etc etc, but it was hammered home on 2 occasions, one during a storm where i was so terrified i ran to my parents room for comfort then turned me away and refused support, so I had to go back to my own bed whilst a hurricane battered the house and so I hid under my covers and imagined being rocked to sleep like a baby, an that sorta just stuck.
Then when I was 8, Mum forced me into nappies as a punishment for acting childish sure I've read plenty of stories over the years where that happens to someone, but at the time as an 8 year old against an adult, it was not a pleasant experience. I was fighting and kicking and screaming but it still happened, it was completely against my will. i remember feeling so mortified at the time. But again something clicked in me, like a recognition that 'oh hey, mum is actually giving me attention' although it was obviously abusive.
So fast forward to the day the internet came, an I finally had a computer and reliable access, it was super important to me to make a space online for folk like me, I'd seen on programs like jerry springer and eurotrash and the occasional newspaper story where there were some people in the world who wanted to act like babies (always men and always being fairly degenerate because thats the sort of sensationalism the tv shows were after) but was there really lots of us? Up until I was about 16 I thought I was the only one in the world who had this weirdness about me and it was very much a shameful part of my life, thinking there was something wrong with me.
So I set up a yahoo group, I was called babysmig back then (back in the wild west internet days were nothing was sanitized) and ended up creating an Adult baby hub thing in this group, it quickly grew to over 3000 users. SO there WERE people like me out there, although it was more of a sexual thing for a lot of folk on that group, I was still happy to have created something. One morning I woke up and tried to log in only to find my username no longer existed, an actually the group no longer existed and that yahoo had essentially killed lots of accounts and groups overnight. No chance for appeals or objections. It was over. (feels familiar patreon)
It's hard having a community being ripped out from under you, the isolation and then the self loathing creeps in, the purge cycle begins, get rid of everything, I must be wrong to want this...etc etc...
I'm told a lot of the younger generation doesnt go through purge cycles as they were able to use the internet to find support. I wonder how true that is, where a lot of the community here is 18+ (for good reason) but sometimes I think how would 15 year old me have dealt with trying to reach out to folk and being told go away dont come back till your older. Perhaps just knowing that there was a community to come to once I hit that magic age would have been enough. Honestly though I probably would have done the dumbass thing of faking an older account.
Anyway after the yahoo group death I floated around and stumbled on Ageplay.org. (known as guardian island) This was quite an interesting concept for a site as it had a light side and a dark side quite literally. It was two forums split on the site, so you had the safe ageplay side (I guess what would be called Agere these days, where there were role play rooms and toy swaps and such) and you had the kinky bondagey more sexual side of ageplay in the other forum with a grey area in the middle for people on both sides to mingle if they wanted to. This worked really well and is where I kinda got the inspiration for the various colour coded rooms in Flares room party in Shine. The fact was we were all together, not quite all into the same things but respecting of one another and open to discussions and learning from one another, I feel thats something thats almost getting harder to do these days, the polarisation and gatekeeping ive seen over the years...It not something I like to dwell on cause it can feel quite bleak, who gets the moral high ground, who gets to punch down etcetc...
Ageplay.org was where i came across my husband Paul, he was a moderator there and was very much a stable force on the site, he had a little girl, in fairness I had a mummy person and over a long while we all eventually met up in real life and got on really well and that kinda made our poly relationship.....But thats a different story...
When Yahoo killed my group I eventually after healing from the loss of that I moved to blogspot and made a blog there, I think I was called ikklesammy by that point having babysmig die with yahoo, and I created a community there where we ran easter/haloween/christmas competitions and had a chatroom and it was just very joyful and free and no stress, this was before I was making stories or art and there wasnt really much in the way of responsiblity...Or at least it didnt FEEL like responsiblity and then blogspot died....By this point we had seen that coming so had the forethought to create our own website where we could migrate to and so did that and ikklespace was born and fastforward to Patreon killing my account and then creating squiggles....
I think this is a long winded way of saying that theres a real strong need in me to build community. I grew up for so many years not having one and feeling so lost and alone that there's nothing altruistic in what im doing, if i'm being honest with myself it's almost about helping the past version of me, that lost teen, that suicidal teen who thought no one could possibly love her because she was such a mess of a person for needing this very specific kind of love. Creating a community, bringing folk into this together. Shine is largely like that too, a sort of letter to the past version of me, that things will be okay, that you're okay for having these needs, you can be you and its okay to be accepting of yourself. You're fine the way you are.
I dunno why I wanted to write this today. I just...I'm just glad i'm here, but also still very aware of how shakey or how easily a community can suddenly be wiped out, but no matter how many times it happens, I'll keep building.
I don't have as strong a drive for it as you, but its something I'm trying to do. I'm not familiar with all those events, but at least patreon and here I saw what happened and I don't want to just complain about whats wrong, I want to do something about it. I want to give people like you space to do what you do. Its still a ways off, but its something I'm working on and will welcome you when its ready.
And on a related note, thank you for all the teaching you and the community has done for me. I recently found out a newer friend of mine is a Little (only 2-3 y/o, the precious bean), and while I have pretty much no experience, everything I've learnt from you lot has helped me understand and be comfortable, so when the friend opened up to me about being a Little, the communication was so much smoother for it. You gave me a safe space to learn about this world, and now the tools you've given me are used to pass that safety on to someone else who needs it. And I can never thank you enough for that. <3
If I think back to my own childhood, there is a very strong appeal in there. You would think that as you grow up, you gain skills, but you also lose other skills and I would like to get those back. The chief one seems to be that you do not know yet what is acceptable or not by the society, so you do not have this internalized scolding voice and you are very free. Star seems to experience this freedom when she does something she tells herself is embarrassing and then it is just accepted with love and it works out and she becomes whole and just radiates happiness. I wish I knew more about psychology to understand what is going on. Then it is a question of what would bring this state of mind, which seems very genuine and true even if it appears to be going against the reality of being an adult. I don’t know. Either I am a babyfur, it is a universal need everyone has, or I totally don’t get it and am mixing unrelated things together. There does seem to be this strained almost desperate clinging to a self-image of me that I know is not actually true, but I don’t know what is the real one, and I don’t know how to stop the death grasp on it. Star seems to have figured her way to let go and so have you. And for allowing that to happen, the communities you create are the most precious gift.
This journal seems very topical too with the recent FA shenanigans and the migration from twitter to bluesky. It shows that people won't be able to moderate us away, we'll find a way to develop these communities because we *are* a sizable group!
For my sins I was involved with a group that created the childfriendly Tumblr AgeRe communities because we saw teens getting into AB/DL and BDSM spaces creating issues even though often they were looking for clues around regression, fun child-like stuff we could do and chill, finding responsible older teens to mod them.
While Tumblr has its issues I do feel what we did has provided a base that on other platforms similar Sfw AgeRe groups or communities can have a spot providing some of what is needed. If we knocked anyone out of joint during that turbulent period, I am sorry but we did what we felt was right and I feel still that way.
Getting back to you - I don't think it is a unique observation to say you really do try to make a difference in creating spaces to talk about this thing we do in our own ways, in helping when a new person joins or if face to face with people.
That's cos you've been there and do "get it".
(((Hugs)))
You are an amazing person and we are all lucky to have you!
I hadnt found FA by that point and then when I finally found this place a lot of teh otehr sites I worked on and wth kinda fell to the wayside
I'm in a weird spot myself as I learnt very recently that ageplay might actually be something for me. As in really tackle this and not just have fantasies or tell myself things like "oh, I just like diapers." It's as liberating as it is confusing to know that you might need something different in life. I cannot imagine what it would be like to have these thoughts and think you're crazy and alone. Been following you for way too long to remember, but with the new knowledge it felt very reassuring to read your journal after the recent fiasco. You wrote that everyone should remember it's okay to be...different, to be little. And I'm glad you shared this too, a bit of your journey. So I wanted to speak up...and felt like deleting this text to go back to hiding instead. Well, whatever.
It wasn't until I met someone online who did art and during a talk they showed me the abdl art they did that wasn't exactly public at the time. And that's when I realize "oh. This is me. This is what I need and wanted. It has a name" and that helped a lot back then. And was a lot of self discovery of my baby self.
And absolutely no surprise your "Shine" series brought a lot of thought and emotions and wishes in time. I'm happy for the friends I met and communities I've been apart of. My first daddyfur I had in my life before he passed away to my new daddy and mommyfur to my life. People who I hold close as babysitter caretakers to my Lil side. And never felt ashamed for it between it.
Be well and wonderful always ^^ love reading this.
we will persevere
thank you
Generally being over 18 and maybe into sexual things was accepted - there are a few things that "push my buttons" for instance - just we put that stuff in its own spot.
So long as you kept things in those two "boxes" then we'd leave things be.
Much else really revolves around social media rules around teens and what they should be able to access which as both of us know are, thank goodness, being talked about in our country currently in politics and beyond.
Here we have NSFW filters, Tumblr for period had it for a period but that went under pressure from the Apple Store as it contravened Apples rules for apps which was a pity as that does help given people control over visible content.
Abdls deal to much With stuff, but we are here and now I have a boyfriend, Is switch and I am so thankful for that.
Your works helped me get through similar darknesses, they helped me find my place in this community and eventually go onto to not only make groups similar to what you describe your early days like, but also be an ambassador for our community in places we arent fully accepted in yet
Without your works being there, without those early streams I attended that helped me feel that comradery I wouldn't have developed into the person I am now especially within this community
I know I'm just one weirdo on the net, but I'm sure there are many others out there with similar stories to mine, and I encourage others to share them
Sam/Gem/Star whichever you prefer lol, you have helped people who were just like teen you, become awesome people like current, and if nothing else I think you should know
Honestly I want to thank you, because without your efforts I don't think the community would be here, and I know I wouldn't be at least not in the same way, so thank you, truely
But I'm glad you took it to heart
So much of this community is built on those little connections, and I think it's important folks know how far those can go
Again I thank you for all you've done for me, and the community as a whole
I've also always found your coming up story relatable because I went through a similar event when I was probably 3-4 years old. My mom kept a few people's babies and toddlers out of our house as an informal daycare. I always tried to stay out of her way and off in my own room while she was working with the littler kids. But one day around that age I remember stopping playing because I needed the toilet badly all of a sudden. When I got there she was bathing one of the babies and told me to wait. I couldn't so I had an accident. I distinctly remember already being embarrassed because I wasn't supposed to do that, but it got much worse when she forced me in a diaper out of frustration. Same situation, I fought and kicked, but once it was on, humiliated as I was, there was also a sense of surrender and it felt so comfy. Soooo so confusing.
I don't know if I ever would have accepted the part of me that found comfort in the experience afterwards if it wasn't for the positive spaces online you have been part of shaping
Seriously thank you
2 I'm glad you found a community that you can now fit into im more in the DL side of this community I found loads of groups and some partners and friends
I was also that dumb kid who lied sometimes cause I wanted friends
My dad he's a peace of work so maybe that also plays a part
and as someone who grew with internet access, ive recieved a lot of hate just for liking more childish things (i didnt even know abdl was a thing back then) so when i discovered an spanish translation of shine when i was 15 ish and was banned for being underage with almost no explanation (but still deserved) i didnt feel supported, nor acknowledged, hell i didnt even have an explanation of what does regression meat and why is ok to felt vulnerable sometimes, idk if it counts as a purge cycle but since then till i was 17 i just wanted to ignore everything that meant to be cute and childish in any way, blaming myself for wanting to do things that were out of my age and eventually developing social anxiety for trying to just dont show myself as that to anyone
i still struggle to interact with another abdls but at least reading shine allowed me to understand more this needs of mine and ive always be thankful for that
Theres a lot of predators out there. I was a victim at one point due to me just trusting people online and then meeting up wth someone who promised to daddy me and keep me safe, it can happen so easily.
(I was 14 - 18 during that time)
If I had to guess, if you don't want to get political (because there's theories there too), many of these banks and ISPs don't want "lewd" content hosted anywhere except on sites that they control. They want people paying for things like OnlyFans and not have the option to obtain free content.
This is their attack and there's not much we can do about it. A community will maybe form again, but the USA and other countires have done a piss poor job of breaking up monopolies lately so I wouldn't count on it.
FA, Telegram, Discord and anyone else hosting a site in the western world is not exempt from this. If the bank controlling the ISP decides the rules, they either comply or be let go and thus destroyed.
The most relevant bit is that I found community at 16, I'd always been more interested in 'childish' things but that's when I met a pair of littles irl who knew more of the sfw littlespace/agere community. They guided me to tumblr which has been a pillar for me as even post porn ban both the agere and abdl communities have thrived there. For many years it's been a consistent safe space due to the site's nature inherently being able to create community bubbles. I have only really experienced the shaming and attacking of the community on larger sites like this or from irl kinksters who feel confident enough to berate me and my friends in public.