Phil Schwartz

(Bumping an old topic) Santa Cruz area is great in so many ways. I'm not far from there and it's a wonderful destination. So open minded. And yes, I am somewhat envious of college-age people. People like us, but now able to find each other in a social environment that's getting more open-minded every day. If I could be young again and relive my college years, I'd do it at today's UCSC. (No, life growing up as an only-one-in-the-world DL in a Bible Belt town was NOT better 'back in the day'!)

Molicare Super Plus.

Ooh! Ooh! I know the answer to this one! It's me, isn't it? Isn't it?!? Just got a big box from XP last week and had that little electric thrill as I was stacking things up. How timely!

Oh, and to address the OP's question: no, I don't think I'll ever quit wearing diapers. They are an emotional cushion for me, helping keep the demons of my past at bay. Sure, I've gone through purges where I thought that I should just "get over it" - both my past and my need for diapers. Didn't last, though, as the comfort was stronger than the fear of discovery. Society may find us weird, but so what. I realized long ago who I am and that diapers are harmless. They help me through life. I don't really care if I am buried in one or not, as at that time, I won't have the need for them any more.

Wow, Duck, that kind of thing can never be anything other than a tremendous shock. Just out of the blue, one moment they are there, the next they are gone. It leaves a huge hole in your life. I know what you are going through and you have my deepest sympathies. Peace.

I've always said what the OP said. Buy them and nobody - nobody - will care one whit. When I'm buying in person, I've never had a cashier or any other store employee say anything untoward, nor heard anything from other customers. I don't try to hide what I'm buying if I don't need anything else. Buy them, wear them, enjoy them, nobody will notice. Each of us is in our own personal world of comfort, and the rest of the planet doesn't pay attention. The day I realized that, it was like a door opening to me. I just wish I had figured it out ten years earlier....

Everywhere! Work, movies, stores, restaurants, parties, walks, bike rides, formal occasions, paintball, working around the house, exercising... Pretty much anything but swimming! It's all day, every day for me.

Not jogging, but I like to go hiking. I'm diapered every day, so I'm diapered when hiking, too. In warmer weather, the Abena AirPlus are much better than plastic-backed diapers, though they need extra tape and some kind of compression (tighty-whities) to really hold them in place for this use. Oh, and to add one more vote to the bicycling in diapers question - yes, I do, and it sure does keep the seat comfortable!

You mean the old Depends? <Shudder!> Starting off St. Pat's Day in a Molicare, and I don't care that it's purple!

Let me add something to my posting above to better address the OP's concerns. Before I told my wife about my past abuse and everything that it entails, I considered it for a long time. It needed to come out eventually, things were building up inside me and at some point I had to trust her with my past. All sorts of resulting scenarios were churning around in my head, most of them not particularly good. Perhaps she would see me as being seriously damaged goods, maybe with the added twist of having deceived her by keeping it from her all these years resulting in her being hurt, sad, and angry. I feared she might think me some sort of sick, evil, shameful, twisted, perverted mess which was distinctly not what she had bargained for. She might think I had tricked her into marrying me, by brashly pretending to be normal. I even worked out a plan for what I might do if she threw me out and told all our friends and family. There is deep shame from having been abused. Sure, it happened when I was a defenseless kid, but for some reason that's not a comfort. Nevertheless, this shame leads to tremendous fears of rejection, so you could imagine the sour stomach I had as I thought about how she might handle the news. Yes, I was scared, apprehensive, and terrified. It needed to happen, though, and having thought about how I would handle the possible results made it somewhat less difficult to do. Never just jump in to something like this. We're playing with fire - this secret could end a marriage if things go wrong. My suggestion is to consider all the angles to how your spouse or SO might respond to each point. Come up with worst-case scenarios and work out how you would handle them. Be ready to answer every question you can think of. It won't make the minefield safe, but you'll have a shot at negotiating it and coming out the other side with your relationship intact.

My wife and I had been together (as bf/gf, then engaged, then married) for well over a decade when I told her. It came about as a result of me finally opening up to her about the childhood sexual abuse in my past. We had been working through that and she was truly supportive and wanting to understand. When I got to explaining about the ways I cope, my diapers are a core part of that, and so that was how it came out. After her hearing about the abuse and what it did to me emotionally, the diapers were not a big deal at all. You have to realize that this all was utterly emotionally wrenching and draining for me, and certainly for her as well. The abuse, even decades later, is what I'm really working on getting past (both with the help of my wife and my shrink). My diapers may be part of me for the rest of my life, and both my wife and I are OK with that. Compared to the other mental and emotional repercussions from my tormentor, wanting to wear funny underwear is no concern at all. She understands why I wear. I'm not interested in having her participate, as a wearer or as a (shudder!) mommy. As much as I think I understand the ways that being mommied helps most of us here, I can't trust anyone like that - I can't let myself be that vulnerable. So, the diapers are just for me.

My wife and my shrink. My wife is lovingly supportive, my shrink is paid to be.

Go, John! Congrats on the change. There's no harm to anyone, not even yourself, from wearing 'funny underwear'. That's exactly the point. I bet that soon you will find yourself feeling more relaxed and happier in general now that you've, ahem, changed your underwear. Good job.

There was a poll on this particular topic not long ago: DD Poll and it shows the age spread as a curve which roughly matches the proportions of people who are on-line. Lots of younger people (18+ and 20s) and fewer people as age progresses, but no big dip in the 30s as you had presumed. So, no big worry - there are people of all ages here. And remember the adage, "Old is defined as your current age plus 15 years." We all will therefore never get old, just 'older'.

Ignore the bag searchers and just walk out. Perhaps they're counting on the fact that few people realize that this is illegal. After you have made your purchase and want to leave the store, they have no reason to detain you nor any authority to check through your purchased items nor your pockets nor purse. It's called having probable cause, and wanting to leave the store to go home is not suspicious. If you don't voluntarily let them look through your stuff, they can't make you do it. (No, I'm not a lawyer, if they saw you shoplifting, then they do have probable cause, blah blah blah.) This is why, when I shop at Fry's (and I do, as long as I know I will (1) not need to return anything and (2) not need the help of any of the shoddily-trained droids they have working there) I just walk right past the exit checkers with their felt tip markers. I've been doing that for ten years. Not once have any of them said anything more than "have a nice day" as I go by. Remember, it's possible that management has even informed them of their lack of power, if only to avoid being sued. I have been able to return merchandise there (not that I do that very often, see above) and the least of my concerns was whether my receipt had an illegible squiggle of highlighter ink on it. A friend worked there briefly (he hit the bottom financially) and informed me that the exit search isn't because the store doesn't trust the customers, it's because they don't trust their own employees. Apparently they had been scammed by employees helping friends buy, say, a TV and a pack of gum, while only charging for the pack of gum. Hence the exit search and receipt checkover at all the stores. Just ignore the exit checkers and walk right past them. Preferably crinkling your diapers as loudly as possible while doing so!