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!

At this point for me, only my wife and my shrink know. But, I've been wearing in public for almost a year now, and I have a pretty good idea of how I would handle the situation if a friend noticed. As for being outed, and especially for the one 'friend' who saw the tragic results of a car accident injury as being gross, let me say this. A lesbian friend of mine once told me of the time she came out to her family and friends (years before, in another state, while in college). She summed it up this way: "You find out who your friends really are." That's exactly it - the roommate who won't sop cracking wise, the ex who tries to to ruin your relationships or reputation, the unfeeling wretch who has no sympathy for the victim of an accident, the mother who excludes your existence - these people are not friends, they're not family, they're not people who you want in your life in the first place. It may seem like a slap in the face at the time, but that person just told you exactly who they really are. Sure, those are some strong words coming from someone who has entrusted himself to only two people (one of whom sworn to medical secrecy at that). Someday, though, as my secret seems less and less horrible to me and I understand myself better, I expect that a few more family and closest friends may eventually learn about this side of me. Eventually I think I'll be ready for that - progress is happening - and I've been working out how to lessen its impact on my relationships. Yes, if and when more people find out, their true nature will be seen, not just mine. Maybe some will leave my life (through their choice or my own), maybe some will stay. Maybe everything will work out with a Hollywood ending with everyone inexplicably happy somehow, or maybe I will wind up alone. And I'm OK with that. That's the result of finding out who your friends really are.

Disposables, all day, every day, every where. Depends for discretion at work, Abenas and sometimes Molicares on the weekends and days off. Diapers are so comforting and calming, I very rarely wear any other kind of underwear. For those of you who don't wear out in the Real World because of worry about being found out, go do it anyway. Nobody will find out. Nobody will say anything. It will be utterly ordinary to the world. I'm in a diaper for everything and never heard a peep from anyone about it. Been at it for nearly a year, and wish I'd started decades ago...

I imagine almost all of us have pondered this at one time or another:

Getting back to the original topic: Sorry to rain on our parade, but looking over Kimberly-Clark's numbers, I'd say no, doubling is unlikely. While they are moderately profitable (a good thing and unusual in this market - they are well managed), their stock price is clearly in line with their value today. While they must have unused factory capacity for diapers, it would take a huge investment to significantly improve their potential profitability using diapers alone. Kimberly-Clark is a big company ($25 billion), making all kinds of drugstore items, and a good strategy for them would be to get all their unused capacity back in action for all products across the board. To do that, they need to see their customer demand up across the board, not just in one area. To put it another way: Even if all 400 million annual airline passengers in the US each used one Depends per flight, at well under a dollar each, that would be less than 2% of K-C's annual revenue. That's down in the noise - certainly no doubling of stock price from that. While it's a nice idea that the diaper industry might be a good investment, the reality is that there are probably better places to invest a buck. Which reminds me - I ought to place another order with XP one of these days...

Probably not, but I've made no particular effort to hide them and I wear everywhere I go. I'm in disposables every day, something discrete for work and something thicker on weekends and vacation days. I never would go outside where I could be seen in just a diaper (any more than I would go outside in just underwear) as I don't think that's courteous. None of my neighbors has ever said anything, and I haven't caught any wondering looks. I chat with my various neighbors once a week or so. As for spilled trash cans, I've had my share of that. At my previous house, there were two separate trucks for recycling and garbage, and the recycling truck usually came earlier in the morning. That driver frequently knocked over trash cans and broke recycling bins (he must have really loved his job). More than once I went out to the car to go to work and had to stop and scoop up a bunch of trash back into the bin, including used diapers. Some of my neighbors in that area were very early risers, but nobody ever mentioned it, other than the "Yep, he knocked over our can last week, too" kind of conversation. It seems like the more you wear, the less they care.

You know, they say that the first step towards a cure is admitting that you have a problem. And I'm sure everybody here would be happy to help you! Ahem. I see it's your first post, so welcome to the fold! As for me, just a few bags of Abena Supers and XPlus, a bag of Molicare Super Plus, and then a bag of Depends for daily use when discretion is necessary. I don't hide them, my wife is supportive. The dailies are in a dresser drawer, the thicker ones are in a box in the closet where they are handy. I suppose I'm in the "enough for normal wear" category. Nothing fancy, no sentimental items, no doomsday hoard.

Freta, you are so right. In a way, it truly is "all in one's head". The only person preventing one from accepting oneself is, well, oneself. And, I, too, like to remind myself that there are many other atypical traits that I could have. The one I have actually makes me happy and doesn't hurt anyone - imagine that! I'm luckily not (yet) subject to a debilitating condition, and this gives me perspective. Along the way, my diapers have made me into a person very accepting of the quirks and differences of others. Whenever I hear someone referred to in some derogatory way because they are different, it reminds me that I'm different, too. And this is a good thing.

It's been years since I tried to do any meaningful shopping on Black Friday. Never again. It's just not worth it. I'd rather sit at home with a laptop computer and a cup of hot chocolate, ordering the few things I need online. I'll always take advantage of gift wrapping and send the gift directly to the giftee's address, and that way I can fulfill my patriotic bit of consumerism without even getting up. Now, what could be more American than that? Actually, I did need to pop in to the grocery store on Friday. It was nearly abandoned. Surprise, surprise! Otherwise, I stayed home, walked the dog, lit a fire in the fireplace, and read a book. A rather nice day off, if you ask me.

To shed a little light on how Abena tapes can be so good for some and so poor for others, here are my observations. Tapes on Abena AirPlus are the same as the tapes on the regular Abenas, it's just that the AirPlus 'fabric' cover isn't particularly compatible with the tapes themselves. The AirPlus have almost always required reinforcements for me (whitie-tighties or, yes, duct tape strips). They just won't hold for even a short time. All in all, a rather underwhelming tape performance. Whereas, the regular Abenas with a plastic cover stick very well to the tapes. Sometimes the blue tape can be repositioned, but if the white part touches the diaper cover, it doesn't want to let go without tearing. In that case, no extra reinforcement is needed and the diapers stay in place quite well. Molicare tapes for me have been mostly like the regular Abena tapes - quite solid, though the Abenas were a bit better. I use all three (Molicare, Abena regular, and Abena AirPlus) depending on what physical activity I'm planning or what feel I'm after. So, if all you have tried is the Abena AirPlus line, then I can certainly understand why you'd be disappointed with the performance of their tapes.

Personal shame, for me, is not an issue. Societal shame, however, is. Let me explain. As a small child, being able to wet/mess myself at strategic moments was a defense against abuse, and it worked well enough that I was/am proud of myself for coming up with it and doing it. As an adult, I wear diapers every day everywhere without shame. Without even thinking about it, most times. My wife understands and supports me. However, I don't use my diapers anywhere anyone might notice, not even around my wife. Only when I am home alone do I feel I can do that freely. There are some things that are just beyond acceptance by others, and so I would never want to be caught with a poopy diaper. (Although it has happened that the UPS delivery driver has rang the doorbell at an inopportune moment.) Being wet isn't necessarily intrusive on others, so I'll do that on occasion when out and about, without shame. Wearing makes me strong and confident, and I don't give a whit what anyone else thinks, if they even have noticed at all. Using makes me feel powerful, but it would indeed be shameful for me if others were to (literally) hold their noses at my presence, or avoid me altogether. The shame would come from embarrassment at offending others' senses, rather than offending their sensibilities, and that is easily avoided.