I've just got to weigh in here! I am now 71, and for all but the first 12 or 13 years of my life I have dealt with sexual fetishes which have caused unending shame, guilt, and loneliness. I could write a whole book about my experiences, and about what I have learned about fetishes (which are also known as paraphilias). Please be assured that your son's interest in diapers and baby stuff is not indicative of insanity, nor is it all that unusual. If you consider that there are many successful businesses that sell items exclusively aimed at Adult Baby Diaper Lover's, then you must realize that there are many men and women, with money, who are buying and using their products.

Most societies on Planet Earth are terribly conflicted about sex, to the point that we pretend to "like" only certain sexual activities that are sanctioned by religions, whereas the truth is that people engage, in private, in countless different activities. Lists of fetishes alone could fill a thick book — people get turned on by fur, saran wrap, **** insertions, underwear, farts, amputees, big men, little men, big women, little women, people of the same sex, urine, poop, mucus, cigarettes and cigarette smoke, cross dressing, choking, being tied up, being punished emotionally and physically, cutting themselves, burning themselves, and hurting other (consenting) people. Yet many people still think, and state publicly, that anything other than occasional sex with one's spouse, in the missionary position, is the only "proper" sex. The problem is that we, as a society, just don't talk about what we do in private. (It's interesting that sex, such a hugely significant factor in peoples' lives, is rarely the subject of serious scientific research. Instead, we allow people like popes and Tea Party types and televangelists to tell us how we should behave, even though in our bedrooms we do mostly what we wish.)

Sexual activity involving diapers and "baby things" is not something that anyone can reveal at your average dinner or cocktail party, but that doesn't mean that it's worthy of intervention by a psychiatrist, much less locking someone up because of it. We all find, willy nilly, our own path to sexual fulfillment. If my path doesn't interfere with your path, well, so what?

Fetishes are hard-wired into our patterns of behaviour. They aren't an illness, and thus resist "treatment". The only way that a fetishist can stop engaging in a fetish is to undergo chemical castration, or actual castration, and that just isn't very appealing, to anyone! Fetishists don't engage in fetishes as an act of will, but because of a need. Very often, that need results from stress, and the fetish is a way of "self-medicating" to make the fetishist feel better, just as an alcoholic drinks to make himself feel better or a smoker smokes to make herself feel better. A fetish only becomes a problem if the fetish himself or herself is failing to thrive because of the fetish, or forcibly involves someone else in the fetish activity.

I think that it's terribly important for you to start thinking of your son as a normal person who has sexual interests that are important for him and are meaningless to you. Your only task is to ensure that he is comfortable with his desires, and understands that he must keep them private, revealing them only to people he can trust. For the truth is that in this ultra-conservative, orthodox world of ours, a person with a fetish is a person in danger. There are countries who routinely imprison and even execute people whose sexual needs vary from the publicly stated needs of people in power.

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