Sort of a weird question...no judgments, k?

******TRIGGER WARNING: MENTION OF SEX/SEXUALITY/ALTERNATIVE SEXUAL PRACTICES ALONGSIDE CSA/OTHER ABUSE********




So, recently I've been seeing things in a few other threads here that remind me of something I think about from time to time, and I wonder if anyone else has similar thoughts...

I've mentioned before that I have a history of CSA, and also some issues w/ having a mom who sort of neglected or abandoned me emotionally. (I'm not sure how to describe it, but I think that's close.) Like a lot of other folks here, I really have a strong desire to have some sort of maternal figure in my life, and my partner and/or my T are generally the focus of that fixation. (I'm also really terrified of those needs or desires or whatever, so I spend a lot of time distancing myself from my feelings and from them.) Anyway...

Quite some time ago I stumbled on the idea of "ageplay," which is a sort of role playing associated with the B&D (bondage and domination) community. I dont' really know much about any it, but it seems a little different than what folks might commonly think of as B&D or S&M practices. The basic idea is that one person takes on the role of someone older and the other takes on the role of someone younger, lots of times a child or even infant. (There are a variety of roles...mother and son, babysitter and baby, and on and on.) For some people ageplay is overtly sexual, and sometimes it has absolutely nothing to do with sex and looks more like what we might think of as reparenting. I want to stress that it's always something done among consenting adults who choose to take on these other roles (either briefly or in a more 24/7 setting). It never, ever has anything to do with actual children.

There was a time in my life where I tried to persuade my partner to try it out. I think she didn't really understand what it was about, and she wanted no part of it. I understood and respected that, though, again, I really don't think she understood what I did/didn't mean by "age play." I think to normalize it (ha!) I would have tried to make it a sexual activity. But in reality, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have wanted it to be sexual at all. I think it was just another way of me looking for someone to be a mom to me on some level. Either way, it's probably good that she refused.

To get to the point...a lot of us here talk about wanting our Ts to be our moms, and I'm no different. Some of us have relationships where something like that happens on some limited basis. (I'm thinking of Improving's recent tampon thread, which I LOVE!) Alternatively, some of us have Ts we see as cold and not at all maternal. (I fall into the later category. When I started T this time around, I told her that I was there to try to work through all the mother junk. In retrospect, I was as much there to try and find another mom as I was to work throught he damage caused by my actual mom. For now, T won't budge and be my mom, and I won't budge and mourn the fact that my actual mom wouldn't either.) Anyway, I'm sure our Ts have their reasons, which are presumably about doing what's best for us, wherever they fall on the maternal/not maternal scale with us.

Alongside all the "I want a Mom" threads I've seen here, I'm also thinking about the "Welcome to the Couch" thread. I've only read it a few times, and it's a fun little thread that strikes me as very playful. While I don't think folks are necessarily acting "young," there's something in the way folks are interacting in there that, to me, sort of feels a little young and playful and care-taking in a way that could be described as "maternal," either towards ourselves or toward others. In ageplay communities, there's a lot of that sort of play, though the content of the play is much younger.

So, to finally pose a question, what do y'all think about how we can/should best take care of our "younger" needs? Is it ever OK for our Ts to do it, and if so, when? Is it fair or reasonable to expect them to? Or is the point always to discuss and mourn what's missing, and never to try to reexperience what we've missed?

And is there something inherently right or wrong about acting young in a given context? (I'm not talking about DID here...that seems something completely different, identity-wise, than what I mean...maybe a matter of "acting" vs. "being," but I don't know that I understand well enough to say.) And finally, what seems OK and what doesn't? Does ageplay with sex thrown in go to far? Is nonsexual ageplay OK? If we don't call it ageplay, is that OK? Is it fine to buy yourself a box of crayons and a teddy bear when you're a grown adult?

I know...another long post. Thanks for getting to the end if you did!

I don't see how it would be wrong. If it isn't hurting anyone else or getting in the way of a person doing the adult things they need to do (go to work, pay bills, get appropriate food and shelter, take care of the creatures (children, pets, elderly) who may be in their care), then why not do it? It seems harmless enough as long as one does not get carried away and forget to come back to the adult part when necessary.

I believe acting younger than one is and exploring how one felt or acted at a younger age is part of a process, perhaps the therapy process, but is not some place we aspire to "end up". Stopping the train to get out and take part in a Jesse James-style train holdup would overshadow that you are actually trying to get to Chicago? Enjoying thinking and reading about train robbers and imagining what it would be like is different from actually experiencing it "now". Even if you were on a train/plane when someone tried to hijack it ("The Taking of Pelham 123") that past experience is not all of your experience nor is it your "now" experience? Literal re-enacting that experience would be a "new" experience, not the one from the past and might skew the rest of your "now" experience and send it on a different track. It's a re-enforcing experience rather than being helpful?

I think its definitely ok to take care of those younger inside needs. I think it can help you grow emotionally and developmentally. And i think its ok for a T to help, as long as we are helping as well.

[quote=2or3things;2297632 I'm also thinking about the "Welcome to the Couch" thread. I've only read it a few times, and it's a fun little thread that strikes me as very playful. While I don't think folks are necessarily acting "young," there's something in the way folks are interacting in there that, to me, sort of feels a little young and playful and care-taking in a way that could be described as "maternal," either towards ourselves or toward others. [/quote]

That thread is a light hearted and playful thread...a place to just say random things or reach out to one another without starting a thread or commenting and accidently hijacking someone elses thread.

As far as the Ageplay, Im with slowpup- consenting adults who can function in society can "age play" all they want. Ive seen several couples on tv where the male takes on the baby role at home and the girl the mommy role. I mean diapers, bottles, feeding the whole 9 yards. One dude even slept in a speacial made "crib" and he was a healthy grown man. My thought - To each his own flavored sno-cone.

wow. my first reaction was, it's okay to buy it, "as long as you play with it now!" as I sit surrounded by piles of stuff I don't play with now. but that was always the admonishment I got, sort of a pre-emptive strike of discouragement. That's the main aspect of it for me, am I even allowed to do it? My parents were so poor, they didn't have food, let alone toys. But my cousins all had TONS more toys than I did, like literally tons! Yet I was the only one with the "all A" report card and whose mother worked, why didn't I get toys? My brother got toys. I saw how much he wanted them, and how they hated to buy him things, and I didn't like that whole set-up, even if he got what he wanted.

So what rainbow8 says about "going deep", not having just superficial discussions with your friends - I think your partner missed an opportunity here by thinking it was a weird-*** request! I gave my T a little monkey a couple of weeks ago, and we still haven't fully explored the meaning. Probably partly because we have crossed boundaries, or his are kind of open, or as I always said, he is just not smart enough for me (okay, maybe he holds back). But I felt like a two-yr-old giving mommy a toy and wanting mommy to keep it and play with it, alongside baby hanky. Now I am pretty dam sure THAT particular scenario did not happen in baby hanky's nursery. OH - that IS what T has been saying for many years, that we learn to be alone IN mother's presence. He is really smart. Interesting thread, 2or3.

I am a Wiccan and our rede goes like this:

An Ye Harm None, Do What Ye Will"

So much of your mom stuff reminds me of mine, Hankster! OMG, the pre-emptive strike of discouragement. Yes, oh yes. That's all I can think to say about that right now.

btw - I love "Baby Hanky"

2or3things, this is mind-blowing - I've had these kinds of feelings, but I had NO IDEA there was a whole subculture of people enacting this stuff! I thought it was just in the theater of my mind!

I wish I knew where they were in MY city!

btw, I don't think you need to feel especially weird or bad about wanting to do age play. So much of what moves us, turns us on, obsesses us, etc. etc., was established WAY early on, long before we were conscious of what was happening.

A strange garden of colorful and bizarre survival strategies can erupt spontaneously out of childhood chaos and damage. When you grow up essentially without parents (which is how I think of it when love and support are absent, whether or not the parents were physically present), the psyche does strange things. The mind and emotions of a child are still in development. Distortions evolve as the child grapples with the necessity to fend off awareness of things it's unprepared to deal with (Mother doesn't love me, I'm alone). So much of what we fantasize about and long for, sexually and otherwise, has to do with these early damaging experiences.

So we re-enact them later on. We're rehearsing the messed up family romance over and over, trying to make it right through repetition. This is a pretty common type of response, actually to all kinds of early trauma I think.

Anyway, thanks for the interesting topic!

Kids have more fun!

Thanks, guys, for all all your thoughtful replies. It's nice to not have to feel like a complete freak!

I'm pretty much of the "as long as it's not hurting anyone else" frame of mind myself. And while I wish I could have made my partner understand, maybe she really did get it and still thought "no way." It was a bit of a rough patch in our relationship, and I'm just as happy not to bring it up again for now. Maybe someday. And while I love her and am totally devoted to her, I know that if it was something I really felt I had to do, she'd give her blessing for me to fill that particular need elsewhere if she couldn't do it herself. So that's nice, at least.

But I'm still stuck on this question of "harm" and, I guess, what constitutes taking care of our needs. I think it's absolutely OK to do whatever we can to take care of our needs in healthy ways. But I've been wondering (all the moreso, thanks to Perna's post), is it really helpful and healthy to have these experiences in the present that try to do something to address past hurts? That goes for ageplay, but it also goes for the little things Ts do that make us feel good and like a little bit of justice has been restored. (Again, I'm thinking of Improving's thread, as well as all the threads where we're commiserating about our cold, uncaring Ts. Are tampons the way, or tough love?)

My T frequently says that we can talk about whatever--that's the goal--but what we can't do is (re)enact stuff. So I could talk as much as I felt like about wanting her to be my mom. (Would that I had such courage!) And she says I also really need to talk about and mourn my past and my relationship with my actual mom. (Also not happening, at least not yet.) But what's not going to happen on her watch is me doing things to try to force her into some maternal stance toward me and her responding in said maternal way. I absolutely hate that, because of course it's all I really want. Because I'm still convinced (on an emotional level, at least) that that would fix everything.

Is she right? Should it be all talk, no action on her part? If so, is that the attitude that one should take in general...that what's past is past, and there's nothing else to be done with it but to talk and mourn? Is anything else, as Kitten16 pointed out, about the repetition compulsion? Or can it (also) be a healthy way of working through things? And if so, how do we know when trying to heal past hurts goes from healthy to unhealthy?

Thanks again, guys. You're the greatest!

When my T and I did a lot of IFS work (Internal Family Systems) and talked about my child parts and what they needed, it came up that I wanted her to hold me. She wouldn't do that but said she would hold my hand. So she did. She told me, at the time, "if that's what that part needs to do in order to heal, that's what we'll do." At the same time, she has always moved me toward meeting my own needs for comfort and not relying on her. Nevertheless, she doesn't believe in "just talk".

We also do visualizations with her, my adult Self, and another nurturing person in my life, holding the child together.

Another way we do something other than straight talking is through EMDR. That actually makes, at least according to those who believe in it, new neural pathways in your brain. So, when we talk about past hurts and do the EMDR, it lessens the pain from the past. It really does, and I'm the most skeptical person around!

I agree with your T not wanting to "be your Mom and act in a maternal way". It's a fine line between what helps and what doesn't. I wanted her to talk to me about growing up because my Mom didn't, but she wouldn't do it. She wanted ME to talk to myself the way I would have wanted my Mom to talk to me. I have to admit that was satisfying and not triggering to me. While I wish my T would have talked to me, I think it would have caused me to obsess about her and wouldn't have been healthy for me.

Some Ts do act more maternally towards their clients and it works. People post about that all the time on the forum. What Improving's T did is in a class by itself!! Great Ts know when to step in and when not to.

FANTASY:

2or3: I'm off to my ageplay group.
Partner: Have fun, dear!

Deep waters.

Even a T's boundaries are not always as rigid as they look. In every wall there is a gate!

If you look carefully, you may find that in a thousand little ways, your T is mothering you. (My T was always opening windows, pulling blinds, offering me a blanket.)

Of course that's not enough, but there is no way your T could ever be enough. So the disappointment is built into the relationship.

The point is, you have an opportunity to process that disappointment. Yes, it is largely a grieving process. But first you have to recognise that you'll never get what you want.

"If you look carefully, you may find that in a thousand little ways, your T is mothering you. (My T was always opening windows, pulling blinds, offering me a blanket.)"

Can'tExplain- that's such a cute thought and true! Thanks for this

I think your T is the one with the repetition compulsion - SHE gets to be the depriving maternal figure, replicating her own mother and possibly her own therapy. So despite what she says, she IS taking a "maternal stance" - she's the BOSS, Klein's angry breast; not your gentle guide; you're not partners in this voyage.

You're right on all fronts, CantExplain. I know it. It's such an odd thing to know what thing intellectually but believe another emotionally. That's whyI still keep the "ageplay" thing in the back of my mind. I guess I always think, "Well, if T doesn't work out, there's always finding a mommy that way." I know it won't work, but I just can't believe it.

You're right, too, about the dissapointment being built into the relationship. In one of my clearer moments I spent a good bit of time being angry about the fact that I pay for the privilege of spilling all my secrets and still not being loved in the way I wish I could be...that the hearing "no" (if I could ever get the courage to ask) is somehow a crucial part of the bargain.

And my T would smile at what you said about looking closely and seeing the little ways she does mother me. I mean, I think she'd never, ever call it "mothering." Still, she says I always miss the ways she does reach out to me. It's funny, because whenever she does say something kind, I just can't believe she means it. Sometimes I even automatically filter it out without actually hearing it.

Grrr...what a wreck!

Anyway, thanks for your thoughts, and how much you really get it. Much appreciated.

OMG, Hankster. I am SO using this Monday night...brilliant as usual!

Well, except that, despite her best efforts, I do look at my T as an authority figure. And I always, always seek approval from authority figures, and try very hard not to overstep. So I probably couldn't ever actually say this. But we'll see...miracles happen. I mean, I didn't win Mega Millions tonight, so that increases my odds in other endeavors, I suppose. Er something.

Thanks...I'll let you know how it goes over if I get the guts to say it.

It bears mentioning that other subcultures aside from the bsdm community engage in age play without the "hurting" element, such as ABDL's and DL's (infantilism).

Not that there is anything wrong with S&M-- it is safe and between consenting partners. Sometimes acting on masochistic urges is a way to "master" abuse from the past.

The trick is, how open minded is your partner? Hope you find a way to navigate this.

This I can certainly understand from my history - why you dismiss or suspect it. My mother only paid attention to me to trick me into something else and I fell for it every time. I am still Charlie Brown falling for the football. Part of the problem is that I know these good things about me, but THEY never acknowledged them, so I still do not believe anyone else will ever really see the goodness in me. It's THERE, but no one has the ABILITY or capacity or willingness to recognize it. T's have said, oh you think you're bad or wrong, because mum didn't recognize you; she has to recognize your goodness for YOU to recognize your goodness. No, it's more like this. Geez, shrinks and their effin book knowledge!

no, no judgments....this concept of ageplay is an interesting thing to me. I don't think I'd want to go as far as diapers/bottles, etc, because that would rub my adult pride the wrong way I think! but what I know I do want, when I am honest with myself, is a maternal cuddling....being held as if I were a baby. but the thing is, I have what I'd call a breast fixation......I don't know if it's really as definitely sexual as I have always thought, or if it's more wanting to return to some safe, comforting baby state, being held to the breast and suckling on it. I had this fantasy about a friend a LONG time ago, and I thought it meant I must be gay, but then I had no desire for anything below the waist. So then I had the same sort of thoughts about T1...this thing about her breasts, so my first assumption was that that must be all sexual......but I think it was a maternal thing, a baby longing, too. oh he##, who knows for sure?!
T2 did NOT inspire any sexual/erotic/maternal feelings in me really....the feeling I have had toward her is more a mentor type. But yet, she was the one who talked to me about me needing re-parenting, and I remember saying.....ha, how do you do that without me thinking there has to be touch to prove that I AM being re-parented? however, a few months later I looked back at that, and I realized, she did it, she really did do it, keeping the boundaries of T/client in place (not blurring them with actual touch, as probably would have happened in my mind and then I really would have had MORE issues ). she did do it with words, with her spirit toward me, with her humor, with a compassion that was kind but not coddling.....I felt nurtured, reparented, mothered even. and I believe that was intentional on her part, to help me see how nurturing is a thing that can be done separately from touch, that emotional intimacy/connection can be present even without touch - not denying the potency/need of touch, no, but helping me see that the presence/absence of touch isn't the end all/be all proof of the presence/absence of care, connection, nurturing,etc.
and now, even though I really noticed feeling nothing of the sort when I was with her (that is, regular sessions instead of just phone contact like the last 2 months has been) and no real desire to lay my head on her breasts (as happened with T1), I feel this interesting sort of fondness/love/gratitude toward her because of that. whereas, for T1, what remains is some sort of erotic emotion mixed with anger/heartache (which means maybe it was more sexual or a mixed-up sexual/maternal thing....whatever!).
never mind me, just rambling again.....