When I first started nervously looking into kink, I was about 14. We had dial-up internet and I knew I had a few embarrassing interests, but no idea why, or what a fetish was, much less that anyone else might share mine. I didn’t know what I’d find but I typed in the same word I’d looked up in dictionaries when I was in primary school: nappies. And the internet eventually led me to kinky content.
Some terminology was different then. ‘ABDL’ wasn’t widely used; instead I learned the phrase ‘adult baby’ and the rather clinical term ‘infantilism’. Both of these seemed fairly diagnostic and not quite me, but they were the most promising signposts I had at the time. Given the glacial speed and download time of the internet in the late 90s, text stories were much more prominent than images and video, which suited me fine, as it still does.
I did find the odd story that really captivated me back then, and it was a relief to discover that my secret interest was A Thing, but there was something missing in the language itself. Most online ABDL stories were written by American authors, so there was some light translation work to be done for a Brit. I really wanted to read the words that I associated with baby paraphernalia, but instead of nappies, it was diapers; instead of a dummy we got a pacifier or binky; instead of a bottle (to mean any drink in a bottle) it was formula.
UK English terms for baby items tend to have a certain cute cadence. They’re often singsongy and end in ‘ee’ sounds (dummy, nappy, potty etc.), while US English uses more functional ‘er’ sounds. I have a huge fetish for the sonics of baby things as tools of humiliation – especially in threats or taunts – and British words hold much more power than the American ones, because they’re the words I grew up with.
Fast-forward to contemporary kinky chats with fellow perverts from different countries. It’s been interesting to see which words hold power for others. US content still dominates the ABDL landscape, and US English is the default for this kind of play. Plenty of Brits default to saying ‘diapers’ in a kink context. I did this myself for a while, but only because, for the longest time, ‘nappies’ was too electric and scary-real a word for me to say out loud. I had lived in terror of someone finding out I had this kink, and ‘diapers’ somehow granted it psychological distance. Perhaps this is true for others – particularly parents, who might want to draw a line between their ageplay fun and their day-to-day family life, caring for actual children.
Chatting to Aussies is interesting because the UK and Australia share a lot of informal language, including the terms we use around babies. I’ve also really enjoyed chatting to a German correspondent about the ABDL words that light their bonfire. They too had consumed a fair amount of American stories and media growing up, so ‘diapers’ had been just as formative and erotic as the German word ‘Windeln’, and the two were equally evocative. Similarly, US loan-words like ‘pantyhose’ and ‘panties’ were plenty magical for them, given how organically they’d been adopted into German.
I speak some (less-than-perfect) German, so it was a lot of fun to write back and forth in two languages, using phrases we knew pushed the other’s buttons and imagining a scene in which we flipped between the two. My correspondent was also kind enough to teach me some all-purpose naughty German phrases, which I have filed away for future reference!
I love being mocked and belittled by a top, especially when I’m losing the fight. Being baby-talked is almost like being tickled, or spanked, or having a Hitachi Magic Wand used on me. Because I’m not a Little, deliberately overdone cooing and cuteness turn me on against my wishes, aggravate me and humiliate me to the extreme – it all works to drive home my shameful predicament, wind me up and shatter the argument that ‘I’m not a baby!” Done right, it’s mind-blowing, but almost too intense to take. Whoosh!
As well as individual words and objects, there are various dynamite phrases/modes that crop up repeatedly in my stories because they’re such hot buttons for real-life me. These include being talked about/to in the third person as though I’m a child (e.g. “Looks like little Jenna’s got a red bottom – that’s what happens when you defy grown-ups.”), references to ‘someone having a little accident’ and describing protests as ‘tantrums’. Delightfully, this opens the door to further raging protestations, and you end up completely proving the top’s point.
I try to vary my stories to keep it interesting, but forgive me if I revisit dialogue. It’s hard to stay away from little elements you find hot. When it comes to clothing and cruelly cutesy words, I love playing the hits, trying to make myself squirm and hoping others enjoy the effect too. There must be a German word for that.