Age Play (Part One)

It’s Age Play Week here on Time Delay. I had originally planned on this material running during the first week of February, but other stuff happened instead of me getting it written, so it ended up getting (what else?) time delayed until now.

I had hoped to have the entire series finished before I posted any of it. Guess what? That didn’t happen. My plan was for marathon writing sessions over the weekend. Instead I screwed up my back on Friday, making it horribly painful for me to sit in front of my computer. (It’s getting better, and I’m hoping to produce more than just a single post a day so that I finish the series a day or two before the final installment needs posting. But, no promises.)

At this point, it looks like a five-parter, but it could easily go either four or six, depending on whether I’ve got enough topic, whether I’ve got too much topic, and – as always – the whims of fate.

Fantasies and Other Preconceived Notions

I can’t really tell you when age play first made it onto my radar. I know that back in the early to mid 80s, I saw an issue of Penthouse Letters with a pictorial of a woman named Wendy Welles, who at 21 years old was 4’7” and weighed 75 lbs. It included pictures of her in braided pigtails, stripping out of little girl’s clothing. And sitting naked on a hobby horse.

But age play was probably something I found reference to on the internet years ago which got my attention, and upon further research, made me horny.

Sexual roleplay is one of those things that just feels right to me. And the age play subcategory of that . . . oh, yes please. The thought of having sex with a grown woman pretending to be a little girl? (Anything from that always sexy white-shirt-and-plaid-skirt schoolgirl outfit to pigtails with a teddy bear under one arm and a thumb in her mouth.) It makes me hard just thinking about it.

The thought of a sexual encounter with someone while I pretend to be a twelve-year-old, sexually curious boy? Either being caught peeping as a means of an anatomy lesson, or the classic paperboy’s fantasy of getting a blowjob for a month’s subscription to the paper when the lady of the house can’t find her checkbook. Or any number of other scenarios.

And best of both worlds, my ‘little boy’ playing with her ‘little girl’ and having the encounter turn all the right kinds of naughty.

That was my initial understanding of age play. And, just like my initial understanding of BDSM (as explained not very long ago in my “BDSMI” post), age play turns out to be a much more diverse subject than just another way for people to fuck.

The Standard Disclaimers

There are also some preconceived notions about age play that seem to crop up among other people (usually those who aren’t interested in it at all, but find fault with it nevertheless). It’s been my experience that it’s rare to find any material on age play that doesn’t include a blurb addressing at least one if not both of the big ones. And since that is the custom, then I, too, shall comply.

Age play has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with pedophilia. Age play has nothing to do with actual biological children. It’s about adults playing with the concept of age as it relates to themselves. Legal adults pretending to be kids. And legal adults interacting with other legal adults who are pretending to be kids.

Any sexual age play has no interaction with actual children.

The other major accusation leveled at age players is that they all suffer from dissociative identity disorder, or DID (which is still sometimes better known as multiple personality disorder, or MPD).

A few of the major case studies of DID/MPD patients include an ‘alter’ (one of the multiple personalities living in their head) that was a child. Largely because of this, a lot of the fiction involving DID/MPD also usually includes a child alter. So when you have an adult who exhibits a persona that insists it’s a little kid, some numbskull is obviously going to jump to the conclusion that it’s a mental illness. And a specific mental illness that they saw an episode about in a lawyer or doctor show, at that.

So: The vast majority of age players are NOT pedophiles and are NOT afflicted with DID/MPD. Got it? Good. We continue . . .

Role-Play

Age players are role players. The roles they play are either younger than they are, or people with authority over young people (parents, teachers, etc.). On one level, it’s no different than when a bored and horny couple decide to play pirate and wench, or warden and prisoner.

Sometimes it’s just very casual play. “Hey, honey? Do you want to be little kids tonight? We can play ‘doctor’.” And then the next time that role play comes up, it’s something else.

A lot of the non-casual age play isn’t so much your garden variety role play as much as it is something that I’ve started to call persona play (a concept which, yes, will indeed get it’s own post at some point in the future). You’re not just taking on a role, but you’re actually adopting a (or an additional) persona. It’s more than just a role. It’s based in part on your personality, feelings, wants, and desires. It’s consistent unto itself, and a character that you can step into when you want to. Step back out of when playtime is over.

The Roles

There are two basic roles in age play. Children and adults. (Although I rarely ever seen them referred to that way. It’s more likely to see terms like littles and bigs. Or kidz and adultz. Inner-child or inner-kid is one I’ve seen used quite a bit. I’m assuming it’s the whole distancing the play from accusations of pedophilia that ‘requires’ the use of terms other than ‘children’ and ‘adults’.)

While lurking on some of the FetLife age play groups for research purposes, I’ve seen a variety of different theories about how many categories of ages there are for age player. Everything from three (baby, kid, and teen) up to much longer lists divided by combinations of age, progression through schooling, and other variables. Of course, I’ve also seen the point of view represented that things like this shouldn’t be separated into categories at all. Sometimes these theories are part of a discussion, sometimes part of an argument.

But in Lee Harrington’s “The Toybag Guide to Ageplay”, he initially breaks it down into six basic age categories, and I’m going to be using that structure (as much as I’ll be using any structure) for this series of posts.

These ‘ages’ (which I’ll discuss in more detail shortly) are pre-verbal, toddler, school kid, teenager, post-teen/young adult, and adult.

Play Styles

There are different styles of age play, the full realization of which gives me BDSMI flashbacks.

Sometimes regression ageplay is there to bring out a person’s healthy inner child to play. Other times regression ageplay therapy is there to deal with an actual dissociative child personalitiy (in which case, there is some DID/MPD going on, but I wouldn’t classify those cases as being people who choose to do the sort of age play that I’m talking about here).

Some age players just like the thought of reliving their youth, and keep that play separate from their sexuality.

Then there are those that like the naughty sexual stuff. Starting with encounters between littles and bigs. Spicing up your sex life by acting out a student/teacher fantasy is a form of age play. Horny middle-aged dad and the hot teen baby-sitter is another. (The teen/early adult babysitter and little boy with a crush is another dirty little age play fantasy.)

Sometimes sexual age play hinges on incest fantasies. (It certainly has in almost all of what little age play erotica I’ve read.) Two adults playing out a ‘daddy/daughter’ relationship sexually. Or ‘mommy/son’. Aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. All fair game for fantasy scenarios.

Little kids trying to act ‘all grown up’. And what’s more grown up than an activity than carries an ‘Adults Only’ label on it?

And while I’m told that it’s far less common (which really surprises me, as I kind of figured it would be at least as prevalent as little/big sex, if not more), you also have littles having sexual encounters with littles.

Recreating early efforts of playing doctor and other ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours’ games . . . and carrying them further than just showing. ‘I’ll let you touch mine if you let me touch yours’ becomes ‘I’ll suck yours if you lick mine’ becomes ‘do you wanna fuck me’?

Teen-based littles experimenting with their newfound sexuality . . . being very quiet in your girlfriend’s bedroom and touching her breasts for the first time. Carefully sliding a finger inside her. Or fumbling around in the backseat of a parked car. Taking a hard cock in your mouth and sucking on it, just like you’ve heard about the older girls doing. Or very, very nervously going all the way for the first time.

Age Play Motives

After looking at the various play styles, the next question is play motives. Not how do you play, but why? What’s in it for you.

Vacationing in Youth

There are a lot of people who were never as happy as when they were a child (which is a good enough reason for age play right there). Being young and playing with their friends was the most fun they’ve ever had.

(There are also people who, as adults, never have more fun then when they’re having sex. The overlap between these groups explains another motive for little/little sex. Getting the best of both worlds by regressing to childhood and having that wonderful sex with your ‘little’ friends while there.)

Toys, playgrounds, running around outside, other little kids/littles to play with, and so on and so on.

RetCon Play

Of course, for some people it wasn’t so much toys, playgrounds, the outdoors, friends and so on as it was poverty, alcoholic parents, abusive parents, sexually abusive step-parents, foster homes, and suicidal ideation.

For these people, age play isn’t so much a means of reliving their youth as it is an opportunity to rewrite it into something better. Happier. More pleasant. Less nightmarish, at the very least.

Sometimes – if the proper resources and relationships are available to them – a person who’s had a traumatic childhood will relive various childhood experiences under the protection of a guardian of their own choosing (one who oftentimes becomes their ‘mommy’ or ‘daddy’ – or ‘auntie’, ‘uncle’, and so on)

This relationship is known as reparenting, and runs anywhere from an occasional thing to a 24/7 style parent/child association. The little will often dress exclusively in children’s style clothes, play with toys, do chores, and have a set bedtime. It sometimes becomes a permanent lifestyle at a static age. Other times it is a project that ‘ages’ their little back up toward adulthood, with their age-played ‘childhood’ becoming their new, non-traumatic pleasant background.

Second Chances

Much like Jim Kirk (ooh – geeky Star Trek II reference!) I was never a boy scout. I wanted to be a boy scout, but there wasn’t a scout troop in my area growing up. One time Dad and I went to Goodwill, and I found a Boy Scout handbook. I asked him to buy it for me, and he told me, “No. That’s for boy scouts. You’re not a boy scout, so you can’t have that.”

(Fifteen years or so later, my brother and sister both wanted to get into scouting. There were still no scout troops in our area. So Mom and Dad contacted the Cub Scouts and Girl Scouts organizations, found out what was needed . . . and then started their own troops. Hmm. Thanks a lot, Mom and Dad.)

Truth be told, as much as I wanted to be a scout back then – and as much as I still want to have been a scout back then, if for no other reason than that I’d know how to tie knots now – it’s not really something that I’d want to try and get in on as an aspect of age play now. But it does make a good example of the kind of thing that you miss out on for one reason or another in your childhood that really pisses you off. The kind of thing that age play can let you play around with now.

Born at the Wrong Time

The VCR became a success when I was in the sixth grade or thereabouts. It wasn’t long after that that I got my first computer, which was a Commodore 64. I also had a small portable cassette deck – and it and my record player are how I listened to music. I had friends who had the Atari home video game system, and I was incredibly jealous of that. I remember when we got our first answering machine. Our first microwave oven.

Al Gore hadn’t gotten around to inventing the internet yet. There was no such thing as voice mail. Or CDs. Or DVDs. Or celphones. Or the Wii. (There wasn’t even the bare bones Nintendo NES back then.)

Kids today have all the best toys. Which means that littles today have the opportunity to have toys that they’d never dreamed of having when they were actual biological children.

(Plus, on the age play as a sexual activity front, kids seem to be experimenting with sex at younger and younger ages, according to all the alarmist studies that make headlines on slow news days.)

Teen Sex (Without Guilt or the Philosophy of ‘Saving Yourself’)

Growing up, I was a good Catholic boy. I couldn’t have teenage sex, because if I did, God would do bad things to me, or something. (Plus, I spent my teen years emotionally hung up on first Rabbit (not her real name) and then Penny (not her real name, either.)

If I didn’t have the unrequited love or the Catholic guilt stuff working for me, I’m pretty sure that I could have gotten laid. I think that if I had actively pursued Rocket Girl (not her real name), it would have gotten me some action. (The same story with the Evil Spider (not her real name), but sex with her would have caused way too much drama, and lost me several friends.) There was a possibility of a one-night stand kinda thing with Crackers (not her real name), whom I only knew for the space of a week. And I’m pretty sure that I could have had Little Anathema (not her real name) if I’d’ve wanted. There were a few girls who were clearly interested in me. Including one actual woman who didn’t realize I wasn’t a legal adult yet.

If I knew then what I know now, I would have most likely made an effort to get into the pants of each and every one of those people (except the Evil Spider).

I can fully understand the desire to play a teenager. Experimenting with your sexuality. Without guilt. Without the notion of saving yourself for marriage. And with adequate protection.

“I’ve Outgrown Nothing, Do You Hear Me? Nothing!”

When I was a kid, I read comics and I played with action figures. I watched cartoons. I colored in coloring books. And the number of stuffed animals I owned? Yikes!

I don’t really ever lay on the floor playing with my toys like I did when I was a child, but none of the action figures I’ve bought in the last ten years are still mint-in-package. And they can be found in strange poses all over the place (sometimes with word balloons thumb-tacked to the wall above their heads).

I still read comics. I still watch animation. I don’t color very often, but every couple of years, I’ll pick up a coloring book, or be given one for Christmas. (And the number of stuffed animals I own? Yikes!)

There’s all this stuff that you are supposed to ‘outgrow’ at a certain point. Some of which you do automatically. Some of which you choose to, often regretfully. Some of which you pretend to. Some of which you don’t . . . and don’t openly.

Age play can serve as an excuse to dabble in these lost hobbies and practices. Coloring, for example, seems to be an almost universal age play activity. I’d imagine that immersion in 12-year old culture is very appealing to geeks and fanboys with the age play interest. Comics, action figures, etc.

How Old Are You?

The youngest level of age play is pre-verbal. (Both this category and the next one fall under the umbrella categories of ‘Adult Babies’ or ‘Diaper Lovers’ or AB/DL, a desire that is officially labeled ‘infantilism’ by the paraphilia people.) Pre-verbal are young babies. These age players seek out guardians that will take care of them completely. Bottle feeding, diaper changing, etc. They don’t speak in language (although they’ll cry and make the kind of nonsense noises that some babies make). They don’t walk.

The next level, and other half of the AB/DL group, is the toddlers. They alternately speak in either baby talk or a limited vocabulary language, and can walk awkwardly around. They are still in diapers, and take both bottle and some solid foods. They still require more supervision than any of the age play categories above them.

Next you’ve got school kids. Anything from kindergarten on up through about the fifth or sixth grade.

Then come the teenagers. Twelve or thirteen years old through seventeen or eighteen.

The post-teen/young adult category is the nebulous buffer zone between being a teenager and being an adult. That time when you’re old enough to vote and die for your country, but not old enough to legally drink. The college era, before you set out to start your career and your own life.

And then there’s adulthood. This is a great big whopping category that’s probably filled to the brim with subcategories all it’s own. People involved in age play who take on the roles of the caretakers fit here. The mommies and daddies. Teachers, and other non-relative authority figures. But the biologically fifty year old men who play the role of the 25 year old – they’re still playing adults, just younger. Or going the other way, the person in their 20s taking on the grandparent role.

Anyway, that’s it for the moment. More tomorrow.

Part Two