INTRO FROM CWIS, AKA ‘ABYSITTER’
I came into our fetish before there was a real "community."
The internet actually existed before I started college - but I hadn't discovered it yet.
In my first year of college, almost nobody had it.
In year two, my college made it available to all students. And I got my first computer.
Still, at home I had access to some cheap, dumbed-down version of the internet. All text, no pictures.
At the beginning of the next year I discovered my college had what they called a ‘computer lab’ - a huge room complete with dozens of the newest computers, with access to the internet and printers.
Shortly thereafter, I discovered search engines.
Like many of you since, on a whim I began searching for terms like "diaper".
I was stunned by what I found.
Diaper fetish has existed for ages.
If I understand the reasons behind our love for diapers correctly, I'm quite certain it's existed since a few years after the first babies ever to wear diapers were taken out of them. That would be around the 1890s, if my knowledge of diaper history is correct. I picture World War I and II veterans hiding cloth diapers in with their battle gear… young people throughout the decades discovering their love for diapers.
Except, for many years, young people with a longing desire to be returned to diapers felt like most of us more-senior members of the community did growing up: weird... different... sick.
Without the internet, they could have no way of knowing how common their feelings for diapers are.
Today we know that there are literally thousands of people who identify as AB, DL, or some variant of the above. An entire community of adult babies, diaper lovers, babyfurs, and padded pups is just a few clicks away.
But back before the internet, it's likely that every single one of the people into diapers thought that they were totally alone.
I know I did until I turned 17.
In the decades before the internet was becoming commonplace our community was beginning to take shape.
At some point a man named "Tommy" started an organization called DPF - Diaper Pail Fraternity. It consisted of a newsletter that was snail-mailed to the organization’s members, and a ‘personals’ system that allowed members to write to each other; the letters would be mailed from DPF headquarters and, if a connection was made, members might make the jump to an actual phone call. (Makes FaceTiming on a moment's notice seem pretty fucking radical, right?)
It was a different world.
Members would find out about DPF by stroke of luck: reading ads placed in sex magazines and other places.
You younger ABDLs probably remember the first time you discovered a diaper website online, right? Our older generation has similar memories - of the day they found a mention of DPF in a paper magazine.
Eventually DPF began to get a bad rap after an article appeared in a national magazine - Penthouse, I believe - about one of its members who had taken to driving around in a van making children play the "poop smashing game" with their underwear.
Yeah, thanks asshole.
The individual had some sort of bedwetting clinic in his van, and he somehow, inexplicably managed to convince parents to allow him to treat their children for eneuresis. He wasn't a doctor or anything - just a good judge of gullible parents, it seems. He managed to find quite a few, and when he was finally arrested the police would find dozens pictures of diapered children in his van. The FBI would get involved, and much of the DPF membership who exchanged letters with the individual would find themselves on the receiving end of visits from agents. The magazine would report that there were ten suspects overall, and three arrests.
This article would be the way that I discovered there was a community for us. My best friend in high school left a copy of this particular issue of the magazine in my car and told me to read it from cover to cover - I’d find something I needed to read inside.
Part of the reason I've always been such a staunch advocate of our community being careful not to blur the lines of age appropriateness is because my first discovery of our community was such a negative one.
I was embarrassed to think that my friend might think that I was on the verge of opening my own bedwetting clinic in the back of a van. It would be years before I’d begin communicating with DPF members and finally learn - much like our community today - only a small fraction of its members were destined for the ‘hall of shame’.
Anyway, Diaper Pail Fraternity became Diaper Pail Friends, and soon went online.
DPF.com was the place to be for adult babies.
The website provided stories you could buy (they'd ship and mail printouts to you). Eventually, regression hypnosis tapes (hot sellers!) and even ABDL clothing and products would be sold by the website.
DPF.com gave members a place to meet, but it was crude as fuck. You'd search through a long list of members - you could input search terms by typing letters, like "D" for disposable and "P" for poopy diapers. It would bring up all of the members who were into what you were looking for, and you'd then scroll through to find your state, and then look for your city, age range, etc.
Back then the internet was so new that a lot of members weren't on it yet, so you'd have two options: email, or mail. Some members were only contactable via the mail, others via mail, and others both.
I still remember getting mail in my mailbox from DLs. It was a weird, creepy, guilt-inducing feeling for me. Today I exchange dozens of emails a month, but hearing from an actual ABDL back then - wow. Weird feeling.
DPF.com's drawbacks included that it didn't have any pictures. They did eventually come out with something called BabyClub, where members could pay for a site that included pictures. (I still remember younger people begging me to let them borrow my BabyClub membership login info - and me having to tell them I wasn't a member. I was a starving college kid, wtf.)
Eventually, Baby Davee would start a website called Aby.com.
Aby.com wasn't a community website, at first. Many of you discovered it after it converted to a community site circa 2004. Before that, it was a site where you could find pictures. And, for those of us just coming into this fetish, it was a motherfucking godsend.
I remember the day I discovered it. I was in a computer lab at my college. I almost squirted in my pants. Picture after picture of guys in diapers. Picture Tumblr today. Aby.com was so primitive by those standards... just a page with links to other pages, and you'd click on the file name of the picture to see it. But for me, who'd drawn pictures of guys in diapers as a child because I'd never gotten to see any - I was in absolute ABDL heaven.
Many of the pictures were the kind of pictures you still find if you search for terms like "diaperboy" on Google. They were pictures of frat brothers in diapers. Halloween costumes with adults in diapers. People wearing diapers on a dare.
I remember wondering if these were actual ABDLs. If they were, it was hot. If they weren't, it was... well, fuck it... it was still hot.
Other pictures were obvious fakes. But with such a shortage of diaperboy pics, fakes were acceptable. There were pasties. Some were ridiculously awful. Others were very realistic. The Vincent VanGoo series of pasties, for example: the pictures I first fapped to. I would print pictures of VanGoo's pasties out on the public, shared printer - and just be sure that I was the first person to reach it. (Talk about an adrenaline rush). Then I'd take them home.
It all seems so ridiculous today...
What follows is a ‘deep dive’ into the history of the ABDL community as it relates to the internet. From our very first websites to the early artwork that put our fantasies into pictoral form.
I’ll add to this as members of the community reach out with some content from their own archives. If you’re an old-timer and you have something to share that you feel would go well here, please get in touch.
