Tanks For The Mammaries: an anniversary note and a complex question from Latecomer

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latecomer
Tanks For The Mammaries: an anniversary note and a complex question from Latecomer

Today, the line "tanks for the mammaries" just popped into my head (pun intended) and it was so swell (yeah yeah, OK I'll stop now), I thought it deserved to have a story written around it, in which it gets used as the droll punch line at the very end. Alas- a quick search of the site revealed that none other than our own esteemed L.V. Kane used that very line in a story (a good one too, I might add; he obviously writes for a living) that he wrote all the way back in 2007. Sigh- so it goes. 

Next month will mark the anniversary of my first posting here- "Big Debbie's Diving Mishap"- in which I brought forth and exercised a broad spectrum of stored-up fetishes and fantasies. Later in the year I posted a couple more stories and then I finally got up enough nerve to upload a pencil sketch, which led to more sketches and more interactions with those of you who read my stories and perused my sketches.

But now we come to the point where I bang the conundrum, as follows. A year ago I was stunned speechless to stumble upon this site and discover that I was not the only person in the whole wide world with a brain that was wired to associate female inflation with, of all things, sexual arousal and gratification. The second stunning revelation was my discovery that the population with whom I shared this odd characteristic contained a wide variety of extremely gifted (and obviously professional) writers, artists, graphic designers, and web wizards. They could put into words or a few curved lines on my very own computer screen not only the thoughts and images that have meaninglessly flitted in and out of my head for as long as I can remember, but also the feelings and emotions that those thoughts and images triggered in me. It was they who inspired me to try my hand at writing and sketching, as noted above.  

Living the life of a deepy-closeted inflation fetishist did things to me over the years which today I cannot look back upon with anything but regret and a certain sense of disillusionment. Each hour I spent acting out those fantasies by myself in secret was, in my case, intended to fill a certain void- which it did in some ways, at least temporarily, but in other ways it just made the void darker and deeper as the decades rolled by. And inevitably, each hour spent in "that" way, doing "those" things, represented an hour which then could not be spent dealing with why that void was there in the first place. 

By now, that void has grown quite dark and deep indeed, and at this stage of my life I have come to realize that it defines who I have become: a fundamentally conflicted and above all else a fundamentally lonely and fairly bitter middle-aged man whose clock I fear has not enough hours remaining on it for him to finally fill that void with something other than fantasies and fetishes played out in a room with the door locked and the curtains closed when no one else is home.

I now harbor the fear that by posting my stories and sketches here, I might actually be encouraging other people who, like me, found the usual and ordinary means of experiencing fulfillment to be out of reach and who, like me, then turned inward to exercise those fantasies and fetishes as a void-filling substitute- but who, unlike me, are still young enough now to fix the void and avoid my fate, which I do not wish upon anyone.  

Part of me says I should therefore stop posting here, plant tongue in cheek and say "tanks for the mammaries", log off, and try as best I can to fill the void with the real thing, whatever it may be. Part of me says none of it matters anymore by this point- regrets be damned, etc.- and that I should surrender to the void and let everyone else make their own choices. 

What say you? Please discuss. 

Best regards,

-Latecomer

LutherVKane
LutherVKane's picture

There are a lot of issues here on which I'm fairly opinionated, but I'll try to be concise.

There's nothing inherently wrong with producing stories or art about inflation.

You're not responsible for people who take an unhealthy interest in your work.

One of worst parts of being an inflationist is the sense of of being uniquely freakish. Discovering that I wasn't alone contributed greatly to my well-being.

Ultimately, these things don't tell you whether you should stay or go. If your main concern is your impact on the young, then you just need to answer one question: Would you be better or worse off today if you'd discovered a community of like-minded people to share your interests and concerns with when you were young?

latecomer

Dear Luther,

I appreciate your opinions. No need to hold back other than, as you said, the desire to be concise. I will think carefully about what you expressed to me and see how I feel afterwards. 

Just a couple of other things- first, you are right-on regarding the freakishness aspect. Second, the whole reason that I have begun this journey of self-understanding as regards my status as an inflationist is the superb job you have done in setting up and then running and maintaining this web site, which I am sure required a significant amount of courage on your part to embark upon. I want to thank you for that. 

Best regards and thanks again for your comments and all your hard work-

-Latecomer

pballooned

I can only speak for myself, but I think a great solution is... to not hide your inflation interest. At least not entirely.

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-"each hour spent in "that" way ... represented an hour which then could not be spent dealing with why that void was there in the first place"

Response: For me, to figure out a way to make a living out of something you like is a great combo, that way you do not need to spend your time doing something else that drains your energy away. I'm trying to "invest" in getting that kind of life.

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-"lonely and fairly bitter middle-aged man" " fantasies and fetishes played out in a room with the door locked...when no one else is home"

Response: I'm guessing "lonely and bitter" are because you judge yourself a lot. "Fantasies and fetishes", are not bad if that's what you like, even if you don't feel like doing anything else. There's probably fear of the society's judgement. If you manage to cross those opinions, you will be freer. It is still a challenge for me too.

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I don't want to annoy anyone, but there's a technique I mentioned a couple months ago called EFT. It basically helps dissolve negative emotions. Could be pretty useful in cases like this, to confront fear, shame, etc, and help take decisions. I might make a Youtube video for an example of it applied to some of these Inflation dilemmas sometime.

latecomer

Pballooned, thanks for sharing your thoughts on this and also for your responses to what I write and draw, I value them both. Here are some responses to your points...

As much as it would be cool to make a living out of something that I like, I hold no illusions about earning money by drawing and writing inflation stuff... I hope you succeed at setting yourself up with a job that is something you love doing, because I also know that that is the best setup anyone can hope for. (By the way, I had a taste of this- I played electric bass (my one true love) to pay the bills in the 1970's but I just barely got by!)

Yes, I judge myself a lot. Always have and probably always will. And were I to ever accidentally "come out" publically, my life as a resident of a small town would be ruined forever. This is a secret that I only share with you guys. 

-Latecomer

And

-Latecomer

Redsnake

The key here I think, as it is in all things, is moderation. If anything in your life draws undue attention to itself, it's time to step back a bit, maybe let it rest entirely until you can disprove your need to indulge to deeply and approach it instead with a healthy level of devotion. The notion, though, that your interest is in and of itself somehow bad or distateful or unnatural is a false one. You may not know exactly why it exists, but w've got our best and brightest making careers out of attempts to quantify the drive behind our most mundane impulses. The point is, if we can't even figure out what sets a pair of twins' personalities apart or why if you drop a handful of pennies that you can immediately tell if there are four but have to count each one if there are five, the idea of an inflation fetish seems downright pedestrian. I'm not sure if my line of thought is clear, but the general idea is that, to me, judging yourself for your interest seems about as logical as beating yourself up about having a favorite color. It's just something that exists, and there's no sense pretending it doesn't.

On the subject of encouragement, I'll say (perhaps simply less succinctly than Luther) that we aren't defined by our media, but rather how we react to them. I can play Borderlands and laugh at a bandit's reaction to being shot, set on fire, and literally melted, because I've accepted that I'm interacting with a world driven by absurdity and self-aware, if rather explicit, wanton violence. I can then watch Apocalypse Now and feel horrified all the same as military choppers strafe a village because I'm there to appreciate a work of moral commentary. Similarly, in my writing process I try to exercise my creativity in certain ways, look to improve command of language and enjoy each bit of imagery or turn of phrase. I know the base purpose of the library here, but I focus on the wordsmithing and creating something that happens to fill some niche rather than focusing on the destination and letting the journey fall by the wayside. And I don't have any delusions of grandeur, but I have to hope that the intent bleeds through and that some reader will feel challenged to improve themselves, to try their hand in the first place, or to simply increase their appreciation for the English language. Seeing your work, you quite obviously have a similar approach, and it's absolutely commendable. You're spitting in the ocean as far as enabling anyone to explore their closeted desires, but there's a very good chance that you'll end up making them think.

latecomer

Excellent advice, and professionally expressed. Your line of thought is perfectly clear; agree on all points, especially regarding  moderation. 

As far as brain wiring is concerned, I am a left-handed musician with a math bent and have studied everything I can get my hands on about lateralization of brain function. The neurophysiology community can account for why a certain type of stroke, for example, will impair speech or face recognition, but as to why I myself imagine that blowing up women will make them experience pleasure, they have no answers and it is doubtful they ever will. 

In my next story- which will be a short and light one as these things go- I will touch on what I imagine it would be like for an inflationist to find a soul mate early on with whom he shares the same quirk of brain wiring. Had that happened to me, I would have become and remained the happiest man on the planet. 

Thanks again for your thoughtfulness, I appreciate it greatly. 

-Latecomer

nineteenthly

This is why i'm pretty open and "in-your-face" about my fetishes. Just as there's a BDSM community about which everyone knows and men who "cross-dress" (don't get me started on why that's in quotes and yes, i'm aware it's often not sexual) openly, which has made their proclivities more public and helps people who have them feel less down on themselves, we could be that way too if we weren't ashamed about this. It'll probably never be more than a small minority interest but there was a time when people were not only ashamed of being gay but when psychiatrists treated it with drugs as a mental illness. I do discourage people from trying to inflate themselves to some extent, but i think we basically need to be proud of this. The problem with that is that whereas homosexuality or wanting to "cross-dress" in public clearly does make a fairly noticeable difference to one's entire lifestyle, this is more the kind of thing which doesn't come up in polite conversation. However, the thing is that there are people out there who want to be inflated and people out there who want to inflate them, and for some of us it's particularly central to sex and therefore the expression of romantic love which cements relationships together, and i can't think of any reason why those people shouldn't get together and have loving, nurturing partnerships, and the way to achieve that, to my mind, is to trumpet my perversion from the rooftops, which is of course what i do. The more people know about this, the better, because it means more people are happier.

http://www.youtube.com/user/nineteenthly

 

latecomer

Nineteenthly, I admire your courage. I want you and everyone else who has posted responses to my original letter to know how much it means to me to log on here and read the insights that others are providing. This is so much more valuable than what I have ever gotten out of handing hundred-dollar bills to shrinks for an hour's worth of their time, because unlike that guy in the cozy office with the diplomas on his wall and a bookcase full of texts and a fresh box of kleenex strategically positioned right next to the client's chair, you guys have LIVED this, and you KNOW what  it is about. 

-Latecomer

 

 

carnatic

If you're worried that you're losing your life to this fetish then it could just be that you're still getting those years of sexual frustration out of your system. You're not the first person here to worry about this, but from the sounds of things you've spent longer than anyone else has in the 'why am I the only person with this strange afflication' phase.

The desire to spend more time thinking about inflation rises and falls, and you might find that in your second year here, naturally you will go days without giving it a second thought, or will be satisfied with a few minutes a day. If you feel it isn't a healthy part of your life at the moment then hold onto the hope that it will become one. Trying to give it up will only take you back to where you were before you discovered us.

Hopefully over the next year your outlook will become more positive and less voidy.

latecomer

Thanks, Carnatic. I am beginning to suspect that one reason I am troubled and bitter has to do with circumstances that do not have anyting to do with inflation per se. The last two years have been particularly rough in the sense that most of the void creation has taken place then and I haven't found any particularly effective coping mechanisms since, except for my art, but that's not the same thing as intimacy and is not a satisfactory substitute.

And you are spot-on about trying to give it up. Every single time I have tried to, I have gone straight back to the worst place and resumed feeling miserable.

Balance, balance, balance... it's all about balance...   -Latecomer