How I went from hiding my interest in latex to accepting it.
Hi everyone! I'm new to this sub and fairly new to latex. I apologize in advance, this is going to be a long post as there is a lot of backstory but I think it will be worth the read. This is my story on how I got into latex and how it has impacted my life.
One of my earliest memories was when I was about 3 or 4 years old. I vividly remember one night when I was handling a green inflated balloon and thinking of how much I liked the feeling, sight, and smell of the material. I liked it a lot, but it felt like there was something I was suppose to do with it but I didn't know what and it was really frustrating for me. Also early in my childhood I was diagnosed with high functioning autism. (that bit of information will explain a lot of things in this post)
Fast forward a little later in life (Elementary School age) any time I handled a balloon or a latex workout band I had the same reaction. I really liked everything about it. Sight, smell, feel, sound, how it stretched, just everything about it was appealing to me. These feelings were conflicting because I still felt like I needed to do something and I did not know what. I also felt weird about liking it, and was afraid to bring this up to anyone because it did not seem normal. As the years went by, my interactions and reactions to latex never changed. I got into my teenage years and discovered what arousal was. and this is where things started to get really complicated.
I remember a night where my dad was watching one of those "People are awesome" compilations on YouTube, and one of the clips was this very attractive women wearing a spandex skin suit and doing some stretching. I made a comment like "That looks kinda comfortable." and my dad was like "No it doesn't, it would crush you're balls." I feel like subconsciously I was testing the waters, seeing how someone would react if I made a comment about potentially enjoying tight conforming clothing, and well... I got my answer. After seeing that I started to have thoughts of what women would look like wearing latex clothing, which was very arousing for me. I did eventually find out that it was indeed... a thing. Because I was curious and had access to the internet (I literally just typed "Rubber Suit" into Ebay and that was how I found out lol) So seeing that for the first time was a bit of a shocker lol. I couldn't believe it was real, not only does it look amazing on women but I also had the thought "I wonder what it be like to wear it? I bet it feels really good." I had also discovered things like latex sleep sacks, and I have wanted to try one so bad ever since I saw it.
The thing that made these feelings so complicated for me was growing up in a religious family. I was taught in church that feelings of arousal are reserved for marriage, so as you could imagine, I felt very guilty and weird about liking this, and I didn't want to like it for that reason. Because of all this, I also did not feel safe to bring these feelings up to my parents, however... guilt always got the best of me and I told them what I looked up. Of course as you could imagine, I got a little bit of a lecture that what I did was wrong (I think my parents were scared that I would eventually get into porn because of this) aside from the churchy lecture, they were basically like "just don't do it again, or there will be consequences, including talking to the Bishop." This scared me cause I did not want anyone else to know about this.
Fast forward some more years and I still felt really weird about it, so I did not bring this up to ANYONE, I just bottled all of it inside, until one night I was hanging out with a friend and we were talking about kinks. I hinted towards him that I had one and of course he wanted to know what. After mustering up some courage, I said "latex clothing" His reaction was "Really? I did not expect that. You know that's more common than you realize right? That doesn't make you weird." We talked about it some more and I started to realize that maybe I have been overthinking it this whole time. That was the first time I started to feel kind of ok about this whole thing. However, the thought still remained "What would it be like to wear it?" When ever I would think that, my next thought would be "I can't ever do that, men can't wear latex clothing, that's just not right." While I felt somewhat better about the situation now, there was obviously still some internal conflict.
A little bit more backstory to help you understand this next part. I have delt with severe depression since I was a teen. I was bullied in school (Unrelated to the latex interest) still felt a lot of guilt and shame from my religion and from past trauma, but the biggest contributor to the depression was the lack of companionship. (never had a girl friend or much luck with women overall, aside from being kissed once)
To this day, I am still single (late twenties) I have never been in a relationship, and I am still... lets just say... inexperienced. (Mostly due to religious reasons) I have never wanted anything so bad in life but to have a women who I love and who loves me back. I also deeply crave physical intimacy and have been touch starved for many years. There are times when the depression over this gets so bad that I start to feel a heavy tension throughout my entire body. My chest, back and stomach feel it the most. It is an indescribable feeling of physical and emotional anguish. It was especially bad this past December and January. It got to the point where it just became unbearable.
At this point I had been moved out of my dad's place for several months. When I was in the process of moving out, the thought occurred to me "Now that I'm going to be living on my own, I can finally buy a latex sleep sack or something." I didn't do it for a while but I eventually ordered the sleep sack. I was so excited, after over a decade of waiting and wondering I finally had the freedom to enjoy my niche interest. That same night after I had placed the order, I was thinking to myself, "You know what?! this has been apart of me ever since I was a little kid! I did not choose this. Sure it's a little weird and different but I'm not hurting anyone and it's something I enjoy. Who cares what anyone thinks of this! I do not need to feel guilty or ashamed of this any longer!" After I said that I could feel years of bottled up tension rise to my chest, and then my throat. I knew what was happening, my body was wanting to release this negative energy... so I let it happen. I imagined myself as that teen who felt so ashamed over having a sensory interest, and for once, I felt empathy for me and what I had been through. I let it all out! I could physically feel years of bottled up emotions leaving my body in a spiral, and after about 20 minutes of just feeling my feelings, I finally just felt ok about it, like it wasn't a problem anymore.
Some time later I bought some knee high latex socks (the sleep sack was still being made/shipped) And this was my first time using any piece of latex clothing. So I put them on, let them conform a bit and MY GOSH, that fricken rocked my world. The tactile feel of the smooth latex conforming and compressing my feet and calves felt amazing! I felt a deep calming sensation through my body but also felt this very intense systemic "Buzzing" feeling in my nerves. After I was done I was like "What the hell just happened to my body?!" It was unlike anything I had ever experienced.
The next day, I was at work (Heavy Equipment Operator) and I probably looked like I was high lol. The systemic buzzing was still there and I felt so calm and just amazing, euphoric even... My body had never felt so good before. After this experience I noticed that I felt calmer, less depressed and less angry. This change was significant compared to how I have been in the past. I told myself in the beginning "No one will ever know that I am trying latex clothing." but after the experience I just had, I had to share this with someone I trust, especially cause I had a reaction beyond anything I expected.
After a lot of thinking and mustering of courage I decided to tell one person that I know I could trust to keep this a secret and not judge me... my aunt. I ended up telling her and she was very cool about it, she was very understanding and supportive to me, and she was happy that I got past the shame, and that I found something that makes me happy and that seems to calm my nervous system. I feel like talking with my aunt was the final step in accepting that this is just apart of me. I finally accepted me as a person.
Fast forward a few weeks and I finally got my sleep sack in the mail. I was like a kid on Christmas when I received it, I was celebrating the wait being over. The sleep sack has been by far my favorite piece of latex. It is probably the most physically pleasurable thing I have ever experienced. The sleep sack is like a smooth, tactile, tight, and elastic hug around my entire body, it is DEEPLY satisfying to me, and I am able to relax in it more than I have ever relaxed in my life. I love how restrictive it is and I love feeling the resistance against my movement. I get a sense of feeling held and contained as if I was wrapped in a cocoon. After experiencing the sleep sack my mood has improved so much. I am less angry, less tense, I have been sleeping better, and my feelings of depression about being single and touch starved has been significantly reduced.
I still feel sad about being single, and I still get angry about the crappy things that happen in life, but I have noticed that I return to a normal baseline much quicker than I use to. I haven't delt with genuine depression in 7 months since this started. I am just more happy in life overall. I think all I needed was to just feel something. From what I understand, some people with autism can be particularly sensitive to certain sensations and I think this may be why I seem to be hypersensitive to latex. Even just handling latex is very calming and satisfying for me.
As I became more accepting that this is a part of me, I told more people this story, people that I am very close to and trust enough not judge me. I feel like they deserved to know why I changed. My dad was one among the people that I told. I know that he kind of sounds like the bad guy of this story but he's changed a lot over the years and we have a pretty close relationship. It was definitely weird explaining it to him, but he was cool and understanding about it and he was glad that I told him.
I know that this is an "advice" sub but I didn't know where else to post something like this. I also don't typically show this level of vulnerability, but I really wanted to share this with people who also enjoy latex.
My journey is not over, I just ordered a neck entry catsuit from Bright and Shiny, and I am very excited to experience that. I also plan on eventually trying a vac bed and a vac cube one of these days, but I either will have to seek that one out or wait until I have a partner. I hope that one day I get into a relationship with a women who is open to trying latex but until then... I will continue to enjoy it myself. This has been a very liberating experience.
Sorry for any spelling, grammar, or punctuation errors. I am not the best writer lol.
If any of you are open to it, I would like to hear your story.
Thank you all, and I look forward to being apart of the discussions on this sub.