In The News: Tykables Controversy

When Snuggies was still in the formation stages and trying to find investors I did quite a bit of promotional posts for them, both on my blog and via Twitter. Some people mistook my posts and tweets for my having an ownership stake in the would-be company, and I found myself explaining that my posts were just informational in nature and that I had no actual connection to the business. My purpose for sharing was two-fold: I post stuff of interest to the community all the time, and this was no exception; and, I saw the potential of Snuggies diapers - I was, after all, a huge fan of the Snuggies series of pasties by Vincent Vangoo back in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Most of you know the rest: Snuggies did, indeed, come to fruition. They designed and manufactured some diapers, and then improved them with various production runs. They eventually changed their name to Tykables - it appears that Snuggies and Huggies were a bit too close - and continued to put out product, even sponsoring some events (CAPCON, a play area at the Folsom Street Fair, etc.).

The company recently opened a physical store in a suburb of Chicago, and owner Todaler put out a video on YouTube inviting people to visit.

This did not sit well with the locals, somehow tipped off to the existence of this video, and they began to organize an opposition to the shop. Dozens of them converged on a village council meeting recently, demanding that the store be shut down. 

Their reasons were the typical reasons given by anyone who doesn't have a full understanding of ABDL: sex may be happening inside... there's an elementary school just down the street... sex shops don't belong in a residential neighborhood... you've heard some of it before, so you get the idea.

This has, probably not surprisingly, been covered by local media. And now the story is getting picked up by the national media... 

From the Washington Post

And Esquire Magazine Online

Here's CBS News

And the Chicago Tribune

I've had a few people ask me to weigh in on this since the story first broke - whether I think it's good for the community, bad for the community, or catastrophic for the community. (I'm a bit late on this because my ABDL Photo/Story contest was going on until two days ago.)

I've heard from people who are angry that Tykables opened a physical store at all - some believe that our love for diapers belongs online, or in fetish shops, and not in shops they believe are fetish shops masquerading as nurseries or diaper stores. 

I've heard from other people who are angry at the Mount Prospect, IL community - they believe that the shop has every right to be there, and that the townsfolk are nothing more uptight NIMBY's who are discriminating against a shop - one person called it a 'civil rights violation'. 

And then, of course, there are positions in between. 

I'm honestly undecided as to whether making the move to a physical store was a good idea.

That said, there are already adult nurseries in some cities, and have been for more than a decade. The idea that a store catering to our community would open in the U.S. one day is something that many of us have discussed for decades - Rearz, in Canada, already has a warehouse with a store within it, and we hoped for something similar here in the US. 

There are a few mistakes I think the Tykables folks made, although hindsight is 20/20 in these things:

• The shop appears to have failed to consider restricting their business to those 18 and above at first, offering to do so if the local government requested it; 
• They placed building blocks in the windows, which undoubtedly created a welcoming display, but was misinterpreted by some neighbors as an attempt to be "inviting to minors." 

My regular readers alright know how I feel about keeping our community 18+, and I believe that this should have been something that the business was clear about right up front. There is no reason that any diaper company should be inviting anyone under 18 to shop in their store. There has been controversy lately about diaper companies creating marketing videos featuring minors in cartoon form, and diaper companies liking pictures of minors on Instagram:

This morning we were alerted to a rumor that we liked an inappropriate drawing on Instagram. Great way to start a Monday!

— Bambino Diapers (@bambinodiapers) May 23, 2016

For all of the people willing to forgive - including those who believe that our community should be open to all ages - there are just as many who recognize that our community has been associated with pedophilia by those who lack an understanding of who we are and what we are about, and they point to things like those above as continuations of the stereotype.

I've seen pictures of the storefront, and I can sympathize with neighbors who are concerned that a gigantic wall of building blocks could make children believe that the store is "child-friendly." That obviously wasn't the intent, though - it appears that the wall was created to keep eyes outside the store from peering in.

All of that said, I think that Tod is doing a good job of getting out front of this. Offering to change the policy to 18+ is a good, if late, decision. And the company has agreed to have the window glass professionally frosted, and in the interim has covered the windows with white curtains, also a good decision.

I texted some advice to Todaler privately, as well as a bit of encouragement - regardless of what you may think about the decision to open a physical store and other aspects of that, he's found himself going from virtual obscurity to the public face of ABDL overnight. That's a lot of pressure, and I'm sure it will build as the story goes national.

Todaler seems to be doing his best to educate the media on the basics of ABDL. Some of the news articles I've seen have been far more respectful in their treatment than one would expect - I point you to the article by the Washington Post, above, as an example. The writer interviews Tod, and reports on the story from the points of view of a number of different folks involved with the story, including the village mayor.

It's not all roses:

Speaking to the assembled residents at a village hall, Mayor Arlene A. Juracek called the business "a mayor's worst nightmare." She urged residents to avoid viewing William's promotional video, noting that it has a "big ick factor" and "you can't un-view it once you see it." 

"It's a business that many people find at best distasteful, but that is legal and for which no zoning or village board approval is required," she said, noting that there were no code restrictions to justify a business license denial.  

Still, the article does a great job of trying to explain infantilism, as well - more than any other article I've seen on the Tykables controversy - and doesn't make a joke of us.

No punchlines = a win, to me at least.

The real debate amongst our community: is mainstream knowledge of ABDL a good thing for us.

I've always believed that positive portrayals of ABDL in the media has the potential to be a good thing. I remember seeing my first-ever Jerry Springer show featuring an ABDL - it was televised so long ago that I can't even find any references to it on the internet. But those screen grabs from the television show made the rounds on the diaper sites of the day, and this same debate raged: was a (very attractive) grown man in a diaper crawling around on Jerry Springer a good, or bad, look for us?

And by us, I mean diaper fetishists as individuals. Because we were a different community, then. So different. Hardly a community at all, really. (I'll write about that in an upcoming blog entry.) So as we fretted, we wondered how our family and friends would react if they ever saw it. The idea that it might affect a "community", per se, was hardly a concern - the idea that it might cause "us" - as individuals - some embarrassment, though, was very real.

Over time, though, I found that the episode airing in syndication, on repeat, did help. When friends found out I was into diapers they'd often reference the show as a way to say "I've heard of this, and I kind of understand it." The same when I would do "diapers for dough" - so, so often people who were hearing about it for the first time would say "okay, so diaper fetish - like that guy on Springer?"

Some of the ABDL portrayals on television since then haven't been nearly as kind to us, and I understand why people have a very real fear of any news of one of us appearing in front of the TV cameras, or any reference to infantilism in the media.

The Tykables 'scandal', so far, doesn't appear to be hurting us.

And if more people read the story and come away with an understanding of what diaper fetish is, it may well help us, on individual and community levels, in the future.

EDIT: I have to say, I think seeing stories about the Tykables store instead of the usual "diaper fetish" Google search results containing 1) hardcore porn sites and 2) child sex abuse arrests - often the results that pop up on the front page of any search for the term - would be an obvious plus.

I'll keep an eye on this story, as I'm sure we all will. But for the meantime I'll reserve passing judgment. As long as we continued to be portrayed as able to keep our very adult interests 18+, I think - I hope - we'll be okay.

Have an opinion on this? Email me: abysitter@gmail.com.


NOTE: Because I've been asked by a number of people in the past few days who remember the promotional posts, I'll clarify it again: not officially connected to Snuggies or Tykables in any way. Just a supporter of anyone trying to market a product to the community. But to those who expressed concern, thanks. You may want to send those same sentiments to Tod lol. 

In Case You Missed It... Steve Harvey Show

Sorry, meant to post an alert over the weekend. One of our friends, Baby Mattie, appeared on the Steve Harvey Show on Monday! Mattie's photos have appeared here in the past, including this one from August 2013, where he helped us celebrate an accumulated 200,000 unique daily views. 

Mattie was approached by a Steve Harvey Show producer, who'd caught his diaper personal online and wanted to know if he'd do a segment of the show. Unfortunately, the segment was called "Is It Weird." Mattie went to Chicago and taped the segment, hoping to be able to explain our community a bit to those without an understanding. Steve, though, is a comedian, and he wasn't interested in listening, as much as he was in doing what comedians do. Still, Matt did a pretty good job of holding his own, and if the comments on the Steve Harvey Facebook page were any indication, many of his viewers found Matt to be a "nice guy" and "attractive" - and some told Steve he owed Matt an apology for being mean and/or bullying him. 

There were, of course, the usual comments from people who think that diapers are disgusting and (blah blah blah... insert shit vanilla people say here). 

Fuck 'em. Somewhere out there is a kid who's afraid to look anything up on the internet, who's been feeling alone, and who, flipping past the dial, caught a normal, well-adjusted dude who admits to the world that he likes to wear diapers. We were all that kid once. Fuck the haters. 

Here's the whole clip, courtesy YouTube. 

You're a tough guy who likes to wear diapers?!?!?!

Equal Opportunity ABDL?

Thanks to alert reader Baby Inky, who spotted this awesome article in the University of Nebraska at Omaha's Gateway newspaper online edition. It seems that adult babies there have begun to file discrimination lawsuits against local daycare centers, forcing the daycare centers to allow the ABies to enroll.

From the article:

After a little hesitation, the UNO Child Care Center staff has warmed up to Arnold’s presence. Martha Hubbard, a full-time UNOCCC employee, says that Arnold has come to blend in with all of the other children and that his adult abilities also come in handy.

“The kids have stopped viewing Lee Lee as an adult and now just associate him as being the head kid in charge and also the kid that needs the most diaper changes. Besides his size, really, there’s nothing that separates him from the other children,” Hubbard said. “Well, except that he also drives two of our kids home at the end of the day.”

Okay... before you start screaming and yelling... check the date on the article. This is obviously some sort of April Fools joke - but I'll be damned if it's not a pretty elaborate one. Someone took the time to research the ABDL community a bit before they wrote this.

Or... lol...

WARNING: Don't actually try to enroll in a real daycare center, folks. That's not okay. 

But check out the article, and let me know what you think?

Hall of Shame: Diaper Porn

In the news, two stories about how diaper pictures and child pornography can sometimes cross boundaries and blur lines. 

The first story comes to us out of Kentucky, where a 24yo DL was spared a jury-recommended seven-year prison sentence in favor of five years probation and twenty years as a sex offender. Among the reasons for the lower sentence:

“... of the tens of thousands of diaper-related files found on his computer devices, only a few dozen (less than 1 percent) contained child pornography (which he usually deleted, one discovered) were relatively very rare, incidental, and perhaps accidental to his download of legal yet odd diaper-related files,” attorney Dan Carman, PLLC wrote in Wharff’s defense. “To treat Robby (Wharff) the same as offenders who have had contact offense or who other wise pose a risk to others would not be just.”
 

Carman goes on to state that Wharff is not dangerous “but, in a sense, mentally ill” and should be placed in treatment and not jail for his offense."

It's clear from the above paragraph that the legal community has a view of the ABDL community that many of us don't share. Still, consider whether the pictures you're seeing online might fall into the illegal category. On some sites, it's questionable... 

...also consider that this young man had thousands of diaper photos on his hard-drive. We know he didn't take them all. How many of them were yours? 

The second story is out of Gilbert, AZ where a 31yo ABDL was caught by his wife with a binder full of child pornography. She promptly called the police. Her husband, she says, is facing the prospect of a "very long prison sentence." 

From the article:

Jeremy Baland admitted to the responding officer that he had a diaper fetish and a pornography addiction. 

Jeremy Baland also told the officer that, when he was 15, an unidentified 55-year-old man told him where to find child pornography. He said the white binder in question had been in his possession since he was 15. 

"[Jeremy Baland] told me about some specific photos that were in the binder, and told me he placed them in the binder because it reminded him when he was little," a report from Gilbert Police read.

Gilbert police is not releasing further details on the investigation at this time, but said they are also looking into possible child porn content on Jeremy Baland's computer."

Sound familiar to anyone? 

Learn from their mistakes, boys.

If I've said it before, I've said it 1000x. 

Keep it 100% 18+. 

In our online communities. On our hard drives. And in our activities. 18+. 

No exceptions. 

No esxcuses. 

18+.

Julie Stiles Webisode: Pampz for Pay???

I haven't watched it yet, but it appears that a new YouTube web series starring Julie Stiles as a prostitute has an ep in which a client is shown in a diaper. 

Check it out. From the New York Daily News.

Baby Brett - 97X Tampa

Check out Baby Brett's interview with 97X Tampa, on the Morning X radio show. 

I'll be profiling Brett on this blog soon, as part of my Spotlight Series (http://Spotlight.abysitter.com). 

Check the podcast: http://www.97xonline.com/Player/101413591/

Up today, courtesy of Baby Inky (and YouTube), I have footage from last week's AB/DL Baby Brett update. Did anyone else catch it? What did you think? Click on the comments link below to let me know. 

Gawker's Interview With Stanley

Check out Gawker.com for an interview on Stanley The Adult Baby.

I have written about Stanley before. He's appeared on several fetish-based television programs. This is just a followup interview on him, and it takes on kind of a Q&A feel. Enjoy...

http://m.gawker.com/5912292/an-interview-with-stanley-the-adult-baby

Clippers LOL

Tumblr: Let The Suits Begin...

Thanks to friend and blog reader Brackishwater for alerting me to this article about Tumblr being sued for copyright infringement.

You can read my previous blogs about Tumblr here.

It will be interesting to see what effect, if any, this has on ABDL photo sharing.

Hall of Shame: Return of the Diaper Dumper

First, if you are the "mysterious diaper dumper" leaving soiled adult diapers street side in ANY community... chill out. Take your messy Pampers through a drive-thru and drop them in the trash or something. Damn.

Second... Corona Del Mar must not have much excitement.

http://www.coronadelmartoday.com/27956/home/fresh-diaper-appears-dumping-remains-mystery/

Diapers Go Political?

I do my best not to make my political views known here. Short of advocating for equality for all - even gay people, and even diaper boys - I don't make a lot of political points here. Half of my readers come from countries other than the US, and I know I'm not going to change anyone's political opinions. 

But when I saw this political ad, I couldn't resist posting it. 

I am sure someone will be offended, so I apologize in advance. But since it's a diaper blog, and here is a photo of a diapered President Obama... gotta post it. 

You can find the original here. 

Anyone else seen any political ads involving diapers? Email me. I used to have a bumper sticker that said something about politicians being like diapers when I was working on a political campaign. Anyone else out there? 

On Tumblr. And gang rape.

How is Tumblr like Gang Rape?

Read on... I'll tell you. 

I'm old enough to remember the ABDL Community before it was really even a community. 

I came of age in the days when our only 'community' website, DPF.com, was more like a meet market or a singles website. 

There were no pictures of members. You couldn't even write a bio - you selected letters for what you were interested in.  Did [S] = spanking... or sex? I can't even remember. 

Let's just say that expressing yourself, in words or in pictures, was not easy. 

Remember BabyClub? Where you had to pay extra to see diaper pictures? I remember people who assumed I had BabyClub begging me to let them use my login info so they could see diaper pictures, too. (Hello, Brian and Brian!) Truth was, I wasn't able to afford it either.

Over time, we evolved. A lot. 

New diaper websites began to form. 

Aby.com was developed. Once the home of links and free diaper pictures, including the Snuggies series and a crude link gallery of photos publicly posted on the internet, Aby.com would eventually be reinvented into a social networking website.* We now had a place to post our photos, bios, and eventually even blogs and forum feelings. 

Other sites were invented. Diaperspace.com. RUPadded.com. Diaper-bois.com. And more. 

We now had more than a community - we had communities. We had a number of different websites where ABDLs and people with like interests could congregate. 

Some were nothing more than expansive forums. 

Others were more of a photo gallery with some other social stuff stuck on. 

Some were adult-only; others mixed adults and children. 

In all, there have been well over a dozen ABDL websites - some now defunct, some going strong. 

I'm old enough to remember the ABDL community when we had something of an honor code. 

I remember our community before Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. 

I remember when, if you posted an ABDL photo, you posted one of you. 

Or one you took.

Or, at the very least, one that you had permission to post. 

I remember when an an adult baby, college baby, or diaper lover could post a photo with reasonable certainty that it would not be stolen, re-posted by someone else.

Sure, you occasionally had photo forgers. They tended to be people under the age of 18 trying to fake a photo to get access to the grownup sites, or older people trying to pose as young DLs to get that exclusive access that is often denied to members of age in our community. 

If you ever had your photos stolen in this way, you were in the minority. 

Our community was so tight and close-knit that someone putting up a fake profile picture would generally be shouted down by others spotting the fake within hours. 

Not a winning strategy. 

So fake pictures tended to be found on the newer websites where a community had not yet had time to form yet. I'd go to www.NewDiaperSite.com and see a whole profile full of photos of people I knew. Usually, all it took was a gentle message and the offender would switch said fake photos out for fake photos of people I didn't know. Problem solved, lol...

Ahh... memories.

So what the fuck is a Tumblr, anyway? 

Tumblr is a blogging platform, a free host of blogs where users can post writings, photos, videos, and links. These blog entries can then be easily reposted to other Tumblr blogs.

The site started out with good intentions. People began using Tumblr to post glimpses into their lives. I remember some of my favorite music artists using the site to post photos from tours, thoughts in the studio, and other stuff like that. It was a cool little website. 

Over time, as more and more creative people flocked to Tumblr, less and less creative people did, too. 

The site began to attract what I like to call lazy bloggers. Bloggers who really weren't bloggers at all, just reposters - people who could click a button, repost someone else's content from their page to their own blog. 

Imagine - you can have a whole blog, and dozens of followers, by doing nothing more than clicking a button. It would be like opening a store that only sells admission to an actual store next door. You're a re-blogger, of sorts... someone who reposts the content of others. A great gig, if you can get it. 

And that's where Tumblr gets tricky. 

To give you a better idea of what Tumblr is, and how it affects our community, I turn to Baby Dean, who posted a great response to a forum on this topic in the RUPadded.com forums. Dean has been featured on my blog in the past, and will be featured more here in the future. Here's what he wrote:

"I wouldn't classify tumblr as a social media website. It's more of a mass sharing website. It has aspects of social interaction in that you are showing what you like and sharing it with your friends and thus giving them an insight to who you are.

The thing with tumblr is that as a mass sharing website it has faculties for sharing images very easily with very little accountability.

The reason I say little accountability is that you don't feel as guilty because you're not taking an image from one of this community's websites yourself and uploading it to the web, for sure there is someone who uploads an original, you are just re-blogging it. People assume that the person with the original has permission to post it and if they like it they re-blog the image. People who see it on their page re-blog it if they like it and so on.

So in that manner an image has the ability to spread very fast with complete disregard for the image's owner. And once it's out there it's very hard to get back (something that I've had personal experience with). The reason people I think are annoyed is that the image spreads so rapidly and that nobody cares to really consider if the original poster is the owner of the image.

The fault of course lies with the original poster of the image but the people who spread it are not entirely blameless."

Pretty valid analysis, Dean. 

And that's what Tumblr comes down to.

Tumblr is a great place to post diaper pictures - if you don't mind them being seen by the masses. 

That is because it's so damn easy to reblog anything there. 

So a diaper photo posted once will soon be reposted multiple times. 

First it will be reposted by other ABDL Tumblr bloggers.

But then, the path it will take... who knows. 

And that's the problem. 

When Facebook first came out, it was limited to users with a .edu email address. Then, it was expanded to work emails, as well. Eventually Facebook was opened to the masses - anyone with a valid email address could join the site. Shortly afterward, Peter Pampers and Hugo Huggies opened accounts. And from there it became an ABDL free-for-all. 

When I joined Facebook it was to get more exposure for my blog. At first it was great... I was finding a shit ton of new readers, and saw my average daily views explode with new readers, many of whom had never been on a diaper website before. 

But after a while I began to notice two things:

• Some of the pictures I recognized as belonging to friends from RUP were being used on Facebook by people who didn't seem to know me. It soon became clear to me that pictures were being lifted, and whole alternate identities established, by underage users who couldn't post their own photos for obvious reasons. 
• And, after enough time, underage users just said fuck it and posted whatever. 

Facebook became a breeding ground for what would amount to underage porn - sans nudity - in the form of TB photos galore. 

It was shortly thereafter that I realized I was as likely to post a link to a 13 year old as I was someone who I wanted to redirect to Abysitter.com. I stopped posting links and deleted my diaper account. 

Later, Facebook would begin deleting accounts of users who posted adult content. Dozens of ABDL users saw their accounts deleted. It soon would be time to tumble over to another site - a site with less restrictions...

...welcome, Tumblr.com. 

Folks, there is no site with less restrictions than Tumblr. 

And all you need to have to sign up is a valid email address. 

And a name. 

An alias is okay. A fake name is fine. Just make up a name, and boom! you're ready to tumble. 

And chances are many of you are tumbling already - even if some of you don't know it...

Full disclosure: traffic to my blogsite has decreased by 10 - 15% since Tumblr began. 

When I spotted my first diaper blog on Tumblr I welcomed the competition, and even posted a link to the page in my blogroll. 

I warned the blogger - a good friend of mine who has since abandoned the site - that they would be limited by Tumblr's simpleness. At the same time, its ease of use was catchy, and my friend tried to sell me on moving my blog over to Tumblr. I briefly considered it. 

Still, I write way too much to be able to use Tumblr as a serious blog host - this post is a pretty decent example of that - and I wanted to do much more than just post pictures and captions. 

Still, I worried that some of the people who contribute photos to my blog might decide instead to post pictures to their own Tumblr pages. I wondered what the effect of Tumblr - an easy, simple-to-use, photo friendly blogging platform - might have on Abysitter.com. 

It never occurred to me to wonder what affect it might have on our community...

This isn't the first time I've blogged about Tumblr. 

I wrote about it a few months ago. 

At that time I'd seen a photo on the site that I thought was dope as fuck. I wanted to post it on Abysitter.com, so I tried to find out who it belonged to. 

I first thought I could find the original poster on Tumblr. I went through the more than dozens of reposts until I found the original, only to find that I couldn't get his contact information from Tumblr. 

So I asked a friend from ABDLC - the pictures on Tumblr actually had the ABDLC watermark, after all. They recognized the ABDL in the photos and put me in touch. The ABDL in the photos, in turn, freaked the fuck out - he'd had no idea that his picture was being reblogged anywhere, and did not want it shared on non-diaper sites. 

It reminded me of a college baby from Georgia who a full year before had found his pictures on Facebook. He'd become alarmed that his family would see them - Facebook was rolling out facial recognition software at the time, and nobody knew how it would work yet. So he messaged me, asking me to try to help him get his pictures removed from Facebook - I did - and then took all of his diaper pictures down from RUPadded and DiaperSpace, where he assumed that they'd been stolen from. 

A year later, Tumblr was causing ABDLs the same kind of angst. 

I'm not sure if it was the blog post above, or just an increasing number of ABDL users flocking to Tumblr, but I soon began seeing a lot more complaints about the site and its practices. More and more members of our community began coming to me to complain that they, too, had found their diaper photos posted to the Tumblr platform without their permission. Some had gone through the trouble to try to get them taken down, with mixed amounts of success; others had simply given up and taken down their photos across all platforms, hoping to minimize future thefts. 

How many people have you seen that had awesome photos once, and no longer have them now? 

A member of our community named Brackishwater posted a great analysis of Tumblr on this post on the subject on Diaper-Bois.com. Check it out: 

"The existence of tumblr represents a "game changer" in the practice of posting personal kinky photos. Tumblr dramatically increases the likelihood that any photo you post on the internet can and will be seen by unintended parties. It's a really cool piece of technology, but it is largely misused and abused by people posting photos they "find" on the internet without understanding that this violates the right of the person who owns that image.

When a photo is posted to tumblr, it permeates like a spider web very quickly to other accounts. I'm looking at one of my photos right now that was posted two days ago and already reposted 14 times by separate users. Even if I can get the original poster to agree to take it down, I have to then track down the other fourteen people and ask them to do the same. Some of whom I've already asked to remove the very same photo a few weeks ago.

Tracking down these people is difficult due to the anonymous nature of tumblr. Anyone can quickly and easily sign up for an account with no "vetting" process and no administrators to ensure members are playing by the rules. Many tumblr account holders hide the contact form and do not publish an email address. You can only contact them through "fanmail" if you have been following them long enough."

Brackishwater is 100% correct. 

Tumblr is a "game changer" - for our community, and for ABDL in general. 

The "honor system" that existed when these communities were being borne in the late 1990s and early 2000s is gone. 

It has been replaced by a competition to post the cutest photos. 

And while I, like most others in our community, love nothing more than looking at adorable adult baby albums, this isn't how I want it to be accomplished. 

I don't want our community sites to become devoid of baby pictures because people become afraid to post them. But I can tick off five different users - each fucking adoooooorable - who no longer post pictures to their profiles on their diaper websites for fear of them being Tumblrized. 

And that sucks. 

It sucks for the individuals who trusted us, as a community, enough to post their pictures in the first place. 

This isn't a lifestyle that everyone can just put out there. 

I, as much or more than anyone, would like to see everyone in the world embrace and accept their inner child. ABDL should go global - who wouldn't benefit from some babying now and then? We all need to be pampered - er, Pampered - sometimes. And I'd love it if the world could look at us and see who we really are - a bunch of pretty normal people. Who just happen to wear diapers. 

But that's not the reality yet. And until it is, there will be people who want desperately to share this side of themselves with friends within the community - and only friends within the community. 

When their pictures get posted to Tumblr, that does, in fact, change the game...

I mentioned that I'm old enough to remember ABDL before there were photos to prove it. 

And I remember the great hesitation we saw when the first real ABDL community members began posting photos of their own. 

We are going to begin seeing that in reverse - a community which has become accustomed to posting photos without fear will soon begin posting less and less if we don't correct the course of our collective behavior. 

The time to begin doing so is now...

If you're not familiar with site, I've selected at random five Tumblr pages related to ABDL. You can click here, here, here, here, and here. Please note that I chose five at random - there are literally dozens, I simply selected five that have a lot of content and a decent amount of followers. 

I am not calling out five Tumblr blogs for violating copyright. In truth, each of the five above have posted dope, original content at some point or another, which is why I followed them. 

But you can quickly click on any of the above, navigate through them, and find plenty that don't. 

You'll figure out how Tumblr works in a matter of minutes. 

Full disclosure: I am by no means innocent. 

I have posted photos I've found in Google searches many times. 

I've posted whole galleries of pictures of fraternity initiations involving diapers. Halloween baby costumes. And even some pictures of people who seem to be wearing diapers for no reason at all. 

I've also posted diaper photos I've found on non-diaper sites, asking for more information on the photos. I've gotten more information on several occasions; other times nobody seems to know anything. But the fact that I posted the photos at all was probably a bad example for our community. 

What I never, ever do is go through diaper websites trolling for photos. 

You'll never see me on RUPadded.com, or DiaperSpace.com, or any of the other sites finding hot pics and reposting them. 

If you see a photo posted on this blog that you recognize as one that was legitimately posted on a diaper website somewhere, chances are good that I got permission to use it. 

In fact, it's this obtaining of permission that is the most tedious part of running Abysitter.com. 

I pride myself on posting a lot of really good content pertaining to our lifestyle - only a small fraction of which involves diaper pictures. Still, it is the diaper pictures that keep some of my viewers coming back - and, probably, the reason that traffic to my blog has decreased by more than 10% since Tumblr sites exploded in popularity.

When I see dope-ass diaper pics on a profile somewhere I hit up the ABDL who posted them and ask if they'd be open to having them posted on my blog. Often, they say yes. Sometimes, they say no - and the reasons vary widely, but usually relate to fear of having them posted anywhere than a diaper site. 

I've wanted to post my friend Nick's pictures for a long time. He and I are friends on Facebook, and have talked for a long time. But he's hesitant to have his pictures posted anywhere that he can't control them - they are some of the cutest ABDL pictures I've ever seen! Yet... I've seen them on Tumblr. 

Adam has contributed pictures to my blog. One of them I re-use often: think Disney baby. But among the various pictures he gave me permission to use, there is one that is probably one of my top 3 ABDL baby pictures of all time - it's a picture of him in a thick disposable diaper and a sailor suit. It wasn't included in the list of pictures he was down to share, so I didn't use it. Yet, there it is... on Tumblr. 

One little Canuckistanian has "little brother" status - and some adorable, adorable diaper pictures. I've hinted to him that I'd like to use them on my blog, and even though he and I have talked for years, and have spent hours even talking on the phone, I can tell that he's afraid to allow anyone else to post them. Head on over to Tumblr, however... 

The list goes on. I recently hit up a UK baby and asked him if he'd be down for sharing his pictures. His answer was that he previously would have, but he's since decided to take his pictures down everywhere because they're already making the rounds on Tumblr. His pictures are now all gone - sad, because they were cute as fuck. 

I still have way more people willing to share their pictures than not. And I've been very lucky - most of the Tumblr bloggers I've encountered have respected the copyright notice posted in every blog entry with pictures, and on the blog itself:

[PHOTOS COPYRIGHT ABYSITTER.COM]

[DO NOT REDISTRIBUTE WITHOUT PERMISSION]

Still, I do worry that my blog will start to have a problem attracting people willing to contribute pictures. The irony that legitimate sites and blogs may suffer because ones which do not respect copyright - sad. 

The fact that our community may one day have a lack of fresh, new ABDL content because the sharing has continued to grow - simply not cool...

Let's

bring back

the 

ABDL 

honor system. 

I'm asking bloggers - Blogger bloggers, WordPress bloggers, and Tumblr bloggers - to begin using the honor system of days of old. 

It's simple,

and it involves observing

a few simple rules:

#1:

BLOGGERS

When in doubt...

...leave it out. 

If you don't know, for 100% certain, that the person in the photo is the original subject of said photo - don't repost it. 

You can like a photo on Tumblr. So like it. But don't repost shit that you don't own. 

Tumblr will be less interesting for a while... but it will just force people to create more compelling stuff for Tumblr, instead of stealing stuff from other sites for Tumblr. 

#2: 

BLOGGERS:

If you must pilfer photos...

...steal asspics. 

AKA

If you see someone's face... 

...leave it in its place. 

There are a ton of pictures out there that don't 'out' our community members. 

I am definitely not encouraging people to steal diaper pictures. 

But if you're going to repost them... don't repost face pics. 

Repost ass pics. 

Diaper closeups. 

Photos that use 'the angles'. 

Pictures taken of babies in cribs from far away.

You get the idea. 

#3:

AB/DLs:

If they like it the most...

...Tumblr bloggers will repost. 

Number three is simple. 

You're a young ABDL. You've got your whole life ahead of you. You're a freshman in college, bored between classes, and you've got the dorm room to yourself. Your case of diapers from ABUniverse has just arrived, and your iPhone has an 8-megapixel camera. What are you gonna do?

You're going to take pictures...

...and share them on diaper websites. 

And I thank you for that. 

I love your pictures. 

I love the fact that you have the balls to post them. 

I love the fact that your pictures make our fetish look normal. College-age kids posting diaper pictures make anyone from outside the community who accidentally stumbles onto diaper pictures - something that used to be pretty rare but is happening more and more often, I presume - see our fetish/lifestyle as something a little more normal. 

Plus, your pictures are hot. 

So I thank you. 

But before you share your next batch of pictures, think about this:

Do YOU want to be the FACE of our fetish?

If you're cool with being the face of ABDL, please hit me up with an email. I'd love to use some of your pictures on my blog, and in an upcoming Guide to #ABDL that I'm working on. 

But before you do, think about it carefully. 

The world at large doesn't fully understand our lifestyle. 

Some people associate it with perversion. Pedophilia. Or worse. 

Will your picture, in diapers, ever surface during a background check? 

Will it be posted on the bulletin board in your college dorm? 

Will someone try to blackmail you with it? 

If you don't fear any of these things, then again - thank you for having the courage to post such dopeness, and for doing your part to make all of the rest of us appear a little more normal. 

For everyone else... take pictures that obscure your face. 

(I hate to give that advice. And, just a year ago, I reminded people that the 'honor system' exists - and that pictures posted on a diaper website were unlikely to be seen by anyone who didn't want to take the time to register and sign up for one... but um, yea... game changer). 

The only thing that would bother me more than not seeing adorable pictures on diaper sites would be seeing an adorable diaper boy have his life made more difficult because pictures he posted, for us, got shared, even inadvertently, than others. 

I've opened my blog to faceless pictures. 

I'm even finding myself advocating for them, now. 

That's sad... but it's the reality of our fetish for anyone afraid of overexposure. 

#4:

ABDLs:

If you don't mind your pictures being shared, 

don't be shy... submit them!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. 

Some of y'all have some adorable fucking baby pictures. 

And some giant, brass, diapered balls. 

For every single one of you who has weighed the risks of posting your adult baby pictures and/or diaper pictures and has decided to go for it... thank you. You are a benefit to our community. You normalize this fetish for both outsiders and for the rest of us, too. 

It is your pictures that make people opening up to themselves, and/or to our community, realize how normal they are. 

I know this because you have been donating pictures for the benefit of my blog readers since 2008. 

And they let me know how much they appreciate it. 

I've had people write to me to tell me that it was a certain AB's photo series, or a DL's diaper pictures, that gave them the courage to take some of their own. 

And your pictures, as a whole, make this look not just normal - they make it look cool. 

If you are cool with your pictures being out there, get them out there. 

Email me at abysitter@gmail.com. 

Email your favorite Tumblr blogger. 

Or create a Tumblr blog of your own and put them out there. They will be reposted, I promise. 

For every ten "YOU DO NOT HAVE PERMISSION TO REPOST MY PICTURES" warnings I see on diaper sites, I might see one "MESSAGE ME IF YOU WANT TO SHARE MY PICTURES" invitation. If you are someone who wants to see your pictures shared, post it up. 

#5:

EVERYONE:

If you see something that's wrong, 

do something about it. 

On Tumblr I'm seeing pictures I know are pilfered. 

When I see them I try to hit up the person I know they belong to. I send the link. Often I check the link again a few days later, and the picture is gone. Victory for what's right. 

I also see pictures that are clearly of ABies younger than 18. 

To this I simply say... what the fuck? 

How is this still acceptable in our community? 

If you see a picture of someone you know, hit them up. 

If you see a picture of someone under 18, report it. 

I never report a blog which appears to be violating copyright. Because I don't know for sure. Even when someone has told me they don't want their pictures used in the blogosphere... even when I am 99% sure that they probably have not given consent... I cannot be 100% sure. But letting a friend know where you've seen his picture... that's something we have a duty to do. People who contribute pictures to my blog are familiar with the emails they get soon after - ALERT! YOUR PHOTOS HAVE BEEN STOLEN BY ABYSITTER.COM! - and each time I hear it I tell my guest contributor they are lucky to have loyal friends. 

So be a loyal friend. 

Be a loyal ABDL community member. 

(One of my contributors read my blog for more than a year before he ever messaged me. He recently confided that he didn't like me at first - because he thought I just raped the diaper sites stealing pictures left and right. It wasn't until he found out that I work to get permission from each contributor that he decided to contribute himself. Sometimes honesty is the best policy...)

#6:

TUMBLR BLOGGERS

Have some minimum standards... jeez. 

1). KEEP IT 18+. My blog specifically states 18+. You'll find it on the banner, and along the right side of the blog. You'll also find it in many, many posts. I try to repeat it as often as possible because there is a glut of young ABDLs desperate for reading material and my blog, while not publicly searchable and advertised primarily in places with adult members, may still get underage viewers from time to time. I make it a point to post only 18+ pictures - as should we all - and following the advice of several of my younger viewers, I've removed nudity from the front page, and no longer post it in entries, as well. 

2). PUT UP CONTACT INFORMATION. My blog has my email address on the right side. There is also a 'contact' link above which includes email, phone, and messengers. In addition, I include it in many of the posts I put up. Do the same. If you are posting (or reblogging) photos you have not gotten consent to post, having contact information just makes sense. Don't make it difficult for people to contact you. Or they may just report your blog instead. 

3). MAKE IT CLEAR THAT, IF SOMEONE WANTS A PHOTO REMOVED, YOU WILL DO SO. THEN DO IT. I have recently included this little tidbit on my own blog. I know for a fact that I have gotten submissions from people who are trying to 'set me up' to post copyrighted material - someone actually submitted photos of a local ABDL that I am 100% sure does not want his photos shared beyond his one diaper profile online. Why would people do something like this? Some people just suck. They like drama. So even if you think you're 100% legit, leave room for the possibility that you might be tricked. Make sure you specifically state that you will remove a photo if necessary. It's just the right thing to do. Want to see a good example of the 'disclaimer' you should post? Click here. 

4). RESPECT COPYRIGHT - AND OUR COMMUNITY'S IMAGE. The fourth, and final, is the most obvious. Just respect copyright. You're smart. You know when something doesn't belong to the original reposter. Don't repost that shit. You certainly know when something isn't appropriate for a non-diaper forum like Tumblr. Poopy diapers? Never appropriate. Under 18? Never appropriate. I could go on... but I won't. 

I believe that the vast majority of Tumblr bloggers have good intentions. They are sharing photos that are, in a word, adorable. Many of the pictures I've seen on Tumblr I've seen nowhere else. If it wasn't for the fact that there is a very real person behind each picture, and the fact that I've seen some of the emotion behind ABies finding their once-private baby pictures being spread like a virus, I would probably be Tumblr's biggest fan, posting links to it right from Abysitter.com. 

If I had lower standards you'd see me posting all of the adorable pictures I see on Tumblr right here. 

Sometimes, though, being an ABDL blogger means having the best interests of the community at heart. 

Now, let me repeat that. In big, red letters, for all of y'all who are just skimming through this post hoping to find some hot stolen adult baby pictures:

Sometimes,

being an ABDL blogger

means having

the best interests of

the community

at heart. 

We are all part of a community. A community which, whether we like it or not, is viewed by the public-at-large with misunderstanding at best, and distain and disgust at worst. 

We all have a responsibility to act in accordance with our community's image. I am an example of this: my posts have taken a more responsible tone in the past few years, going from the 'outlaw ABDL' image in 2008 to a more respectable one for 2012. I write one of the few blogs that speaks to, and for, a specific community, and it's a responsibility I take seriously, something you will all see when the 'Guide to #ABDL' comes out later this year. 

Whether you are a Blogger blogger, a Wordpress blogger, a Tumblr blogger, or a blogger within a certain diaper website, I urge you to remember that our community's image is affected by our actions. So please... act like you give a fuck. 

Brackishwater, in the post referenced above, has some advice to give. It's awesome advice, so I'll repeat it here: 

"I've enjoyed posting photos of myself for the past 7 years. I've had scares in the past and temporarily took pics down to figure out what to do. They were so few and far between that it was easy enough to manage. In every instance I could get the photos taken down or appeal to an admin to have that user removed. With the introduction and wide-use of tumblr, this is no longer a realistic option.

I had to carefully consider the fact of the matter:

If I post pictures of myself online, I have to fully accept of the fact that this photo will not only be reposted without my permission, but it will now permeate many times to other blogs so quickly that there is nothing I can reasonably do to stop it. So, I've decided to no longer post any pictures.

Anyone with similar concerns should to do the same.

If you post a face-picture online, you have to be fully prepared to accept a future where this photo can be connected back to you via facial recognition technology and accept the consequences of being associated with this lifestyle. Perhaps the future will be more accepting of alternative lifestyles once technology reveals the skeletons in everyone's closet. One can only hope ;).   "

So how is Tumblr like gang rape? 

It's simple. 

As I mentioned above, I believe that most Tumblr bloggers are good people, proud of their blogs and just trying to keep dope content coming for the benefit of our community. 

Some don't care about copyright. Others may not even be aware that they are reblogging stuff that the original photo subject doesn't want reposted in the first place. 

With Tumblr, it's so easy to reblog something that it almost averts the conscience. 

You barely think about it. 

You just click, and poof! you've posted something cute to your blog. 

After all, it was posted by someone else. 

A lot of people liked it before you even saw it. 

And it's been reblogged a bunch of times already. It will almost certainly be reblogged again. 

What's the harm?

What's the harm, indeed...

With that, a parable...

Picture it. 

You're coming home from the club. 

It's Saturday at 3 a.m. 

You pass an alley. 

As you walk by, your head turns. 

There, on the ground, 

on a mattress laying on the sidewalk,

lays the most beautiful girl 

you've ever seen. 

She is laying there, 

naked from the waste down. 

Her man is on top of her,

his hands on top of her hands,

his face meeting hers. 

They are both moaning. 

She is glistening with sweat, 

sparkling in the moonlight. 

The sight is beautiful...

...and you are a little jealous of the young man

who is lucky enough to be ejaculating

in her at that moment. 

"I've got next! I've got next!"

The enthusiastic shouts are coming from

a young man standing in a group next to her. 

You suddenly realize you aren't watching

a young couple having sex

in the moonlight...

...you're watching a gang rape. 

You have three choices:

a). GTFO of there. 

b). Call 9-1-1 and report that shit!

c). Get in line. 

After all, everyone else has already banged her. 

She's fucking hot. 

She's not even saying no. 

Should you have to walk away

when nobody else is?

Go for it...

See what I did there? 

In the parable/example above, the 'victim' is a young club-goer. 

In the ABDL parallel example, the victim is the ABDL community.

The victim is the innocent victims of copyright violation.

The victim is hot ABDL pics for ABDL generations to come. 

If my example seems a little extreme, stick around for a while. 

You'll see future generations of ABDLs afraid to post pictures. 

You'll see a community which no longer trusts anyone, always afraid of everyone, never knowing who else might be out there, ready to violate that trust... 

I'm already seeing it. Keep your eyes open, and you will too. 

Let's fix this. 

If you have ideas,

or have been affected

by copyright violation

 in any way,

I'd love

to hear from you. 

abysitter@gmail.com