As you read these lines an outwardly normal male is probably lying on his back in a private room of his house contentedly sucking a baby’s dummy. He is surrounded by the bars of a specially made crib and his only items of clothing are rubber panties enclosing a nappy fastened with a safety-pin. His body has been carefully shaved, and in one arm he cradles a doll. By the crib are some children’s toys, a rocking-horse, and a chamber-pot.

He is seeking relief and escape in a form of behaviour known as infantilism. It is a psychosexual phenomenon of considerable complexity, and as lovers of infantilism are understandably secretive about their practices, it is difficult to estimate its incidence. Nevertheless, a survey of literature on the subject and, above all, the recurring letters on the theme in specialist magazines clearly indicate that infantilism appeals to a surprisingly large number of people.

From an analysis of letters, often written in vivid terms, describing experiences in infantilism, it is patent even to the most ingenuous reader that some are pure fiction. But the fact remains that the writers, unable to indulge in their baby fantasies in reality, seek relief by putting pen to paper. In one important aspect their letters differ from those written by similar enthusiasts in other fields in that no attempt is made to explain the origin or root cause of their attachment to baby things. This omission by infantilists is almost certainly due to the fact that they cannot explain the psychological causes even to themselves. The truth is, that for most of them, their sissy baby games are a replacement for the sexual act.

A case is described in an SRA publication (‘Special Search’ Vol 3 No 9),

"James, aged 28, single, public school education. His relationships with women have been virtually negligible. He is frightened and embarrassed in the presence of women of his own age. Even more so with women younger than himself. He prefers the company of women of mature years - those old enough to be his mother.

Still a virgin, and the sight of the female sex organs seems to render him impotent. His chief solace seems to be the fantasy world into which he escapes almost nightly:

‘At first I just used to use my imagination, but lately an element of reality has come into it. I mean by that that I actually play the part I dreamed up for myself. Most people would laugh their heads off but it gives me a great deal of comfort.

'First to my imaginings. I used to like to think of myself being an infant again; dressed up in baby clothes, with a bonnet and all that. Possibly a dummy in my mouth. Occasionally I would even be wearing nappies. I used to imagine some big, nanny-type of woman changing my nappies. She would smell clean and soapy. She would be very strong, too: turning me around easily; lying me on me on my tummy or on my back as she chose. Then she would put the nappy on me...followed by some kind of nightdress. Then I would be laid in a cot and nicely tucked up. If I woke and got restless, the nanny would come and put a dummy into my mouth. Thinking about this over and over used to give me a great deal of pleasure. I can hardly call it sexual pleasure. It was simply a kind of inner peace, I suppose.

'The explanation must be pretty obvious. I have a desire to return to my infantile days when I must have been perfectly happy. Since those days, presumably, I have not ever been so happy. Not developed. Certainly not developed sexually. Some people are mentally retarded; I am sexually retarded. It drives me to return. I should add that I am not retarded in any other sense, having had an outstanding scholastic career . . . and I am now a teacher in a London college.

'As I say, I have now advanced from the stage of pure imagination. With some difficulty, I have made myself a whole range of baby clothes. I use towels for nappies and converted, outsize women’s clothing for my various garments. Also I have made a single bed into a kind of cot. It has wooden bars all around it.

'When I have dressed myself in the way that I want, I will get into the cot and lie there snugly under the blankets, usually with a dummy in my mouth.

'The only thing missing, of course, is the ‘motherly’ woman to come and attend to me. Oh, if only I could find someone who would do that for me! But I feel it is absurd to even begin to start looking for such a woman. I could hardly blame her if she only laughed at me if ever I made such a suggestion. Naturally I cannot help feeling sorry for myself and quite often cry myself to sleep.

'Sometimes I remove my nappy, and dress myself up in ladies’ pyjamas or a nightie. On those occasions I will quite sometimes play with myself. Afterwards I will imagine that ‘motherly’ figure reproving me for my naughtiness, before I drop off to sleep.

'Often I wonder how long I shall go on behaving in this way. Perhaps when I am older, the desire to do so will pass. In a way, I hope so, but then I wonder what there will be to comfort me in this life. Truly I envy people who behave in a more normal fashion and can have a regular relationship with either men or women.”

It is not unusual for male infantilists to regard their sexual partners as their own mother. A classic example of this group was the famous French writer Jean Jacques Rousseau, who was a practising infantilist. The practice is described in many novels written by submissive males for submissive males.

In these novels, the male ‘Baby’ often receives the full cooperation of his partner, and, fanciful though it may seem, this sexual practice in men is occasionally tolerated by the female partner— including the wife. In fact, a high percentage of correspondence on infantilism purports to be written by domineering women who have forcibly reduced their husbands to babyhood. But credibility is strained in this type of letter when the writer describes how she changes her husband’s nappies and bottle-feeds him in front of an amused audience of relatives or neighbours specially invited in for the occasion. It could be, but the consternation and scandal such bizarre goings-on in public would create in ‘Coronation Street’ are mind-boggling. No, infantilism is practised behind closed doors for, by its very nature, it appears highly comic and ridiculous to the uninitiated. The titillating details given in such letters on the shame and embarrassment of the poor ‘Baby’ in front of an audience are usually wishful fantasy.

The following extract is from a Canadian magazine and illustrates these characteristics. A dominant wife is relating how she brought her husband “under control”:

“On my orders he shaved all hair from his hands, legs, arms, and his entire trunk. Then, despite his weak protests and chagrin, I instructed him to lie on the diapers on the bed, with knees akimbo. I fastened the diapers on him with a large safety-pin and drew a pair of rubber panties over them. That evening, after tying a bib round his neck, I had him drink milk from a nursing-bottle and insisted that he swallowed another two bottles of water. Then I put him to bed in a shortie nightie, tied his wrists to the bed-rail and locked the door.

The results are obvious, and his embarrassment and the belittling I greeted him with the following morning seemed to remove all his spirit and make his recession into absolute babyhood and dependence on me complete. Now he obeys me slavishly, and submits with childish whimpers to bare-bottom spankings. He has a crib made to my orders with a hinged top, which may be locked when he is confined in it. He also has a play pen. Both are painted in a delicate baby-pink.

He is usually attired in frilly buttoned blouses and rompers which show his diapers behind and between his legs. He also wears some very pretty embroidered rompers with button-up drop seats, sweet smocked short dresses, and bootees. He is not permitted to remove his diapers in the wash-room, so when he is not wearing his rubber panties his “accidents” become very apparent visually to a few selected guests whom I have allowed to see him. His acute embarrassment on these occasions effectively drives home his babyishness and helplessness.

Three young teenagers, children of friends who know about him, act as baby-sitters when I’m out. These girls just add to his layers of diapers whenever necessary so he often gets diaper rash. Despite this, if changed without rubber panties, he begs to have them put on. Resigned to his future, his “accidents” are now numerous. Nevertheless, he must wait to be changed and as punishment he is sometimes required to wait for this up to 24 hours.

His language is restricted to baby-talk and during punishment periods no sentence may be longer than two words, and he may not walk, only crawl. All liquids are taken from a baby bottle with a rubber nipple and solids given by baby-sitters are baby-foods and fruit, which are fed to him with a spoon. When I have guests he must sit in his play-pen in the room with us, without rubber panties. Periodically a guest will comment on what a dear little baby he is and fondle him. Sometimes one of the ladies will give him his evening bottle. His embarrassment when this happens is frantic."

Most sexologists agree that infantilism is more frequently encountered among men than women; When it does occur in females it is usually in a lesbian liaison in which a considerable age-gap exists between the two partners. In these cases a mother and daughter relationship is deliberately cultivated by one or both women. This was strikingly portrayed in the film The Killing of Sister George which dealt with the infatuation of an elderly lesbian for a young girl.

But when infantilism occurs among lesbians it can sometimes take a cruel and bizarre course. Last year a young girl called Susan was admitted to a psychiatric ward in Hollywood. She was only 17, short in stature, with a pretty childish face, big blue eyes and curly blonde hair. She had had the misfortune to fall into the clutches of a sadistic lesbian of 42 who had dominated and subjugated her completely. This extract is taken from Susan’s account of her appalling ordeal:

“I was held captive in the house for over six months and during the whole of that time made to wear frilly little girl clothes and baby shoes. I had to call my mistress “Mummy” at all times. My hands were kept encased in shapeless mittens of soft leather tied at the wrists which rendered me absolutely helpless.

Every morning I was unstrapped from my crib and Mummy bathed me, afterwards rubbing me all over with baby-oil before pinning on clean diapers. I was fed milk from a bottle with a teat as I could not manage it with my mittens, and then left the whole morning imprisoned in my pen with some dolls. “Mummy” gave me one meal a day, for which I was fastened into a high-chair and spoon-fed. Before being put down for the night I was usually obliged to perform sexually on “Mummy” until she had achieved several climaxes.
I was not allowed to communicate except by baby goos and gurgles, and every time I used a recognisable word I was turned across “Mummy’s” knee. She lifted my short skirts, unpinned my diapers and spanked me till the tears coursed down my cheeks.

In a few weeks my spirit was completely broken and I became “Mummy’s baby”, submitting with docility to her every whim, and becoming slavishly dependent on her. I cried at the slightest smacking and gradually lost control of my bodily functions while my reasoning turned childish."

Susan was finally rescued from her ordeal by neighbours, but the doctors fear she may bear the mental scars of her traumatic experience for life.

As well as substituting for the sexual act, infantilism can also have its root cause in an urge to return to childhood when, “happiness without sorrow was possible”. This is often linked with a subconscious nostalgia for the warmth and safety of maternal love and care. But a more common cause is found in cases of enforced infantilism - when a mother doesn’t wish her offspring to grow up—a sort of reverse Peter Pan complex. There are many quite genuine case histories of mothers keeping their sons in short pants and infant clothes well into their teens. Witness the following letter which appeared in a French review. It written by a widow, with two daughters aged 12 and 9, who had been put in charge of her 14-year-old stepson:

“I immediately decided that Georges was to be submitted to severe unremitting discipline if I was to succeed in converting him into a docile, feminine baby boy, for I will tolerate the children growing up.  Fortunately, he has fine delicate features and a beautifully formed body. His hair was allowed to grow long and I took him to a beauty salon every week. When he rebelled, he was stripped in the presence of the girls who, with that innocent cruelty I find so delightful in children, taunted him with being a cry-baby while he was spanked by me.

The next step was to dress him in fluffiest, frilliest little-girl clothes, all in pastel shades, with ruffles and flounces everywhere. The girls started to tell how pretty he looked, and when one day I found him admiring himself in mirror, I knew I was on the road to success. But the most challenging delightful part of my task was altering his body itself. I kept him out of the sun so his skin became pink white, and twice a week I shaved his body. Every day he was give a complete massage with beauty cream and he was then rubbed with grapefruit juice to soften and smooth his skin.

His hair was brushed 100 times after he had been treated with baby oil and dusted with baby powder. At first he resented this treatment very much, but after many smackings across my knees he came to accept it and, think, enjoy it. At last I had a lovely little boy-girl with soft delicate white skin, exquisitely formed limbs and body, and glossy hair falling gracefully over white shoulders.

To induce a proper little-girl walk tied his ankles together with a a light chain and he still wears this most of the time, though a mincing girlish walk is almost natural to him now. He shares the girls’ room, and every night, after giving them their bath, I tuck all three into a huge old feather-bed, with a dummy each, and their favourite dolly. Georges is trussed into an effective chastity belt with two small padlocks.

I’m now thinking of taking the eldest girl back to rompers on a permanent basis and reverting the other to nappies and a play-pen. As it is at present, I have three well-behaved, demure, pretty little “girls”, utterly absorbed in dolls and pretty baby clothes. Like all children, however, they must be frequently and soundly spanked.”

The following account, from 'Justice Weekly', vividly illustrates female dominance in a case of infantilism, this time from the viewpoint of the ‘victim’ who is a man aged 24:

“Last Sunday my governess dressed me in a short frock of lacy frills and ruffles, after adjusting my chastity belt very tightly and lacing my corsets until I nearly fainted. A pink ribbon was tied in my hair which now reaches well down my back and a pink sash encircled my waist. As usual, I was made to carry my dolly.

When my governess’s guests arrived I was made to stand in the corner for an hour, then she called me and placed me over her lap. I went crimson as my short dress and frilly petticoats were raised and I let out a girlish scream of dreadful anticipation as I felt my governess’s hand at my waist. I thought, “Am I really going to have my embroidered drawers taken down in front of the guests?” Then my governess said, “What are you? Tell us what I taught you!” I knew better than to disobey and piped in my baby voice, “I’m a bad, naughty little girl.” (The guests laughed to my unendurable shame.) “Indeed, you have been a very naughty little girl. You are going to get a sound spanking right here before the ladies!”

I yelled as the loud smacks started turning my soft white bottom pink, and pleaded for mercy but the spanking continued. When she finished I was sobbing helplessly, as she said, “Now you will spend a week with nappies and rubber bloomers on under your dresses. You will be changed when you ask nicely enough. And now, naughty little girl, go and get your nightie and your nappies. I’m pinning them on you in front of the nice ladies, and then putting you to bed right in the middle of Sunday afternoon.”

The editor was so intrigued that he made some discreet private enquiries into the case. To his astonishment he discovered that the writer had, in fact, given an authentic account of what he had been, and still was, undergoing. The “ladies” referred to were identified as a local group of lesbians. So one cannot dismiss all bizarre letters describing cases of infantilism as mere fantasy.

Please do not be like one of the people who describe their baby life in this article, and become absorbed in self-pity. It won't help, and the best things is to be grateful that the world wide web has allowed things like infantilism to be treated more openly, and for people to meet others with the same feelings. And remember, you need to build up a relationship so that your partner likes you as a man before broaching the subject of baby discipline.