Balloon fetishism
http://www.deviantdesires.com/map/balloon.html website Updated: 2001 |
Balloons aren't exactly the type of thing most of us would expect to be a fetish. They're too cute, too innocent, too banal to be someone's sexual focus. Yet balloons have a tremendous following among the thousands of people who call themselves looners and who have met each other online through the BalloonBuddies website. After talking with over 30 male and female looners I'm beginning to see the appeal.
Balloons are a subset of the latex fetish, although most latex types don't know about balloons and most balloon types don't realize they're part of this better-known group. Latex has all of the elements required for a "classic" fetish: it's "touchy-feely" in that it feels like human skin; and it's "smelly"; -- the unique odor of a balloon, in fact, is one of the most powerful turn-ons for looners. I even went out and bought a bag of uninflated balloons, and when I stuck my nose inside it, that distinctive smell brought me immediately back to childhood. In a Proustian reverie, I felt intense emotions -- shame (did I play sexually with balloons as a child?) anxiety (would it pop?) and loss (it flew away!)
What balloons have that plain old latex does not is the narrative of growth, expansion, tension, pressure and explosion -- perfect dramatic symbols for sexual arousal and release. The process of inflating a balloon evokes breastfeeding in straight looners and cocksucking in gay ones. (In fact, the balloon fetish is strongly connected to body inflation fantasies like breast inflation and butt inflation.) The balloon itself is a perfectly opaque metaphor, flexible enough to suggest breast, cock, body, face without ever limiting itself to one single interpretation. It's this flexibility and capacity to expand to contain many meanings that makes the balloon such a good fetish object
Looners use balloons in sex play in a variety of ways, although they never put balloons inside them (this is not only impossible with normal balloons, it's also very dangerous because of the danger of embolisms.) Looners might hump the larger balloons as if they're a sex partner. Thin clown-animal balloons can be wrapped around a man's penis and used as an orifice. Buster Steve has perfected the art of fucking balloons in their nozzle. (NOTE: This fetish has NOTHING to do with pedophilia -- these people have NO interest in sex with children.)
For many looners, the primary jolt of sexual arousal comes from the fear/ anticipation / shock of a balloon popping. Looners divide themselves up into occasionally contentious camps around the issue of "to pop or not to pop." Non-poppers sometimes say that they "just want to give the balloon a chance" whereas for poppers, if the balloon doesn't pop, neither do they.
Poppers often have preferred popping methods. Some want to see popping by over-inflation, enjoying the buildup of tension and pressure in the balloon as it parallels their own physical arousal. Others prefer a more "wham-bang" approach, with multitudes of balloons exploding by pins, cigarettes and high heels. In the case of cigarettes and high heels, the looners are combining the balloon fetish with smoking and shoe fetishes respectively. In quite a few cases, balloon popping is imagined within the context of a dominance and submission scenario -- the looner might imagine him- or herself tied down and subjected to popping by a powerful, fearless partner
Some looners report having a childhood phobia of loud noises which developed in the case of balloon into an erotic fascination. Fear is a common thread of many erotic fantasies, and scientists have recently noted that our instinctual responses to frightening stimuli -- "fight or flight" -- may also include a third option: "fuck". Just as some people are thrill seekers who enjoy jumping out of airplanes, some people get an erotic endorphin rush from things that frighten them
For a list of websites devoted to combinations of balloons with other fetishes (compiled by a looner visitor to this site,) click here
The book "Deviant Desires" features 30 pages on the topic of the balloon fetish, with plenty of photos, anecdotes, and personal stories from 35 balloon fetishists.
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