Confessions Of A Latex Kinkster

First off, and most importantly, I don't want the title of this to offend people. Specifically I don't want the term "closeted" to offend those out there who have struggled or are struggling to come to grips with who they are at a pure, base level and have had to deal with the slings, arrows, hardships and violence that entails with that journey. I do not wish to cheapen those experiences or the efforts made by those brave individuals.

I have had several students "come out" to me, and I have seen the pain, fear and anxiety that decision has with them, how incredibly difficult it is for them to take that one, small, seemingly insignificant step to self-actualization. So, please, if you read nothing else from this point on, understand that I am in no way trying to compare my life as a latex fetishist to someone in the LGBTQ community, or to say that my situation is in anyway similar.

At the same time, I am writing this not to complain...or hopefully not sounding like I am. The choices in this story are mine and mine alone. This is a way to get my feelings out, to let others know that something this "simple" is anything but to those who experience it. I am writing to entertain and hopefully spark a conversation with others who are in a similar predicament or those who love latex as much as me. Perhaps it can be used as a cautionary tale, to follow your desires and to honestly know who you are before getting involved romantically or is a serious/long-term relationship. In some way, this is my attempt to still the turmoil in my own mind and find, if not peace, an acceptance to what my life is now.

With that being said, I am a closeted kinkster, a freak with a fetish or any other sort of derogatory description that you may have heard in your own sexual lives. I love latex, I adore latex...I think it is the sexiest thing out there to lend "spice", "pop", "pizazz" or "heat" to one's sex life.

It is a total sensory material, conducts touch, conducts temperature, it's smell promises industrialized sex, its taste is pungent and dirty and its appearance...well, if you have ever watched a someone walk away from you wearing it...you know. The way it defines a body, a shining filament highlighting every curve and leaving nothing to the imagination. Restraining and freeing all at once, a conundrum, a hypocritical material that is intimidating and otherworldly...maybe a reason it is used so often in Sci-fi and fantasy movies/fiction.

It has an immediate effect on me, my interest is piqued and I am fully invested, the quintessential "squirrel" moment of lust. I am very aware that I am describing latex as if it were a drug, a stimulant that plays upon the senses and works to achieve an artificial "high". I cannot speak for other enthusiasts, but that is how latex works on me. It heightens sex for me, it sharpens the experience. Wearing latex covers my very workmanlike body and gives me confidence. I feel edgier and a bit more "dangerous", more confident that I can perform and perform well in the bedroom...and this reaction is just from wearing it, for as you will see, I have not had the opportunity/pleasure to experience hot and steamy latex sex.

I don't honestly remember when I first became aware of my love of tight and shiny clothing, but I know that there was always something that drew me to those types of materials, my first experience being of leather. I think in my naive prepubescent days, I associated leather with sex and danger, edgy, non-traditional lifestyles...since it was the 80's, I imagine the rocker culture and the few photo spreads in Playboy dealing with leather convinced me of this. But leather never did it for me like latex did/does.

I grew into my formative kink years in a latex wasteland, devoid of an outlet for my fascination, especially in Wyoming, away from large cities on the coasts that boasted underground clubs and shops that sold specialty clothing made of bright, tangy, shiny rubber. In the days before widespread internet access, my fleeting glimpses came from porno magazines, music videos (thank you Madonna and Adina Howard), Jenny McCarthy and her pants on "Singled Out" or an occasional sighting, as of an endangered animal, in movies. Even in those movies, the stigma seemed to exist that people who were into rubber were crazy, misguided freaks, incapable of having "normal" relationships or dealing with the general public. A Quasimodo characterization of sexual deviance, left to the shadows and seedy underbelly of society.

Certainly there wasn't anyone I knew who was into what I was, none of my friends, when we talked about sex and girls envisioned the captain of the Cross Country team in a black latex catsuit, cinched with a blue corset with half cups and ballet boots. And I wasn't going to offer up myself as being "different". So I admired from afar and satisfied myself with occasional glimpses until after high school and economic and social freedom.

Now that I was economically self-sufficient, and capable of getting a credit card, that key to internet shopping, my prospects opened up considerably. Considering myself a "true" fetishist (whatever that meant!), obviously I wanted to actually wear that which I admired on the forms of others. I first tried on my own latex when I was stationed in Germany, finally gaining access to this deviant and delightful world of shined sex appeal. A nondescript shop on a side street in Giessen, but a revelation in my sexual journey. Pulling on those bright blue boxers and letting them cling to my skin, cupping my genitals in their tight embrace, well, the effect was instant...I was indelible marked, a full convert to the siren song of rubberized sex. Europe was indeed a revelation.

But, very soon after, as I left the active military and went back to Wyoming, I realized that there was not a large group of latex kinksters, people to share my interest, to build relationships with and possible find that special someone to share with me deliciously erotic moments covered in my chosen kink.

According to the numbers online, we make up a small but vocal group of fetishists around the world, but in the overall scheme of things, we do not represent a large group of people. If you extrapolate those numbers in the general population of the United States, and then further distill that down to the great state of Wyoming...well, you get the picture! In a state of a half million people, and conservative as well, the number of people who would even admit that sort of thing approaches...well, the negatives!

With that being said, how does one open up the conversation about sexual "perversion"? It is not one of those things that is really talked about, especially between young people...at least on an everyday level, and especially not in the hurly burly of the undergraduate dating scene. Obviously I was nervous to broach the subject with potential partners. I mean, your sexuality and your desires are something that are unique and essential to you as a person, they make up a core foundation of your personal well-being...so why not offer that up?

Fear of ridicule, fear of rejection, the same duo that keeps things repressed and the lid latched tight on for so many things. Fear is a powerful motivator and one that so many of us respond to and make masters of us. Some of the more experienced who may be reading this are shaking their heads and probably wondering what the hell was wrong with me. "Why didn't you say anything?" "Why did you pigeonhole yourself" "What is so wrong with all that you are addressing?"

Exactly, what is so wrong? What is wrong with what I am attracted to? Absolutely nothing, and I know this at my core. I do wish that I had a time machine so that I could go back and shake myself awake. I would take the dilemma by its horns and be upfront with myself and my relationships. Because what I am living with now is not the best self that I can be. But that part will have to wait.