I suppose this is the page where I preemptively answer the question “who in the hell is this crazy person and what is he doing bouncing on balloons and pool toys in motorcycle gear?” Those of you who have followed me here from YouTube have probably read this manifesto in some form or another in the past.
I’ve been interested in balloons, inflatables, and just about anything else that has the capacity to hold air for as long as I can remember. I had a horrible fear of balloons from a very young age. In addition, as I rather recently found out, in “coming out,” so to speak, to my mother about my balloon fetish, some other very interesting events transpired during the first few years of my life that likely led to the development of my fear, and subsequently fetish, of balloons.
I am a curious man by nature. Before I was a curious man I was a curious child. One time when I was around 2 years old, my parents and I were in a department store, or so I am told. I was wandering through the vacuum cleaner display, pushing buttons and flipping switches, because that’s what I do (not much has changed in the 26 years since then, truth be told). Most of these vacuum cleaners were unplugged and I was perfectly happy flipping the switches in spite of this. At 2 years old I don’t think I’d made the connection yet as to what the switches actually did. Well, one of the vacuums happened to be plugged in, and I learned rather quickly what the switch did. For the next few years, according to my mother, I refused to go anywhere near a vacuum cleaner. I’d insist that they be unplugged and put away before I’d go into a room.
This fear of vacuum cleaners in specific waned over the next few years, and was replaced with a general fear of loud, unexpected noises. What in a young boy’s life is the most common source of loud, unexpected noises? It’s ok. You can phone a friend. I’ll wait…
BALLOONS!
Much of my childhood from the ages of 5 – 12 is scarred with memories of my fear of balloons. Birthday parties where I’d run screaming from the room or house with my fingers in my ears. Days at school where someone got a balloon delivery and I couldn’t concentrate on class because all I could think about were the balloons and how I wanted to be get the hell out of that room.
Sometime around age 11 or 12, my dad decided that for my own good I needed to get over my fear, or at least learn to manage it. To that end he bought a couple of bags of balloons, blew them up, and put them in various places around the house. This worked reasonably well, though I still was very much on edge when in a room with balloons. After a few weeks he sat me down and made me pop some of them, just to prove that there was nothing that was going to hurt me. I do not remember exactly what went on in my mind, but the fact that I was going through puberty, and its easy for one to get the signals of fear and sexual arousal crossed… well… something just clicked.
From that point on I took any opportunity I had to blow up balloons, play with them, and investigate both them and the new feelings I had for them. Because I was still getting over my fear of them busting, a lot of my interest centered around wanting to see if I could make myself pop them. Now obtaining and playing with balloons as a young teen is a rather difficult thing to do undetected, and the early years of chasing my fetish were spent with sadly very few opportunities to play and explore. To that end, I worked other inflatables into my play to see if I’d respond the same way, most notably plastic bags and rubber gloves. Anything that I could blow up and pop and that could be found around the house.
There are enough stories in the intermediate (high school through college) years for me to write a small novel about, but once I started driving, I was finally able to buy balloons on my own, and, being older, got more time to myself at home without my parents around. This led to some great balloon experiences including a couple of times when my parents went on vacation and left the house to me. Lots of balloons were blown up and met their demise 🙂 .
Now I’ve graduated from college, rent a nice big house out in the middle of nowhere where I can bust balloons to my heart’s content. No parents to walk in on me, no neighbors to worry about.
So, in short, what do I enjoy about this? I think its a combination of the lingering childhood fear with the realization that I have mostly conquered it. For example, I’m still scared to blow to pop, although I LOVE doing it. In general, I like methods of busting where one doesn’t know exactly when the balloon is going to pop. Slow stomping, bouncing, hugging/squeezing, blow to pop. Anything that can trigger that fear is good.
I realize I’ve probably only covered half of your question at this point. What about the motorcycle gear? Does it turn me on? The short answer is “yes.” The longer answer is “hell yes.” Unfortunately I don’t understand that fetish nearly as in-depth as the balloons, so that’s a topic for another day. For now, I hope I’ve enlightened you a bit about why I do what I do. Feel free to send me questions and post comments if you’d like more information, or just have something to say.
Northwestlooner / Mr. Motox
