I am a man in my forties, happily married to a hard-working wife for 20 years and the father of two good-mannered and nice children. Our only, and real, problem is my own feeling towards, and the need for stimulation from, rubber in our private relations. For many years I have, by reading some of the rubber publications, tried to gain some insight and knowledge as to how other people are coping with the same problem. Magazines, especially Atomage, have helped me by letting me understand that I am by no means alone being born in this way. I believe there must be something deep inside us that cannot be explained. My first experience with rubber I can remember from the age of 10-12. I remember how I enjoyed enclosing my body in the rubber sheets that belonged to my younger brothers and sisters, placed there so that they should not soil their mattresses.
I remember sneaking out of the wardrobe the spare rubber sheets which my mother kept on the upper shelf. I would sweep them all around my body and fall off to sleep, sometimes waking up and feeling with my hands down my body and pushing the rubber up over my face. I think my parents soon found out what I was doing with the sheets because some time later I could not find them again. During my teens I became interested in photography and then I found I could use the opportunity of being left undisturbed in the darkness. I used the excuse that I was working with light-sensitive film and paper so that no one would enter the bathroom which I had commandeered for a few hours. On these occasions I would dress in whatever sort of material that I could find and which felt nice. Rubber of the type I had played with several years earlier was not available so I dressed in different kinds of plastic sheeting and wore rubber gloves.
There were even bath caps which I enjoyed pulling over my head when working in the dark room.
Another thing I remember enjoying happened when my front teeth were being filled with porcelain. The method at that time was to have a piece of thin rubber placed over the mouth and lips and the tooth being tilled was pushed through a small slit cut so no saliva could get into contact with the porcelain until it had time to harden. To be sitting there in the dentist’s chair for quite a while after the filling had been done and waiting for it to set was nice. I enjoyed sitting there alone with my mouth covered by soft, smooth, stretched thin rubber, smelling the smell and being able to feel it with the tongue and really enjoying the contact with the material.
Never before have I openly stated to anyone my feelings towards rubber. I hope my parents do not know of my feelings: I doubt if they would understand what it means to me. The only person who knows about my ‘problems’ is my wife. I didn’t dare tell her of my love of rubber prior to our marriage. I tried to introduce the subject by all possible means and ways, but she was quite lacking in understanding. Now, 20 years later, she knows all about my feelings but she never can get anything positive from contact with rubber.
She will sometimes dress in rubber to satisfy my needs but it doesn’t feel quite right to me to force her to do something against her normal inclinations. If you only knew what difficult moments this has given me, but I cannot be without my ‘sensations’ and the pleasure I get from rubberwear; from touching, feeling and wearing rubber.
I look forward to the day when humanity arrives at a better understanding and allows everyone to enjoy what they like without being looked at as deviates.
I can remember after the war seeing some pictures of how the Nazis treated their prisoners. This was a series of pictures which showed how they held a man dressed in rubber in cold water to find out how long he could stay alive in just a rubber suit. I remember how I enjoyed seeing him being dressed in rubber and wishing it could be me, all this in spite of the text which described him as having a hard and painful time before they finally hauled him out of the water.
At that time I never thought I would one day be able to dress from head to toe in rubber and be able to feel and enjoy what deep inside I had so often wanted to experience. It is impossible to describe – except to someone with similar feelings – what dressing in rubber means to someone with such a need.
There is a saying here in Sweden that the ‘vices always add up to a constant’ which is difficult to translate into English but means roughly that we all have our equal share of vices but they differ in type. I have no need to smoke or use other stimulants. Maybe this makes me see my predilection for rubber as a greater ‘problem’ than it really is.
I hope that your splendid efforts with the Atomage magazine will result in greater understanding of what is, in fact, considered to be a deviation. Your magazine is totally correct when it makes a distinction between dressing yourself and the one you love in rubber and, on the other hand, to refuse to have anything to do with violence or perversion or unnatural sexual pictures. You are correct in your approach where you seek to prove the harmless nature of the interest by showing nice pictures of lovable girls in wonderful rubberwear and interviews with people with these interests.
Deep inside I have a feeling that there are many more than we can imagine who must have a strong attraction to rubber but are afraid to recognise it and reveal their needs and wishes. The last 25 years has seen a complete change in sexual attitude’s and I hope the next 25 years will see a new tolerance by both men and women towards what are thought to be deviations. If that would come through then maybe one would be able to show oneself in a rubber suit without attracting any more attention than those who go swimming naked or topless. Here in Sweden this is largely accepted, it can even be shown on the TV without people talking about it as ‘a deviation’.
– S. R. (Sweden)