BÉBÉDIAPEE

→ Hello, my name is Fred and I’m forty years old.

With the benefit of hindsight, I understand that certain experiences lived very early in life never really disappear. They stay there in the background—sometimes quiet, sometimes intrusive—but always ready to resurface when memory starts moving again.

When I dive back into my childhood, I inevitably return to that period when I was about six and a half years old. At that age, I didn’t have the vocabulary or the maturity to understand what I was feeling, but my body and my mind recorded everything.

My mother sometimes looked after children at home. It was a normal situation, almost everyday life. Among them was a boy younger than me. His name was Maxime and he was five years old. He was still wearing diapers—Pampers Baby-Dry, size five. I can still see that scene with astonishing clarity, despite the years that have passed.

One day, I saw my mother changing his diaper. That simple, routine gesture for her became a fixation point for me. I stood there watching, frozen, without understanding why. I felt neither fear nor rejection, but a kind of deep interest, almost hypnotic.

Naturally, questions came up. Why was he still wearing diapers? Was it normal? What were they really for? Were they comfortable? Restrictive? Humiliating or reassuring? I asked my mother these questions with a child’s spontaneity, without realizing their weight.

At first, my mother answered calmly. Then, seeing how persistent I was, she eventually told me she was going to show me. In that moment, her words caused an immediate block inside me. My face turned bright red and my body froze.

She genuinely thought that by showing me, she would disgust me and make me understand that diapers were only for babies. She wanted to protect me in her own way. But instead, an instinctive fear overwhelmed me, and I backed away, saying no, before running off.

That refusal stayed with me for a long time. Why had I refused when something deep inside me was so strongly drawn to what I had just seen? That question looped in my mind for years.

I then started talking with Maxime. I asked him why he was still wearing diapers. His answer surprised me. He didn’t really know. He considered himself clean. He explained that his parents had tried to take the diapers away, but it had been a total failure—he wet himself completely—and since then they had given up.

I felt a dull jealousy that was hard to define. Maxime seemed to live with it naturally, without any apparent shame. He even asked that my mother—whom he affectionately called “Auntie Momo,” Monique—keep taking care of him.

Then he said a sentence that had a strong impact on me: if he had to wear diapers, then Fred should have to wear them too. My mother immediately said no, because I was able to hold it. Maxime looked at me and said I was lucky, and that he would like to try.

That discussion led to a situation I had not anticipated. My mother asked me to climb onto the living-room table. Maxime’s changing mat was already there. Everything happened very fast.

I was sitting, then lying back. My shorts were pulled down, my underwear removed. I found myself exposed, vulnerable, without time to think. The diaper was ready. My duck-patterned underwear was replaced with a diaper decorated with little bears.

I felt intense shame mixed with an unfamiliar sensation. My body burned with embarrassment. I didn’t understand what was happening inside me. My mother then stood me up on the table, dressed only in my T-shirt and the diaper, and said, in a tone she thought was light:

“Here’s baby Fred.”

For me, it was experienced as a deep humiliation. I begged her to stop, tears in my eyes. She repeated:

“Baby went pee-pee. So, did you like it?”

I answered no, that I wanted her to take the diaper off.

In the end, she removed it and I put my underwear back on, crying. But that scene was never erased.

Days passed. Yet that experience kept coming back into my thoughts. I missed the mix of humiliation, embarrassment, and novelty. Little by little, without being able to explain it, I realized that I had liked what I felt.

Around that time, I even saw on television, on TF1, in the show Ciel, mon mardi in 1991, adults behaving like babies. It was extremely intense for me to see that, to realize that there were people who could live that way. My mother immediately changed the channel to Miami Vice with Terence Hill and Bud Spencer, saying the world was upside down and people were losing their minds. It’s funny—I never would have imagined that Leclerc would one day reuse that expression.

Over time, I started taking diapers in secret. I was very careful never to take a new one or one that had already been used. Every move was calculated, discreet, almost methodical. That attraction to the white padding never went away.

As I grew older, I wanted to go further. One day I decided to sleep with a diaper on and pee in it. What had to happen happened: the diaper leaked. Panicking, I pretended to be sick, saying I had a stomach bug and had thrown up. I washed my sheets in secret in the bathtub.

I used that trick several times until around the age of twelve. Then I had to stop. There were no more diapers at home, and the ones I found were too small. I even tried to make my own.

I entered middle school, then high school. I went through a technical ninth grade, then eighth. As a teenager, I discovered that adult diapers existed.

During hospital visits, I saw Tena Slip diapers. They caught my eye in an almost obsessive way.

One day, I took one. I hid it in my bomber jacket, which was fashionable in the nineties. I had no desire to part with it. But when I got home, my mother announced that we were going to go shopping.

I was extremely stressed. As usual, I headed to the comics and video-game section. Sitting on a display, I forgot the diaper hidden under my jacket. It fell to the floor.

My mother couldn’t find me. She asked customer service to call me. I heard:

“Fred is wanted at customer service by his mother, Monique.”

I experienced it as another humiliation.

When we got back to the car, I realized I had lost what I considered a treasure. The image of the store employee discovering a diaper on the ground is still etched in my memory.

With adulthood and the development of the internet, I was finally able to do my first searches in private. The first words I typed were:

“Adult Pampers.”

That’s when I discovered the AB/DL world (Adult Baby / Diaper Lover). I was so intrigued that I spent entire nights on sites like Bébé Pat, Manpers, and then the newcomer ABKingdom. It was amazing. There was an IRC chat, AOL- or Caramail-style, where you could talk about anything. People shared advice about buying.

The first time I bought adult diapers in a specialized store, it was Tena Slip, in a huge pack of twenty-eight diapers. The package was white, with a colored stripe, almost like a logo, reminiscent of a sports car’s bodywork. That moment was incredibly intense.

That day, it was a young temp worker. I could see her over the stacks of diapers displayed in the window. She saw me and said hello. I was petrified. My heart raced, but I took a breath and found the courage to go in. My hands were shaking on the handle. When I pushed the door open, the bell announcing a customer sounded so loud that it felt like the whole city knew I had just walked in.

At the counter, the young woman, very friendly, asked how she could help me. Trembling, head down, avoiding her eyes, I told her I wanted a pack, in a very timid voice. She asked if it was for my grandparents, if they had called to reserve, or if I was buying directly. Her calm, professional way of speaking reassured me.

I just had to say yes. She asked what name to put on the invoice. I answered: Monique. Another lie, since my mother would never come to this neighborhood, which was going to become my sanctuary for years.

She asked if I knew the size and usage. I pointed to the pack behind her: a Tena Maxi, size M, with full absorbency. She said, “All right, that’ll be $21.90.”

I took out a twenty-dollar bill, plus the change. I was so flustered I could barely think. She told me, in a gentle voice, that I was sweet to take care of my loved ones, and that I shouldn’t be ashamed—it was rare to meet people like me.

She asked again what name to put on the invoice. I repeated: Monique.

She offered me a bag. I said no thanks, that I had everything I needed. I had a bag with two VHS tapes, which I opened quickly. I slipped in that wonderful package, but the zipper got stuck. The clerk advised me not to force it so I wouldn’t damage the bag. My stress spiked again, then, breathing calmly, I managed to close it with the strap and clips.

I thanked her warmly and left. The bell rang again. Church bells and a siren announced noon. She wished me a good lunch and said, “See you soon.”