A good part of our lives is spent trying to figure out who we are and where our place is in this world. It’s not always easy, and it’s not always clear.
One place in which a person can have such a mighty struggle comes in the form of figuring out where they fit within this lifestyle. What is it that I am? Or who am I? Or where do I belong? And what even is DDlg or CG/l and so on…???
These are all valid questions as we search and seek to find rest within our souls to the point of being able to be comfortable.
One question that I’ve often got is what is the difference between DDLG, CGL, age play, BDSM and so on…
Well understanding these things comes with a Great deal of thought, but I will do my best.
Putting a definition or identity on a culture or a group of people comes down to a matter of opinions and absolutes. What’s absolute for you may be an opinion to me. What’s an opinion to me may be out right full on truth to someone else… And what’s true for you may not be true for me but what’s true for me may be true for you.
The point of it all is… That as we do our research and read and what not, the gray areas or murky waters of the lifestyle should be examined and thought about in great detail but still seen as not being absolute.
I don’t think that there are any real absolutes when it comes to defining the subcultures of BDSM because people can span across them in such magnificent ways… However I will try to explain and disseminate them as closely as I am possibly able based on my college education, lifestyle education, scholarly articles, my meditations, journaling, and years of practical experience and success.
Understanding the culture vs sub culture
To understand where you fit in is to also understand that you fit in everywhere as a whole. DDLG, CGL, Age play… These are things that are all a subculture of BDSM. But what exactly is BDSM you may ask? Well that’s where the matter of opinion’s comes in. Because what it is to one person can be completely different to someone else. so you really have to break it down and go over it with a fine tooth comb and then throw all of that away and just settle for generalizations.
BDSM at its core is a lifestyle in which one or two or more people engage in a style of relationship that may or may not involve things like power exchange, rules, punishments, rough play, structure, and so forth and so on.
You can think of BDSM as the trunk of a tree.
Branching off of the trunk would be your sub cultures like DDLG, pet play, fem dommes, Service submission, findom, abdl, leather lords, water sports enthusiasts, swinging… the list goes on and on, but something that every subculture shares is the bare-bones basic framework of BDSM in which one person tops the other and some form of kink or fetish is engaged in.
But bringing the car back onto the road, let’s focus on three main things along with a brief history of how those things came to be.
what I have found over the years is that there is this strange consensus of people within the DDLG/CGL community that cannot stand ABDL for one reason or another. but the fact of the matter is… None of us in the DDLG community would exist without them.
It was somewhere in the 90s when ageplay and ABDL began to surface as a recognized fetish and lifestyle. Today, where its more widely accepted… about a quarter of the american population identifies (in surveys) that they are some form of having a plural sexuality preference, whether it be gay, bi, curious.. whatever. But jumping into a delorean and taking a trip back to 1985, you would never have found anything close to these numbers.
Its commonly accepted that ABDL (adult baby diaper lover) fetish began within the gay and lesbian communities in the United States in the early 90s. The first public ABDL themed event in San Francisco was held, and soon after, organizations dedicated to ADBL actually began forming as recognized and incorporated support groups.
Along with this, BDSM also began to get a rise in recognition as pornography and magazines and media started to sprinkle it in.
In fact, the term “BDSM” wasnt even a thing until the early 90s when someone in the beginnings of the internet made it happen… much like memes and cat videos happen today. And with anything that gets created and begins steamrolling, subcultures are formed.
DD/lg and CG/l are just that… subcultures of what has become a normalized kink through BDSM.
If you sat in a movie studio boardroom 30 years ago and pitched the idea for 50 shades of grey idiocy, you would have been blackballed out of hollywood. These days, people are already looking for ways to push it far beyond the boundaries that already exist.
BDSM is as old as time, though it was never given a straight identification that people could clearly pin on it until the turn of the 1990s. Once we label something, it becomes official. Until we do… its merely our curiosity.
Abdl in it’s primal infancy grew out of the gay nightclub scene in California back in the 70s and 80s.
Patrons who attended these clubs (no doubt influenced by the eruption of disco) began using pacifiers and dressing in diapers for fetish play or costume play or whatever it might’ve been… And after a while that community started to grow.
As with anything else when it comes to self evolution, we discover things best sometimes when we’re not even looking for them.
And so as the ABDL Community began to grow… People begin to experiment and discover. So that’s really the root of where DDLG comes from. Before the times of ABDL, yes there was BDSM… As there has been for centuries in some form or another, but it had always been a taboo thing that was kept behind closed doors or relegated to shock and awe with things like Betty page or magazines that you could only get in seedy porn shops.
But as the cultural revolution of the late 70s begin to flourish and people were coming out of their free love stages with the hippie movement, the concept of relationships, love, and the structure of those things including the typical American nuclear family began to change.
Then enter the 80s and the cocaine fueled years of celebrity, wealth and media.
It’s easy to see where things went… And how they evolved right up to today where it’s actually pretty easy to find hints of BDSM and the like spread across whatever media you may use or follow.
Commonly known as daddy dominant little girl, DDLG was embraced and manifested out of the ABDL movement… though like most things, it had been around a long time.
In ancient times arranged marriages were commonly set with the female counterpart being younger and the male counterpart being older and successful. We see this in monarchs, and other places where there is a hierarchy of authority and control.
As the typical nuclear family began breaking down in the late 60s and 70s, the effects of such on children within broken homes and separated marriages became prevalent… Right alongside the explosion of psychiatry and psychology as a medical practice in the western world.
I could write you about nine or 10 paragraphs on those like Freud and other studies in age regression from the psychological perspective but I’ll spare you, and leave you with the thought that age regression is a very real and valid thing that somehow became mixed in with the subculture. Because from a psychological and scientific standpoint, women have always been attracted to potential partners that they saw as being protective or successful or who could provide for them in certain ways.
The basic definition of DDLG Could be seen as BDSM lite. Or Bdsm with cookies and stuffies. You are typically going to have the elements of rules and structure and punishments… But alongside that, you’re going to have the aesthetics and culture of things like age play, ddlg, etc.
There is also often a sexual element of some sort, though contrary to popular belief… it has nothing to do with  pedophilia as everyone involved is sound minded consenting adults who are well aware of their partners actual ages. (Or at least that’s how it’s supposed to go)… but how did we get there?
THE GROWTH OF THE SUBCULTURE
Like most things in our lifestyle, DDlg became a growing force within the san francisco scene. Its not a secret to anyone who doesnt live under a rock that the city is widely accepting and has open arms for anything with a fetish and a pulse, along with having been pioneers in opening doors with the LGBT community and freedom of personal expression.
Once the “diaper fetish” subculture began to make ground, and psychology began to advance, and studies on the LGBT community began to occur after the explosion of the AIDS epidemic in the 80s, more and more information and exposure came to light on it all.
And where theres a fetish party, theres someone documenting everything that happens… and where theres a BDSM dungeon or night club, theres always a small group of individuals who try to push the limits and be unique while shocking everyone into noticing them.
Defined as a form of roleplay where the adults dress up as, and often act like much younger than their age (think schoolteacher/student… troop leader/scout… Nun/altar boy.. etc)… the fetish picked up steam.
(it should be noted at this point that age play doesnt always involve acting younger, because a very slim part of the subculture also practices ageism fetish… in which they act older.)
Ageplay is no way associated with pedophilia, as the adults of sound mind and mutual consent in the act do not normally seek out children for the act or as partners. The common misconception comes when those who are not properly educated see the aesthetic and make judgment without knowing the context.
Most Who engage in outright age play do it simply for the fetish or kink aspect, not so much for the lifestyle aspect. Whereas with DDLG and CGL, it’s more of a lifestyle or a Choice to live in that style of life as much as possible while also juggling real life adult responsibilities.
And when it comes to CGL (caregiver/little) … Most commonly this is basically at it’s core, DDLG without the kink. In many cases the relationship between the dominant and the submissive is platonic, and the dominant acts as a pure out right caregiver without any kind of power exchange between them and the submissive.
As the main term of the subculture implies, caregiver is just that. A giver of care and nothing else.
And of course that also involves md/lg, md/bg, dd/bg etc and so on which all naturally evolved with the subculture.
So there you have it… The great history of how we all came to be and a simple breakdown of the differences. With this knowledge going forward, you should be able to pinpoint closer to where it is that you belong and where you feel comfortable within this vast, broad, and ever evolving lifestyle.
Thank you for enjoying. Feel free to re-blog this for others to enjoy and learn from.
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