Balloons In Public

Seeing balloons in public places can present several problems for this globophile, although not the problems you might expect. No, I do not get a hard-on when I see balloons tied to the antennae of cars in a sales lot. I don't even get a hard-on when I see a pretty girl blowing up a balloon to decorate a store. Not even when I saw my lovely wife sit on a balloon and pop it for the first time ever while playing a game at a picnic.

Now, I did get a hard-on later, in bed with her, thinking about her sitting on the balloon, but not at the time. I can't honestly call it monumental self-control; the situation just seems to sort itself out in the moment. Were I lucky enough to watch, say, some exotic dancer doing all kinds of intimate play with balloons during an adult show, my restraint might go all to hell. But I haven't been lucky enough to test that theory yet.

No, revealing my sexual interest in balloons is not the big problem with encountering balloons in public places, but there are a few uncomfortable aspects.

First, although I am turned on by balloons getting popped, I am also afraid of it, and embarrassed at the prospect of revealing my fear. Oddly, it is not the odd unexpected pop that is likely to cause that problem—I've gotten past that many times without too much trouble—but the anticipation of a pop, the build up of tension where I start to show just how cowardly I can be. While a balloon is being blown up close to me, or when someone is handling a balloon roughly or getting it too close to something sharp or hot. If I see it coming, I'm a mess.

And what's really disturbing to me is that it's the same tension that, under the right circumstances, can be one of my biggest turn-ons. Not the hot or sharp objects, mind you, but the overinflation or the bouncing around on a balloon to make it pop. But if I can't control the situation, with some kind of hearing protection or a chance to keep my distance or beat a hasty retreat without embarrassment, then I can actually break out in a sweat over the threat of a balloon popping.

Conversely, if I come across a situation where a lot of balloons are being popped, like someone cleaning up decorations at the end of a party or store sale, using pushpins or scissors, I usually (although it's rare that I am present for such an event) don't feel afraid. But I do feel very disappointed at the waste, and I am not comfortable with staying around to watch.

But, truthfully, although those are the situations I think most about, I encounter balloons much more often in situations where there is little chance of any of them popping. Then some of my other, less sexual and more emotional, feelings start to kick in.

Take the situation of balloons tied to cars. I want them. I want to steal them all before they get ruined by the sun or pop on the hot roof of the car or just got destroyed without appreciation at the end of the day by some salesman with scissors. I feel they same way about all kinds of balloon decorations when I see them; I just want to have them and play with them and pop them in a way that has meaning to me.

If I see that a store has balloons that are imprinted with their logo, I want to get some uninflated ones for later play. I was much braver about asking for this when I was young and single. Actually, I was pretty brave about asking for inflated balloons to rescue them from destruction in my youth as well. Come to think of it, I was also lucky enough to own a van to bring them home in then, too.

Occasionally, I see balloons in some kind of contact with a pretty woman, and it makes me crave some sexual balloon activity, not with that particular woman, but with my own wife. But, unfortunately, there is little opportunity for such play in our house now, and so the craving goes unfulfilled most of the time.

Which brings on that strange psychological phenomenon, where you start thinking you are just being surrounded by the one thing that is on your mind the most. After one encounter with a pretty woman recently, who had balloons floating in her area at a hair salon in such a way that she would brush against them a lot, with her butt, when she was working on a client, I suddenly seemed to see balloons everywhere I looked, in stores, in car lots that don't often have them, at the local church bake sale. And it just makes me want to have my kind of fun with balloons all the more.

Unfortunately, it doesn't increase the actual chances that such fun will, in fact, happen.

Hoarding Balloons

I know this isn't true of all globophiles, but I have a tendency to keep buying balloons even though I have more than I can possible use, especially given that I live with wife and kids and have very little private time to indulge my fetish. I seem to have gotten over this to some extent in recent years, although I still find myself veering off to the party section at Wal-Mart when I shop there to see what they have in the way of balloons.

(The answer, if you're curious, is that they have 9- and 12-inch balloons, which are not horrible but not the best either; some are in bags of 72 and really quite reasonably priced. But I digress.)

I've managed not to buy too many balloons lately, but I still have a rather large stash in my nightstand drawer. Some are relatively recent purchases, from about a year and a half ago when I had the good fortune to be in a large city with a Qualatex Master Distributor. I bought a bag of 100 11-inch jewels and a bag of 50 16-inch jewels. These are for decorating and special occasions.

But I still had about a hundred balloons left that were beginning to get a little old and seemed like they might be kind of unreliable. So I made a promise to myself that, over the course of the current year, I would blow those balloons up and pop them.

You see, I can't just throw them away. It just doesn't feel right. Can't give them away, either. So for the past few months I have been making sure that I blow up and pop at least three balloons every week. It's not as easy as it sounds; I have very little privacy (from my kids; my wife is fine with it).

There was a time when I had a couple of thousand uninflated balloons in my possession. It made some sense before I had children, because I could blow up a hundred or more at a time for play and I would use them up in a reasonable amount of time. But once I became a Dad, the chances for that kind of play just fell by the wayside. But I kept accumulating balloons.

It took me about ten years, including a couple of moves, one across country, to pare my balloon hoard down to the size it is now. I'm surprised that some of the balloons can still be inflated with relative safely. I have some 36-inch balloons that are at least 15 years old, and they have been find so far (obviously, I don't manage to blow up anything that size three times a week; those get used about once a year). I have some white balloons that go back even farther, and I've blown those up, bounced around on them, and actually found them hard to pop.

Pretty much all the old balloons that still hold up are made by Qualatex. I haven't been so lucky with other brands even after just a few years. Once my varied stash has been used up, the remaining balloons will be all Qualatex. I won't try to use those up quickly, but I won't keep them around for ten years, either.

Maybe I'll be able to do something more spectacular when the kids have left home.

If I'm still up to it.

New-philes and True-philes

Now, I'm not trying to get into an argument about "real" fetishists, so don't get your panties in a bunch (unless you're into that, and then I say have fun). But there is a difference between someone who grew up with a fetish and someone who acquired it later in life.

I'm not saying that one is better than the other, or that somehow anyone who didn't attach themselves to their fetish object early in life doesn't really count. But I am saying that those whose philia is a result of childhood experiences will experience the fetish object differently than someone who came upon the fetish from adult experimentation.

For one thing, I think that lifelong Globophiles are less likely to have multiple fetishes, and further are more likely to have a fairly narrow range of what they find stimulating within the context of balloon activities. To use myself as an example, I think that my attachment to balloons first formed because I was afraid of balloons and horrified at losing them to popping. I formed a physical attachment to the way they felt against my skin, and spent a lot of time in contact with them. This all started before I can remember.

When I reached puberty, that physical contact got attached to sexual arousal, and I started to connect balloons and girls, getting a strong desire to see girls in intimate contact with balloons. Oddly, in my teens, I connected the close physical contact with watching girls sitting on balloons and popping them, and it became the main focus of my arousal. This was before I could tolerate popping balloons myself, but it got me thinking about it.

It wasn't until I was in my twenties that I started popping balloons, first experimenting with pins and such (just to get past the fear) but quickly moving to more intimate ways of popping them. Now, this sounds like a lot of changes, but after more than 50 years, my relationship with balloons really is narrowed to close contact (more watching women in close contact) and popping by close contact.

I also like blow-to-pop (by mouth), although I can't myself, and to tell the truth I've never understood why I like it. I find it arousing, but at the same time I feel like a chance for that intimate contact has been wasted.

My interest in balloons has not branched out to popping with pins, cigarettes, feet, fire, heat, overinflation by machine, lasers, or orange oil. I like to watch non-popping play, but somehow find it less satisfying without the pop, like sex without the orgasm. On the other hand, my in-person experiences with balloons rarely involve popping because my wife doesn't like to pop balloons.

I also haven't branched out to vinyl, latex clothing, or mylars, much less S&M, B&D, shoes, leather, furries, or any one of the other uncountable fetishes I've heard of. I'm not even that much into lingerie. For someone with sexual feelings toward an inanimate object, I really am not all that interested in experimentation.

And I get the feeling that there are a lot of people out there just like me. I don't mean people that have the same narrow set of interests—although that's certainly possible. I'm talking about people who have their own set of narrow interests. Like the poor souls who comment on YouTube videos of young ladies blowing up balloons: "Please pop with bare feet." They may gravitate toward all kind of balloons videos, but only in the hopes of seeing those uncovered feet pressing themselves firmly into the inflated latex until the inevitable, satisfying bang. It's what really turns them on. And it does absolutely nothing for me.

If you're one of those who's new to sex play with balloons, you probably try all kinds of different things, and while some turn you on more than others, I'll wager that what really get you going is the variety, the chance to do something different, and maybe even the chance to feel a little naughty doing something outside what's considered normal.

Maybe that's a fetish in itself, being sexually aroused by novelty. I wonder if it has a name. I'd love to hear some thoughts on this.

And They Call Me Strange

When I go out on the Internet, looking for conversations about balloon fetishism, I see a lot of porn sites trying to cash in on us, a few reasonable articles, and more than a few comments like, "That's really messed up," or "you people are sick."

I don't expect anyone who does not have the fetish, or even a fetish (or at least one they will recognize as such) to understand, but it seems that an awful lot of venom is reserved for people like me who get turned on by balloons, as opposed to "mainstream" fetishes like BDSM and spanking and latex and even furry fetishism. (Does that one have its own term, equivalent to globophilia? It seems like it's every bit as common.)

I've even seen some of these fetishes used as subject matter on prime time network television, particularly in episodes of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. A dominatrix even appeared in multiple episodes as a very human and sympathetic character. In the same series (which does, after all, take place in Las Vegas), I have seen furries and infantilism and even fetishes for obese girls. I remember an episode of Picket Fences where the priest turned out to have a shoe fetish.

But the only references I have seen to balloon fetishes are in factual (if incompletely so) television, as with the series Strange Sex.

And yet our is such a harmless fetish! Maybe it's because people associate balloons with children, and so associate us with pedophiles. We are not pedophiles. The only connection between globophilia and childhood is that the roots of it, for most of us, go back way before puberty. But the sexual interest is very much an adult interest. And in case you hadn't noticed, adults play with balloons, too.

Maybe it's because we can get turned on by something that other people do without there being any sexual intent. Maybe the idea that, if you happen to be playing a balloon popping game at a party or on a game show or on a cruise that someone watching you might be getting hot because of it.

But we do things all the time that might be turning someone on. The clothes we wear—good grief, the shoes—any idea how common foot and shoe fetishes are? Men get turned on looking at attractive women all the time, and vice versa. What of it? It's not what we think about, or what makes us feel horny that counts. It's what we do about it. It's how we act.

And that is a matter of personal character. Not a matter of what one's particular turn-on is.

Not For Me To Say

I don't consider it my place to explain what globophilia is, or what it is not. I can describe what my particular brand of globophilia involves, what it makes me think, and how it makes me feel, to the best of my ability.

But it is a widely varied beast, this fetish, this attraction to a rubber bag filled with air. If you read other writers on the topic (yes, I'm not the only one, much to my own surprise), they will tell you about the fetish with some confidence, even as they oversimplify.

People with a balloon fetish, they will tell you, are called "looners." Well, some are, and bloggers and magazine writers and porn sites have picked up on the term. I can't stand it. It's flippant and silly and makes us sound crazy. Having strong sexual feeling about balloons may, in itself, be a bit off-kilter. But I assure you I am quite sane. And I am not a "looner." I am a globophile.

The bloggers will tell you that the globophiles come down to two types: poppers and non-poppers, the first getting off of balloons popping and the second getting off on balloons without popping them, and that any variations are just degrees along this continuum. Again, a vast oversimplification. It's kind of like saying that, in politics, there are liberals and conservatives, and everyone falls somewhere on the line between the two.

But as with most things in life, it's not nearly that simple. I'm what might be called a popper. I pop balloons, and I love to watch women pop balloons. But only if they pop the balloons in certain ways. I like to watch women blow up balloons until they pop. I like to watch them sit on them or squeeze them. But I really feel disappointed if a woman pops a balloon by stepping on it or sticking it with a pin or with her fingernails. And I absolutely loathe popping a balloon with a lighter or a cigarette.

And, by the way, popping balloons also scares the crap out of me. And I like to watch women do things that don't involve popping balloons, too, like cuddle them next the their breasts, or just blow them up and tie them, or stuff them into their clothing, or sit on them without popping them (which is entirely possible, in case you didn't know that).

Now there are globophiles who like nothing better than pin popping or cigarette popping or bare feet popping, or any number of methods that do nothing for me. And there are those who hate popping because it scares them, and those who hate popping even though it doesn't scare them and those who don't particularly hate popping, but just don't find it sexually gratifying.

And that's just a small taste of the great variety of interests covered by this one term, globophilia, or balloon fetishism, if you prefer. Because people with a sexual interest in toy balloons are, first and foremost, human.

Sex and Balloons

You could say that I have a fetish for toy balloons, although I prefer to say that balloons are my fetish. My sex object. Not my only sex object—I'm quite fond of women, and one in particular that I happen to be married to. But I get turned on by balloons and by watching women do things with balloons.

Weird? Perhaps, but certainly innocuous among sexual attractions, and really quite fun. If you don't "get it," if you don't understand why anyone would get off on a child's toy, then this blog is most likely not for you.

I can describe what I feel, what gets my juices flowing, what I like to do and watch, but I can't explain why any better than anyone else. I didn't wake up one day and say, "I think I'll get down and dirty with some toy balloons today. It happened, over time, gradually working its way into my consciousness as I grew from being a little boy to a teen.

And unless you have a fetish yourself (and admit that your sexual quirks might be, in fact, a fetish), you won't understand. But I didn't write this to educate or convince you. I write to satisfy the curious, communicate with the like-minded, and express my own feeling in a way that will last.

And I won't be offended if you decide to spend your reading time elsewhere. Honest.