For the past decade, 25-year-old Selv has harboured a secret. It looms large in his existence everyday, ensuring that he never finds true love, the one thing he yearns for.

Selv is a Diaper Lover (DL).

DLs are a subgroup of the Adult Baby Diaper Lover (ABDL) community, which is commonly categorised as having paraphilic infantilism. Wikipedia also describes this “sexual fetish” as “adult baby syndrome”, where an adult is involved in “roleplaying a regression to an infant-like state”.

To the average person, who has only been exposed to ABDLs through exaggerated representations in the media, being an ABDL isn’t a mere bad habit, like cutting toenails on the bus. In the mainstream narrative, ABDLs are freaks.

These are dysfunctional adults who dress up as babies to satisfy some inner desire. They are also portrayed as being severely unattractive. Inevitably, there’s deep shame and stigma attached to the community.

Selv, who is a university student, shares, “Long before I found the ABDL community, I knew I was odd for wanting to wear diapers and to see others wear them too. Coming to terms with being an ABDL didn’t resolve my wish to see others in diapers though. I didn’t need anyone to tell me this was not usual, it is very obvious.”

He is aware that if anyone found out he was a DL, he would be ridiculed.

For this precise reason, he refuses to meet in person, only agreeing to communicate via email, on the condition that I don’t try to hunt him down and reveal his true identity.