It's Kink Month at Allure, and we're talking all about the niche fantasies and fetishes that get people off. After you’re done reading about ’loon lovers, be sure to check out our full kinky lineup.

What comes to mind when you hear the word "balloon"? Perhaps it's a birthday party or dance floor filled with balloons, the movie It, or a memory from a childhood birthday party, or maybe you noticed Jemima Kirke wore a dress depicting the word "looner" to the 2019 Met Gala and wondered what that means. For some folks, a balloon is an erotic object — a source of much pleasure and delight.

The balloon fetish community calls themselves "looners," and they demonstrate the many shapes sexuality and kink come in. While it's difficult to pinpoint exactly when balloon kinks hit the scene, it's likely it happened as soon as people had access to them, which happened around 1824, when a London-based scientist named Michael Faraday invented rubber balloons.

The next year, Faraday partnered with a rubber company to sell make-your-own-balloon kits. In the book Deviant Desires: A Tour of the Erotic Edge, published in 2019, author Katharine Gates describes first learning of the fetish over 20 years ago through a website called Balloon Buddies. While the fetish has thrived in online communities since the ’90s, it has likely existed as long as rubber balloon manufacturing has been a thing.

Below, let us pop some myths about what exactly this fetish is — and what it isn't.

What does a balloon fetish entail?

As with any kink, there is no one-size-fits-all model for looners. According to Brandon, known as TheBalloonGuy on the kinky social media site FetLife, there are "poppers" (those who enjoy the sound and experience of a balloon popping) and "non-poppers," who admire the balloons and dislike seeing them popped. "I am in the middle ground, a semi-popper, in that I love seeing members of the opposite sex interact with balloons, including popping them," Brandon says. "But I find it difficult to pop balloons myself. I love being teased with balloons and effectively melt into a squirmy puddle of gooey submissiveness if someone is coming very close to popping a balloon."