I would hardly say I had a rough childhood. I rarely wanted for anything material. Yet at the same time, it was a childhood without the security of loving biological parents. I was raised by grandparents, and the lack of my natural parents in a regular routine in my life definitely contributed to a lack of emotional security for me.
In being someone with a fairly well-established Caregiver / little-ish relationship, I regularly run across others who are either in similar dynamics or who desire to be. The ones who have been comfortable enough to share some of their life stories with me often seem to have similarities.
Perhaps they had one or both parents in their homes, but they lacked some kind of emotional stability their parents should have (in a perfect world) been providing for them. They have found that particular dynamic healing for past issues in their upbringing, often a lack of nurturing parental figures.
Obviously, I don’t have a huge set of sample data to draw from. I can speak from personal experience, and speak quietly around the edges about some others, but when I have less than ten people to draw my conclusions from, I know my logic is faulty at best.
So then I began thinking.
As someone in a Caregiver / little-ish relationship, and someone who is pretty analytical, maybe there is research out there already.
I looked, but no dice.
What if I actually did the research and approached it scientifically?
So I started thinking about what I would need to know.
I’d need ages to sort people’s responses. The rest of the questions would be basic. I’d need to know if they had biological parents at home and how emotionally stable they felt their home lives were. I’d also need to know their roles in their dynamics.
I thus present this request to you, kinky world.
I want to know how we tick. I want to know what drives us. When I get enough responses (a thousand is my goal), I want to write about my findings.
Are our childhoods that intimately connected to the kinds of relationships we are building in our 20’s? Our 30’s? Our 40’s?
Do we begin to escape its influence as we get older and “wiser”?
Let’s all find out together, shall we?
https://www.surveymonkey.com/
About the Author
d20domme says
What you’re looking for is someone’s love attachment styles which are easily found. Its basis is dependent and formed from how we were cared for as children and how that affects our adult relationships. You might be part of the Avoidant type. It’s important you know yours and your partners styles so you have a better understanding of how your relationship may unfold and prepare.
AFREAKWOMAN says
I will be following this and the outcomes from your research. I have a love hate relationship with research, I hate collecting and analyzing data! But I love thinking about how different things can cause ripple effects. My husband recently revealed his interests in BDSM and wanting to explore more. He has always known I am bicurious and would potentially be interested in pursuing this. I never really thought it would be a reality, because I struggle with social anxiety and am unlikely to pursue a world or situation I know nothing about. However, he had actively started seeking information and establishing contacts etc, some unfortunate occurrences happened. At that point I knew he was truly serious, I started to tell him more about my interests and fantasies I’ve had for years, I’m not sure he fully believed HOW interested I was until he started to notice how wet I get before he even starts touching me! I have also struggled thoughout my education, in the profession I am in there have been numerous courses and presentations about childhood trauma and ACE scores leading to an increased risk for “deviant” behavior (and chronic illnesses). So for awhile before my husband truly knew about my desire for kink, I self-hated and degraded myself for being turned on by wamting to be dominated and sexually tourtures and played with, knowing that it this desire was linked to one of the most horrific events in my life, being sexually molested as a child. In this last week of my husband truly seeing a lot of my desire and wants, it has been SO freeing! I don’t feel disgusted, I don’t hate that I like kink because I know my husband now knows ALL of me! I hope you get enough participants for further research rsults!
MasterPetey says
Can all fetishes be linked back to childhood?
Christmas_bunny says
I think it depends on how you define the word fetish. When we talk about fetishes, are we talking about sexualizing things like spankings or feet, or are we talking little space? Many people who identify as littles don’t sexualize their age regressions, which I would think puts it in a different category. My two cents, anyhow.
likeadom says
I think this heavily relates to transference
Christmas_bunny says
I agree. The part I find interesting is that this dynamic seems to help people find healthy ways of handling those issues.