Do you let someone around know about you dev feelings?

[Eliza]

There's someone who knows about your dev feelings?

Like your sister/brother, parents, close friends? If the answer was positive, could you share with us?



Around me there's one person who knows about it, she's my best friend and she gives me a safe place to share my thoughts.

[Deleted]

I just told my very close disabled friend about it and she isn't really judgmental about it, but she does have an ethical concern about me fetishizing people for their disabilities and pathologizing my attraction to a person who happened to be disabled.

I have the same concerns and it makes me sick to think about reducing disabled people to objects for my pleasure, but yet I have been attracted to disabled people and found their disabilities intriguing. I don't just jump on disabled people just bc they're disabled; we need to have chemistry and similar values of course! I think I find familiarity in disability and it's weirdly comforting. I would never do something against someone's consent and I'm very careful about not being weird when I talk to disabled people in real life.

I think she understands, especially when I explained that I might be disabled (I am getting assessed for autism soon) and I have always felt like a freak, it just wasn't a physical or visible difference that people could see. I haven't really told anyone else how far it goes.

[ayla]

My husband, therapist, and inner circle of close friends all know and not one of them so much as raised an eyebrow when I told them. If anything they were just perplexed about why I felt any shame/secrecy around the attraction in the past. Maybe I just have great people in my life (okay I definitely do!) but I hope my story helps younger devs share their true selves earlier than age 37. I wish I had!

[Deleted]

Oct 6, 2021 22:17:01 GMT -5 ayla said:

My husband, therapist, and inner circle of close friends all know and not one of them so much as raised an eyebrow when I told them. If anything they were just perplexed about why I felt any shame/secrecy around the attraction in the past. Maybe I just have great people in my life (okay I definitely do!) but I hope my story helps younger devs share their true selves earlier than age 37. I wish I had!

That makes me feel a bit better. <3 Thank you for sharing

[Eliza]

A time ago I was in terapy and I told to my psicologist about being dev, she's answered me saying that what I feel and the insecurity that's involve in that is a normal issue.

[ada]

I told a couple of people, only one really in depth. A relatively close friend from high school—we were in school when I did She had her own kink too, and we shared it in secrecy. She knows all about it. But we kind of drifted apart. Too bad, I wish I had someone close I could talk about it now!
But A few years ago, I told a close cousin about "liking men in wheelchairs" while we were drunk. I was never sure if she really understood it, she never mentioned anything. But like two months ago we got together and I told her again, out of the blue; we were standing in line at the supermarket and she was telling me about her sister dating "a really weird guy with a limp" and I went blank for a second, took a deep breath in and said "well, to each their own... It's no worse than me liking men in wheelchairs". And she was confused and asked me "oh really? Like a fetish?" And I was like fuck it, "yeah, like that". There's no problem in calling it a fetish. And then added: "But the guy still has to check all my other boxes.". And that was it. She nodded and we went on like it never happened. I never told her the full extension of it and it kinda bugs me. I'm waiting. I wanna tell more people—so many times I felt like it was just at the tip of my tongue, but I held it in. I'm an early dev bloomer, but I still got some of that judgment-fearing feeling. Oh well. I'm working on it, though!

[Eliza]

Oct 7, 2021 16:36:45 GMT -5 ada said:

I told a couple of people, only one really in depth. A relatively close friend from high school—we were in school when I did She had her own kink too, and we shared it in secrecy. She knows all about it. But we kind of drifted apart. Too bad, I wish I had someone close I could talk about it now!
But A few years ago, I told a close cousin about "liking men in wheelchairs" while we were drunk. I was never sure if she really understood it, she never mentioned anything. But like two months ago we got together and I told her again, out of the blue; we were standing in line at the supermarket and she was telling me about her sister dating "a really weird guy with a limp" and I went blank for a second, took a deep breath in and said "well, to each their own... It's no worse than me liking men in wheelchairs". And she was confused and asked me "oh really? Like a fetish?" And I was like fuck it, "yeah, like that". There's no problem in calling it a fetish. And then added: "But the guy still has to check all my other boxes.". And that was it. She nodded and we went on like it never happened. I never told her the full extension of it and it kinda bugs me. I'm waiting. I wanna tell more people—so many times I felt like it was just at the tip of my tongue, but I held it in. I'm an early dev bloomer, but I still got some of that judgment-fearing feeling. Oh well. I'm working on it, though!

I also want to tell other friends about it.

[koala]

I have never told anyone. Sometimes, I feel like I want to just because I want to have someone that I can be my true authentic self around, but I'm so afraid of judgment. It took me a long time to understand and accept that piece of myself, so I have a hard time comprehending how anyone else possibly could. I grew up around a lot of judgemental people, and that had hugely impacted the types of personal things I feel comfortable sharing with others. It gets lonely at times not having anyone who really knows you at the deepest level, but I still just can't seem to shake the fear. Hopefully someday.

[Eliza]

Oct 7, 2021 22:25:21 GMT -5 koala said:

I have never told anyone. Sometimes, I feel like I want to just because I want to have someone that I can be my true authentic self around, but I'm so afraid of judgment. It took me a long time to understand and accept that piece of myself, so I have a hard time comprehending how anyone else possibly could. I grew up around a lot of judgemental people, and that had hugely impacted the types of personal things I feel comfortable sharing with others. It gets lonely at times not having anyone who really knows you at the deepest level, but I still just can't seem to shake the fear. Hopefully someday.

Growing up surrounded by judgment is hard.
It's good that we have a space on the internet to talk about the topic openly.

[hjfundus]

Oct 6, 2021 21:34:26 GMT -5 @paracrush9 said:

I just told my very close disabled friend about it and she isn't really judgmental about it, but she does have an ethical concern about me fetishizing people for their disabilities and pathologizing my attraction to a person who happened to be disabled.

I have the same concerns and it makes me sick to think about reducing disabled people to objects for my pleasure, but yet I have been attracted to disabled people and found their disabilities intriguing. I don't just jump on disabled people just bc they're disabled; we need to have chemistry and similar values of course! I think I find familiarity in disability and it's weirdly comforting. I would never do something against someone's consent and I'm very careful about not being weird when I talk to disabled people in real life.

I relate to a lot of this. I think a lot of bad rep about devs is because of creepy dudes being...well creepy and not being aware of consent etc etc...
I too hate the idea of reducing and objectifying people.

I've never told anyone. I have come close, a friend of mine who is very into BDSM and is super sex and kink positive and I were discussing sexuality and they asked me something about my attractions and I basically just said "I'm not ready to talk about it yet". I think they would be the most accepting of my friends, but I have issues with their level of confidentiality, and that's basically the reason why I haven't told them yet. It kind of sucks. Like, I kind of want to be "out", because I am in regards to my bisexuality, but it feels like the social acceptance isn't there yet, like how it is with LGBT acceptance.

[loveparas]

I only tried once when I was younger (and more naive) with a super close friend with whom I had no secrets and it didn't really go very well. She didn't understand me one bit even tho she was super open to most stuff and was super confused. I never talked to her about it again and I think she forgot.

I could never tell my parents in their current state, they can't go over the fact I am gay, they'll go over my devness 😂

Life is shit ngl.

[dolly]

I went through a phase where it felt important to tell a bunch of people in my life in order to feel fully authentic with them. It was while I was actively looking for disabled men to date. And I was also addressing my devness in therapy. So I did tell some friends to mixed results.

At the time it felt necessary, but now looking back, I wish for the most part that I hadn’t. It made some relationships awkward and others feel kind of embarrassing. I think I lost a couple of friends indirectly because of it.

It felt like a process that I 100% needed to go through at the time, but since then I have made a “real life” local dev friend and now that I have her to talk to, I wish I had not told other friends.

[BA]

No. This has always been a deeply private part of me. I’m in my 50’s and wonder if some of my reluctance is a result of my age (crosshairs of Gen X and dreaded boomer). I have shared authentically with people from this board, some of whom have remained in my circle of friends for more than 15 years! (I discovered this forum in 2006!).

[bluemagpie]

I also still feel very hesitant to share with close ones, but wish I could. I've only talked about it with PD peeps or a few disabled friends who I knew were safe.
But, I recently basically had to share with someone I know, kinda by accident. I have a Fetlife profile where it would be evident that I am a dev. Then some guy sent me a message, local and not disabled, and even though I was not into the stuff he was, we started chatting about music and other stuff, and he saw my profile and I explained about it.

Well, he suggests texting out of the site, and to my (and his) horror, it was a guy I knew, not well but had known for a good 10 years, neighbour, I know his ex-wife, our kids are classmates... he's very much in the same community. After we both recovered from the shock we actually met up for drinks and he was super curious about devness. So for the first time in my life I explained it and shared it all with someone. It was super cool and he was very cool about it, said it was almost cute that I felt I needed to be secretive about it.

So, another sign that many people would be more than open and cool about it. But I still cannot bring myself to share.

My one big big question is how/if to share with a future partner if he wasn't disabled. That I also cannot imagine but I also can't imagine hiding this part of me from a significant other. I always admire when I read of those that have shared with current partners (ahem, ayla ).

[ayla]

Oct 11, 2021 21:06:38 GMT -5 bluemagpie said:

I also still feel very hesitant to share with close ones, but wish I could. I've only talked about it with PD peeps or a few disabled friends who I knew were safe. But, I recently basically had to share with someone I know, kinda by accident. I have a Fetlife profile where it would be evident that I am a dev. Then some guy sent me a message, local and not disabled, and even though I was not into the stuff he was, we started chatting about music other stuff, but he saw my profile and I explained about it. Well, he suggests texting out of the site, and to my (and his) horror, it was a guy a knew, not well but had known for a good 10 years, neighbour, I know his ex-wife... he's still very much in the same community. After we both recovered from the shock we actually met up for drinks and he was super curious about devness. So for the first time in my life I explained it and shared it all with someone. It was super cool and he was very cool about it, said it was almost cute that I felt I needed to be secretive about it.

So, another sign that many would be more than open and cool about it. But I still cannot bring myself to share.

My one big big question is how/if to share with a future partner if he wasn't disabled. That I also cannot imagine but I also can't imagine hiding this part of me from a significant other. I always admire when I read of those that have shared with current partners (ahem, ayla).

That’s an AMAZING story! Like…what are the odds?

I’ve had that same reaction from folks in the kink community, though. People who have their own non-mainstream desires do seem to “get” that devness isn’t a chosen preference, just an organic thing that develops for us the same as anyone else’s sexual desire does.

My AB husband definitely sees nothing wrong with devness at all. That’s not to say it isn’t an issue for us, but the issue is not one of disapproval. He’s a big supporter. But, it IS a hard reality that I didn’t figure this out before already being deeply involved with him. So it’s a point of incompatibility in our relationship that we do have to struggle to work around (I don’t want to paint TOO rosy a picture here).