Do things like bondage sexual play go back to the sense of security that a infant had from being secured in a car seat? Just one of many examples (discipline, tickling, scat play, even abuse and neglect and the expectation to be neglected), of a parallel between how a infant may have been treated and what their sexual fetishes developed into.
The bond of infant and parental figure seems to be very intimate (as required by circumstance), and that closeness would appear to set the pattern of what a intimate relationship should be. Later in life, trying to duplicate that closeness when sexuality becomes available, do those early patterns also come into play?
kanicbird there are a whole mess of hypotheses about the origins of paraphilias. The behaviorists hold that intense early sexual arousal becomes conflated with a particular stimulus, so early arousal at the sight of the babysitter getting it on with her boyfriend could lead to a pattern of voyeurism. The behavioral model would also suggest that early feelings of comfort, security, and safety from being strapped into a car seat can be connected in the young mind to the straps themselves, providing a lifelong association that straps == comfort.
A Freudian perspective would argue that these experiences can occur even in infancy and still color behavior throughout the lifespan on an unconscious level. Social learning theories argue that the association is a part of, and continually reinforced by, environmental and familial forces.
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Maybe no ethical ways to test it, but you should be able to look for statistical patterns. If car seats encourage bondage, then we can conclude that the Marquis de Sade’s parents were time travelers.
Invention of the automobile unrelated to the OP - that is just one of many modern influences, is BDSM older then restraining, confinement and abuse of infants?
I found out as an adult that my Dad and I have (he’s gone now, so had in his case) some similar interests sexually. I didn’t even know about them as a kid but there’s some sort of data point.
We’re all shaped by our experiences, but I think if you look for a simple, direct line between experiences and things like turn-ons, you’re going to make a lot of attribution errors. For example: child safety seats have been common for quite a while, but not everybody is into bondage.
Not a direct line, no as there are too many things missing to make such a analysis, particularly what the infant associated with intimacy, if anything. A car seat restraint is just one of many infant experiences. Most people don’t remember their infancy, and while you could ask the parents, that does not necessarily mean the infant also felt the same way.
It is also hard to get a good idea of a group willing to express their sexual fetishes. So I assume something hard to study
But then again it would be interesting to know if there was a corresponding increase in sexual bondage play related to mandating child seats. How did the no-spank / time out method effect discipline play.
Well yes, but you might be surprised. People are often reticent about their kinks, and that’s one of the long-standing complaints about Kinsey’s work and that of others since. But sex-positive research is more likely to bring out honesty, and there have been some stellar studies on members of the BDSM community.
It would be interesting, most definitely. Unfortunately for your first question, we don’t have any control data–not enough pre-child seat research. Any current research broken down by age is so riddled with other socio-cultural confounds it would be all but impossible to sort for that single variable.
As for your second, about a potential correlation of parental discipline methods and sexual paraphilia, I agree that would also be an interesting line of research. I’ve just done a cursory glance through the literature, and I’m frankly surprised I haven’t been able to find any solid studies looking at the correlation. That doesn’t mean they’re not out there; my search-fu is weak with insufficient coffee, but they aren’t swimming to the surface for me. But again, the evidence does not show a relationship between childhood abuse and paraphilia.
There is anecdotal evidence that boys who are beaten, especially if it is associated with some ceremony like a nurse in uniform, may seek similar experiences in later life. Of course most boys do not, even if they had the same experience.
It is also widely believed that men in power often seek to be dominated sexually - by way of compensation?
By the time one sorts out fact from fiction; the reticent from the boastful, one would be left with very little to go on.
In terms of getting signals crossed and bondage, I think the multiple times a day my husband or I chase down our running, giggling toddler, hold him down while he struggles, strip off his pants, often swab his genitals, and then redress him would have a far greater possibility of making an impact than the couple times a week he’s in a car seat.
