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I’m not really sure how it started.  Maybe some “boundary-pushing” pop star did it on TV to get a few extra followers on their social media site, or maybe this was just the natural progression in how we were going to rebel against the social norm.  All I knew is that “Fanting” was a thing now.

The first time I saw it, I was at a house party on Chatham Street.  Good beer, plenty of chips and whoever was picking out the music had pretty decent taste.  But three beers into the night, while having a conversation about how the Transformers films had betrayed my youth, Jill waltzed into the house wearing an ensemble so ridiculous that I momentarily felt second-hand embarrassment for her - as I could only assume that she thought this was some sort of costume party.  Imagine my surprise, though, when the rest of the party began to scream and laugh in excitement.  They LOVED this get-up.  Jill was met with a wave of hi-fives, hugs and praise.  I, however, was flummoxed.

Allow me to do my best to describe what I observed:  Her hair was a mass of pigtails, random braids, and childish barrettes of various colors.  Her makeup was all bright colors and glitter, as if a child had discovered her older sister’s makeup collection and proceeded to roll around in it, face first.  Around her neck was a thick pink ribbon, strung through what appeared to be an infant’s pacifier.  It only got more perplexing as my eyes scanned southward.  She wore a childish one-piece pink pajama suit which featured a smattering of white polka dots on it.  I couldn’t even remember what this type of garment was called; it had been so long since I had seen one.  Was this a onesie?  Footed pajamas?  Around her waist, there was a pink tutu, made of lace and tulle, that was overtop of her pajamas.  The pajamas ran down her legs into a pair of thick leather designer boots - probably the only thing she was wearing that didn’t have a childish slant.

She spun around for the excited crowd, to share a better glimpse of her outfit with them all, and everyone cheered loudly.  My face, however, had dropped even further.  Her butt, normally this perfectly round shape that my eyes had picked out of a crowd more than once while on campus, was exposed through an open flap in the back of her pajamas.  Expecting colorful panties, or at least some juvenile print, my mind could barely comprehend what I actually saw.  I had to turn to Sadie, a good friend of mine, to confirm what I looked at.

“Was that a…”

“A diaper?” she responded with a smile.  “Yeah.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, with a look on my face that must’ve been twisted in complete shock and confusion, as Sadie just laughed.

“She’s fanting!”

“Fanting…?”

“You haven’t heard of fanting?”

“Obviously not.”

“It’s this new thing.  Basically, it's dressing up like...well, like Jill is.  Infantile, you know?  Thats where the word comes from.  It’s like a shortened version of infant-ing.”

“What would even be the point of that?”

“It’s supposed to be like a statement.  It’s like she’s saying, ‘Fuck the social expectations of young adults.  I had more fun when I was a little girl, so I’m going to dress like one!’  It's supposed to be pretty empowering.”

“Yeah, I guess I get that.  But...is all of that necessary?  The diaper?”

“Not everyone takes it to such an extreme, but I think something like that gains you a lot of respect amongst other fanters.”

“It’s kind of...weird.”

“I think it’s adorable!” Sadie exclaimed.  “Hold on, I’ll be back, I just have to go compliment her!”

And just like that, fanting had arrived to campus.  The next week, I spotted at least 3 other girls “fanting.”  By the end of the month, it felt like there wasn’t a single day that had passed where I didn’t see a handful of different fanters.  There were just as many variations on what fanting looked like as there were similarities.  Colors seemed key, mostly pinks, yellows, reds and soft blues. Pigtails and ponytails seemed popular too, as did barrettes, clips and hairbands.  Some just carried around pacifiers with them, while others suckled on them throughout the day.  Some fanters drank out of baby bottles, while others carried around a supply of juice boxes.  Some spoke in awkwardly childish tones, while others dared to use actual babytalk.

As strange as all of that was, it was the popularity of diapers that really surprised me.  Two months ago, had I gone up to 100 of my peers and asked if they’d be interested in wearing diapers at this stage in their life...on purpose...in public...with the understanding that everyone would know this, I don’t believe I would’ve gotten a single positive response.  Yet here we were.  Short skirts barely hid thick diapers.  Diapers stuck out from the tops of pants, even amongst some who didn’t necessarily dress like fanters otherwise.  News stories began popping up online about elderly customers complaining that their local pharmacies were consistently out of incontinence products because of the fanting fad.

Whatever the intent of fanting was, it seemed to be working.  Adults were scared, confused and unsure how to treat it.  A popular television sketch comedy show barely avoided a mass boycott after they mocked the fanters and received a fierce backlash.  It was said that fanters from around the nation went so far as to actually use their diapers for their intended purpose, and then mailed the used undergarment to the television studio.  Illegal?  Probably.  But did it get the point across?  Absolutely.  Fanting was here to stay.

While I had managed to avoid much direct contact with the fanting movement, that imaginary boundary was crossed when I invited Sadie to come over to my apartment for dinner one night.  I had thought that Sadie, while seeming interested in fanting, had thus far appeared to have avoided embracing it for herself.   I was wrong, of course, for when I opened my door to greet her, I found her in a billowy pink and blue romper with tulle frills and a pacifier clipped to her chest.  As she bounded into my room with her enormous smile, I caught a quick peek of a thick white diaper under her outfit as she dropped her bookbag on the ground next to the ballerina flats she had just kicked off.

“Really?” I asked, my hands on my hips.  “You too?”

“It’s such a cute look!  I was just dying to try it out.”  She must’ve seen the exasperation on my face, and she immediately put on an overly dramatic pout.  “Please don’t tell me that you don’t approve.”

“It’s not that I don’t approve,” I said with a shrug.  “I just don’t...get it.”

“What is there not to get?”

“I mean...I’m not judging you.”  I worried that I was backpedaling slightly.  “It’s just not my thing, you know?”

“Of course.  But, I have to say, it’s been so much fun!”

“Really?  How so?”

“It’s just so...liberating.  I don’t think about what others will think of the outfit I pick out. I don’t have to worry about how I’m perceived.  I just...dress how I want.  Do what I want.  Be who I want to be.”

“And you want to be a toddler?”

“See, it’s not even really like that,” she said.  “It’s about embracing that free spirit that you had when you were a kid.  You didn’t dress to impress others or be accepted by society.  You wore silly things and pranced around because it was fun.”

“I can see the appeal in that,” I admitted.  It was true, though it hadn’t exactly convinced me to exchange my trousers for a pair of rubber pants.  “The diapers?”

“You love to harp on the diapers,” she said with a laugh.  

“It’s just the hardest part of this for me to understand.  Maybe they’re just so symbolic of...helplessness, you know?  Babies and old people, right?  They don’t wear them for freedom or self-expression.  They wear them out of necessity. They symbolize the need for help and assistance.”

“I suppose you could look at it like that.  But so many of the fanters see it in a different way.  It's an act of rebellion.  It’s defiance in the face of complacency and adulthood.  We’re taught at such a young age to abandon diapers and use these...awkward chairs with a hole in them, right?  It’s more symbolic of, if anything, recapturing a moment of our youth that gets stripped away in the first step in the process of honing us into becoming adults.”

“Wow,” I said, scratching my head.  “I can’t say I completely agree with that, but it's certainly an interesting point.”

“I thought it was a little weird at first,” she admitted.  “You don’t realize how conditioned you are into acting like an adult until you try and go against the grain.  Just putting a diaper on, my body just felt...weird.  Like it was almost refusing the concept altogether. I had to reassure myself a thousand times that this was okay...because I wanted it to be okay.”

“You don’t...use the diapers, do you?”

“Full toddling?”

“Full...what?”

“That’s what it’s called.  If you go full toddle, it means that you not only wear diapers but you also…”

“I can guess,” I interrupted.  “Is that...popular?”

“It’s gaining popularity,” Sadie said nonchalantly with a shrug.  “You know Jill?  She went full toddle.  I saw that on Todlr the other day.”  Then, as if she realized that she should elaborate on that a little, she added:  “T-O-D-L-R...it’s a social networking platform for fanters.”

“That’s actually not very surprising,” I shrugged.  “So Jill?  How does that even work?”

“She says it's the most amazing feeling.  She just...goes whenever she wants, no matter where she is.  She says that the hardest part is overcoming the social stigmas associated with it, but that once you do, you just feel so empowered.”

“I mean, not to be rude, but the social stigmas are in place for a reason.  I mean, can you imagine going to class and everyone is just going to the bathroom in their pants?”

“Well, sure, nobody wants to be disrespectful.  I’ve seen a lot of different ways people handle that. There’s dietary supplements.  Some people wear multiple diapers at once...or just really thick ones.  Plastic pants.  Most people just change themselves frequently.”

“Isn’t that even more work than just going to the bathroom?”

“Maybe. But its really not about ‘ease.’”

I had to take a moment to compose my thoughts as I prepared our food.  I stirred the vegetables in the pan and sought out two bottles of beer from the fridge, placing them on the table.  My mind had wandered to the thought of Jill - more specifically, her shapely behind.  It was surreal enough seeing it covered in a large diaper.  Stranger still was the thought of her using her diaper just like a baby would.  I had just seen her the day before, as she picked up lunch in the cafeteria.  She was wearing this short summer dress-like thing, her thick diapers sticking out beneath the hem, covered in a pink pair of plastic pants.  I didn’t consider it then, but now I wondered what was in those diapers.  Had she used them?  Was she walking around in need of a change?

“What are you thinking about?” Sadie asked.

“Hmm?”

“Oh I thought I saw smoke coming out of your ears,” she teased.  “You must’ve been in some deep thought there.”

“I’m just trying to make sense of it all,” I said, offering a playful laugh to assure her that I really wasn’t trying to judge anyone.  That was true.

“Give it a try sometime,” she said.  “You might be surprised by how you feel about it.”

“Do many guys do this?”  I had only seen one or two male fanters over the last few weeks.  

“Not especially.  They’re plenty active on Todlr, but maybe it's just more difficult for males to abandon their…” she tried to find the right words, “...social comfort zones?”

“I get what you mean,” I said, not completely sure if I agreed with her choice of words either.  I decided to get back to the question that I asked earlier, but that I hadn’t gotten an actual answer to yet:  “So, Sadie.”

“Yeah?”

“Have you gone...full toddle?”

“No,” she said.  I could tell she wanted to say more, but her face flushed bright red and she broke into a fit of laughter and giggles.  Even though I had no idea what she was laughing about, I couldn’t help but laugh myself, her giddy delight was rather infectious.  She finally caught her breath and muttered something that I couldn’t quite make out.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“I said that, uhm, I...want to.  But I haven’t.”

I was intrigued, though I didn’t want to seem overly curious.  I offered a sincere:  “That’s interesting,” and plated some vegetables for us.  “I apologize, but I don’t have a bib with me,” I teased.

“I didn’t bring mine either,” she pouted.  I couldn't tell if she was being serious or not, but I chose not to address that.  

While eating, we changed the subject a little.  It was a welcome reprieve from the awkwardness of our earlier conversation as we talked about Harry Potter prequels, post-apocalyptic video games and our current favorite songs. I had been looking forward to our little dinner date for a while...I had even been considering admitting some of my feelings towards her.  The fanting stuff had thrown me for a little bit of a loop, but I couldn’t deny our chemistry as we just talked over dinner.

One beer had turned into two beers.  Then, I found a half-a-bottle of forgotten rum, and that turned into cuba libres.  Some of my memories get a little fuzzy, but I know that we ended up on my couch, giggling at the absurdity of fanting.  As she sat on the couch, she had slowly and subtly unbuttoned part of her romper so that she could expose her diaper to me.  I didn’t say anything at first, but finally, it seemed like too obvious a point not to address.

“So, what are you trying to show me?” I asked.

“C-can I show you something?” she asked timidly.

“Is it your diaper?  Because I can see that clearly already.”

“No no...I mean...yes.  But also no.”

“You have to clarify,” I said, and we laughed a little.

“Just...just watch this.”  

And so I watched.  For a moment, nothing happened.  She sat on the couch, facing me, the bottom part of her romper peeled back enough to expose her diaper to me.  Not that anything seemed different about that.  There were a few moments where I was tempted to say something, but I didn’t, expecting that maybe if I waited one more moment, something would happen.

Then, seemingly all at once, something happened.  There was a hissing noise, and by the time I figured out where it was coming from, her diaper was already changing.  The pearly white gave way to a dulled pastel yellow, and the smooth plastic-like lining of the diaper became wrinkled and soggy in appearance.  It all happened so quickly, and it happened right before my eyes.  I looked up for a moment, catching her eyes, and she had a nervous smile on her face.  She looked like she was seeking my approval.  

The thing was, there wasn’t any debate in my mind.  Regardless of any amount of confusion or awkwardness I felt towards Sadie’s life style choices, it all melted away when I saw her face.  She was happy, blissful even, and she had trusted me enough (whether or not it had anything to do with our alcohol, I wasn’t about to question) to share this with me.  

I said nothing.  Instead, I stood up, took a step or two towards her, and lowered myself on top of her slowly.  Her arms were open to receive me, and her lips were already waiting for mine.  We’d end up rolling off of the couch and onto the floor as my hands explored the surface of her saturated diaper, while her mouth explored my neck.

Later, I offered to help her change, but she only responded with a cheeky “next time,” with a wink.  The fact that there was going to be a next time was more exhilarating than actually getting to do it this time.  I realized that I had been converted - if not to the concept of fanting, than to the idea of getting to help my best friend indulge in it.  

Time moved on.  I’d get my chance to be a little more hands-on in the privacy of her bedroom and we’d fall asleep in a cloud of baby powder.  

Meanwhile, the world changed too.  Nothing’s meant to last, and almost as quickly as fanting appeared, it dissipated.  When I saw Jill at another house party later in the month, and she was wearing just a normal pair of jeans and a tank top, her perfect bottom clearly accentuated, I knew that it had run its course.  

Fanting’s decline was based on more than just the normal shifting of pop culture, of course.  Ask anyone who went to a party in a diaper, and they’ll tell you that the movement died in the exact moment that it was embraced by the mainstream.  A popular diaper brand announced special diapers for adults who were “children at heart,” available in a plethora of colors and patterns to coordinate with the rest of your outfit.  They were an abysmal failure, of course.  Being catered too didn’t exactly fit in with the lifestyle of these free-spirited adult children.

It wasn’t only the official products.  As could be predicted, the world just wasn’t equipped to handle a surge in popularity for disposable diapers.  You’d be hard-pressed to find a public establishment willing to be packed with diaper-wearing adults, or to have their restroom bathrooms overflowing with discarded ones.  By the time that the restrictions against public fanting rolled out, people were retiring their diapers in favor of the next hot trend.

A curious thing happened, though.  Months after the demise of fanting as a cultural phenomenon, retail stores reported a continued high demand for adult incontinence products.  While it had certainly diminished from when fanting as at its peak, someone was still buying them.  In bedrooms, basements and bathrooms around the country, someone was certainly still wearing diapers for pleasure.

Or so I’d speculate.  What other explanation would there be?