One thing that sort of strikes me in the inflation community is when certain people take a look at a suit inflation picture and they 'wish' that somehow it was the girl inside inflating rather than the suit.
I guess everyone has their preference but I'm one of the few people who actually enjoys pure suit inflation. Here are some of the reasons why:
1. Suit inflation is technically much more feasible in real life than actual body inflation. Sure, body inflation can be done and people out there actually do it, but body inflation in real life has much more potential to become something deadly or hurtful if proper precautions aren't taken. This is not to say suit inflation itself is 100% safe either, but you can imagine many more things going wrong with real-life body inflation.
2. Half of the thrill of the fetish itself is the victim's (or participant's) reaction to what is happening. Big Horse does a great job showing how panic and humiliation factor into a girl's suit suddenly filling up with some sort of gas. Take his awesome Big Sis and Lil' Sis series for example. Tinmible and I have done some interesting discussions on the more erotic applications of a girl inflating their suit and 'getting off' on the whole experience. Plus in general rubber and latex are considered to be one of the cornerstones of kinks, so inventive ways of stimulating oneself are quite plentiful. Photo studios like Fetisheyes and Rubber Eva have recently done more to explore inflatable suits and eroticism.
3. Inflatable suits are in a way a strange mix of symbolism and suggestion. There's a bit of excitement in wearing something that makes one body look like its blowing up like a balloon. There's a sort of psychological element in playing a cruel trick on someone who is particularly vain and sticking them into a suit that transforms their proud figure into something cartoonish and bloated. This is one of the reasons why I enjoy the infamous D-Type suit scene in Evangelion. Asuka is a pretty yet arrogant and proud spoiled little brat who gets put into a situation where her big ego gets hurt badly by putting on the D-Type plugsuit. In a way I think its the perfect example of how an inflatable suit scene should work. We know she's a pretty skinny girl underneath that ballooney plugsuit, but still the was she actually looks like a blimp and the psychological screwball antics are what make it entertaining.
I guess this is my convoluted and pseudo-shrink way of expressing my bizarre preferences. But I just want to clarify why when a cute girl's rubber suit inflates, some of us want to believe it is the SUIT inflating, not her body.
I'm George Plympt... er, Funky O'Brian, and goodnight.
Interesting thesis Dr O'Brian. Really I'd love to be able to actually inflate a girl in a suit, and my imagination would be somewhere between getting off on the suit inflating or the idea of herself inflating. But when it's just pure fantasy (i.e. everytime) I prefer to imagine the body inflation, suppose it's more physical than psychological for me. To get off on the suit you really have to be tapped into the embarrasment of the inflatee.