Question for Older Phreaks (50 plus?)

9 posts / 0 new

Sun, 06/24/2007 - 16:04

AlecDeluxe

I don't know how many older inflation phreaks we got--the informal poll suggests we have at least a few, tho I don't know how accurate that is. Anyway, here's the setup...

Most inflation list the Violet scene from "Wonka" as the seminal moment when they discovered their fetish. (In my case, it was the cartoon of "The Frog and the Ox," but that was still close chronatically, circa late 60s, early 70s). I'm wondering what got older fans into inflation before "Wonka," maybe--gasp!--before TV was common(?). Was there a "pre-Violet" Violet?

I guess I'm interested in seeing, as much as possible in an informal Internet study, how common this fetish was before these inflation images became widespread in popular culture. I'm curious if there was a sudden growth (ouch) in this fetish after TV and film put these evil images in our heads.

I want to pop so much I could burst!

Sun, 06/24/2007 - 22:45

nineteenthly

I'm thirty-nine. I didn't see "Willy Wonka" until the late 'seventies, and it was on a black and white TV. It was very exciting but not the beginning for me.

The very beginning was in the school playground when i was seven or eight. Some girls nearby were playing a game where one of them was pretending to fill the other with blood so that she swelled up, and the other was pretending she didn't want it to happen. A few nights later, i was in bed and started fantasising about a game where children were being inflated through their mouths by a gas cylinder and floating around. I included myself in this, and i got off on the humiliation factor, but i didn't realise it was a sexual thing. I had a whole load of different fantasies but most of them disappeared, except for the inflation fetishism and a couple of other things which aren't so important now.

I did also see a Tom and Jerry cartoon strip in a comic where Spike inflated Tom with water from a hose, but by then it was definitely established in me. I didn't even know about Violet Beauregarde until my fetish was well and truly entrenched.

http://www.youtube.com/user/nineteenthly

Wed, 08/15/2007 - 20:21

inflatedmuscle

I'm 48 so a bit shy of your target response group. I was becoming aware of the interest about the time of the first Willie Wonka movie but had earlier exposure through many cartoon clips and story books before that. The Three Stooges had a good inflation scene in a short called the Dizzy Pilots made in the 1930's that really hooked me. I can remember an inflation scene from a silent movie or very early talkie from the 1920's about a department store manager that I saw in the late 1960's.

I know of inflation art work that date to at least the late 1800's. One example is a cartoon mocking fashions of the day where the ball-like shoulders and wasp waist of a woman's dress is inflated with a bike pump until she floats away. I've seen several political cartoons from the Gilded Age that represented the graft and corruption of the times by swollen and over blown characters being pumped up by political flunkies. I have an early copy of "Swiss Family Robinson" that has artwork and a scene where they make an inflatble shirt for one of the boys out of a bladder from some animal. They blow him up and he plays in the waves on the beach like a human ball. I also remember a Holiday comic from about 1900 where the father sends away for a Santa costume made of India rubber that his housekeeper helps him put on and then inflates him enormously.

Now most of these things were produced from a standpoint of humor but it always made me wonder if an inflation fetish of the creator might have been a source of inspiration.
In the 1800's they had early inflatables they called India rubber cushions so it is conceivable that there might have been a fetish interest in such items. Helmeted dive gear and the popularity of hot air ballooning dating back to the late 1700's was part of the modern technology of the day so images of inflation would have been part of popular culture long before movies and televison. Human nature being what it is, turning such imagery into a fetish interest isn't too hard to believe though I'm sure there was more repression of such interests back then.

Wed, 08/15/2007 - 21:44

nineteenthly

I've mentioned this before, but Jonathan Swift mentions body inflation at least twice, once in "Tale of a Tub", which was written by 1697, and once in "Gulliver's Travels", published in 1726. In the last, Gulliver is being shown various marvels in some made up land and one of them is a way of relieving flatulence in a dog by inflating it via the anus with bellows. It doesn't work and kills the dog. Here it is:

I was complaining of a small fit of the Cholick; upon which my Conductor
led me into a Room, where a great Physician resided, who was famous for
curing that Disease by contrary Operations from the same Instrument. He
had a large Pair of Bellows with a long slender Muzzle of Ivory. This he
conveyed eight Inches up the Anus, and drawing in the Wind, he affirmed
he could make the Guts as lank as a dried Bladder. But when the Disease
was more stubborn and violent, he let in the Muzzle while the Bellows
were full of Wind, which he discharged into the Body of the Patient, then
withdrew the Instrument to replenish it, clapping his Thumb strongly
against the Orifice of the Fundament; and this being repeated three or four
Times, the adventitious Wind would rush out, bringing the noxious along
with it (like Water put into a Pump), and the Patient recover. I saw him try
both Experiments upon a Dog, but could not discern any Effect from the
former. After the latter, the Animal was ready to burst, and made so
violent a Discharge, as was very offensive to me and my Companions. The
Dog died on the Spot, and we left the Doctor endeavouring to recover him
by the same Operation.

http://www.youtube.com/user/nineteenthly

Thu, 08/16/2007 - 17:42

deleted_20091014

interesting... Jonathan Swift lived in my home town during his childhood... So now it has two inflation connections :P

Thu, 08/16/2007 - 22:07

Murkstorm

inflatedmuscle wrote:

I also remember a Holiday comic from about 1900 where the father sends away for a Santa costume made of India rubber that his housekeeper helps him put on and then inflates him enormously.

Would you happen to remember anything else about this one so I could research it?

Fri, 08/17/2007 - 13:04

AlecDeluxe

Yeah, if you find that comic, share it. Thanks for that very informative post, inflatedmuscle! Exactly what I was looking for.

I want to pop so much I could burst!

Fri, 08/17/2007 - 16:53

darth_clone19

I guess that as long as people have seen that things gets filled up with air, the connection for body inflation was made. Because of course, you cant imagine an idea without putting pieces of things you have seen together.

- Read my stories: darth-clone19.deviantart.com

Sun, 08/19/2007 - 17:27

inflatedmuscle

The comic was a full page color layout from a newspaper that was matted in a booth at an antique show probably 20 years ago. Was old enough the characters didn't mean anything to me. Sorry I'm no help there.

The characters were a father with a black housekeeper who made sidecracks and two or three children. There didn't seem to be a mother. The father was inflated by the wisecracking servant as the guy gave her instructions for "more air... more air" and she argued with him. The guy ended up so blown up in the suit that he could barely move but just as the children saw Santa a robber broke in and stabbed him with a knife. The capper was the escaping air plastered the bad guy to the wall so that "Santa" could play the hero and capture the guy. Don't remember if the kids figured out Santa was Dad.

It was pretty cool though too much money for me at the time. Needless to say I wished I bought it.
It was probably from the early 1900's. The depiction of the servant was pretty racist and with the style of dress I would say prior to 1910 - though I imagine the sad depiction of blacks was still a common practice until the late forties. Would be cool it someone else would remember this or know of it. Sorry for being so long winded in my posts.

Question for Older Phreaks (50 plus?)

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