Dark and others have talked and asked about both the physical and mental challenges associated with the possibility of becoming “rubber dependent”.
The physiological or physical effects on de-rubbering was a surprising for me when I first noticed them. After weeks of spending much of every day in latex, building up my exposure day by day, followed by a few days spent in rubber 24/7, I did notice that I felt very strange when wearing non-latex clothes. All sorts of sensations – some of discomfort – that you spend years acclimatizing to were suddenly apparent.
It reminded me of childhood sensations of being asked to wear “fancy” clothes to go to special events (weddings and the like). The first time I wore any new type of clothing as a child was always a challenge. Typically you were being asked to wear itchy, scratchy things that were too tight or too lose or that pinched somewhere. I just got through such things by looking forward to the massive release when I was back home an allowed to return to my normal clothes.
It was very much like for the first few days after returning to non-latex after my 24/7 latex experiments. The cloth of my chinos felt scratchy against my legs – like they were made of wool. I tried several different pairs to check this out but they all felt the similar. All the clothes seemed to be binding or knotting on areas that needed to move, such arm-pit / shoulder and the top the legs. They needed to work their way up a limb to allow the movement – which felt very odd compared to the rubbery stretch of my “normal” second skin.
The most uncomfortable thing was getting used to the brutal way the non-latex clothes felt around the crotch area. If I wasn’t being chaffed, then I was being squashed or cut into by the seams as I moved about. I found it impossible to resist the impulse to re-arrange myself to get comfortable. This was something that made it a bit challenging to be in public for a few days.
It wasn’t that my skin had been damaged during my time in latex. I am lucky to rarely suffer skin irritation due to long exposure to latex. Anyway, this felt different. My skin felt OK, it was just that everything outside felt odd. Even having air moving over my skin at my ankles, wrists and collar felt noticeably odd.
As I wore the non-latex for longer I noticed something else that I would normally only have been vaguely aware of - a lot of vanilla wear is not very breathable! In addition to this the usual solution is to wear socks / underwear – which, along with other areas can get sodden as the day goes on. On a hot day I found it very strange to think that I was being “vanilla” by wearing an extra soggy layer under my outer clothes. The way I found to help with the transition was to switch to mainly wear climbing or sailing base layer clothes that were specifically designed to wick away the moisture.
On a similar subject, another thing I became aware of is the smell. At the start of the day you clothes smell of the material and the perfume of the detergent and by the end of the day all the items have their own strange character…
In summary, after the first 24 hours out of latex, I don’t think I could have felt more uncomfortable if I had been wearing a canvas sack! Ironically, a lot of the physical challenges of wearing latex that had taken months/years of perseverance to acclimatise to had their parallels in non-latex clothing.
The skin physiology seems to adjust to life in latex, but possibly more importantly, the nerves and brain seen to slowly get adjusted to certain patterns of stimulus in response certain movements or even being motionless in latex (or vanilla). In anticipating these sensations, they become less noticeable and more a background factor. After days in latex, it still physically feels nearly the same as it did after an hour in latex (which is handy when I am looking for stimulation), its just that my brain does not constantly remind my of the feeling to the same degree (unless I want it to). The interesting thing is that my experience seems to indicate that it works for all clothes, not just latex. As a child, you have to adapt to feeling of wearing shoes, cotton, wool ….
Luckily for me, this uncomfortable effect on going vanilla has always been bearable and easy to overcome after the first few days. This is undoubtedly due to the relatively short periods I have managed 24/7 in latex. Also I have found that a good cure is to never go more than 24 hours out of latex!
The interesting question for me is, how physically difficult would it be to bear to go back to wearing non-latex clothes after spending weeks/months/years in a (near) 24/7 latex lifestyle?
And this is all before examining the psychological impact! I wonder what people think about this…
To be honest I still have some mental challenges after just a few days in 24/7 latex to overcome before worrying about the physiological barrier that would stop me taking off the latex. However, as others are noted, going several days without getting back into rubber does steadily become more difficult once you start on down the route to a rubber lifestyle. I think I might examine this whole area after some feedback and further reflection.
As for my future latex lifestyle, I am still at the tantalising stage of being very close to having secured a latex lifestyle friendly chunk or work. I should know in the next few days. If things work out, I will have some international travel (New York) but should also have plenty of time to work in rubber at my home office.
Sealed
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