by William Dean
(08/20/03)
Popping, squeezing, inflating, riding, bouncing, mmmmmm. If you really get off on the sensualities of blown up sacks of air in a thin latex skin, you, too, could be a looner.
I turned my head and could see her head and the balloon between her
beautiful lips. The neck was beginning to grow, but she continued blowing
without any sign of her usual fear that it would pop. Now it was really big,
far beyond its normal size, and she decided that it was enough. She took it
out of her mouth and tied it. She turned me over, gave me a long, wet kiss
and slowly asked me, "Did you like my 'alarm-clock?'" I just nodded. Yes, I
loved it. She sat on my thigh, just below my cock, and I could see her beautiful
body in front of me. I loved that sight! She put the tightly inflated balloon
down just beside me and told me to just lay down and relax...
-- A Dream Come True, by Swedish Looner
Call it the party porn fetish, a curious offshoot of the latex and rubber
scene, or simply looning, but balloons are floating and squeaking their way
upward in the spiraling gyre of global-wide fetishes. Looners span the world,
from South Africa to Spain, from the Pacific Rim to Nova Scotia.
It's really not surprising. The more you find out about balloons, the more amazing they appear. While most fetishists focus on the sensual feelings, there is a lot more to balloons than meets the eye or other more intimate portions of the anatomy.
Balloon Science 101 explains a little of the appeal. Balloons, we're told,
are organic. They are alive. This is so because the basic ingredient of a balloon
is latex, a natural product from seringueiras, known also as the rubber tree.
Most latex used to come from the South American jungles, but deforestation there
has shifted production to the Asian tropical areas. Drawn from the living trees,
latex is processed and then mixed in thousands of different formulas to produce
countless millions of balloons in a wide variety of styles, shapes, and colors.
Because it begins with a natural product like latex, every batch of balloons is possessed of a certain unpredictability. The suspense begins, you see. In addition, humidity, temperature, air pressure, tensile strength, and a host of other factors contribute to the "life" of the balloon. No matter whether you're a balloon popper or bouncer, crusher or fondler, you're interacting with something that is interacting back.
Most looners are aware that mouth blown balloons (rather than using pumps) are more sensual. Indeed, the inflating to many is part of the whole scenario. When you mouth blow up a balloon, you're forcing heated air, 98 degrees or even warmer, through the nozzle and causing the polymer-based walls to stretch.
When you hug a balloon, the tactile exchange is vibrant, as anyone who's played with static electricity knows.
As she slowly lowered her weight onto the balloons, she leaned forward
and reached with her hands into an almost hugging position. I watched every
moment of it, absorbing as much as I could. Frozen into position, watching
a very hot young woman lay down and hug a bunch of balloons was just way too
much! Her long black hair fell over her shoulder on to the balloons as she
leaned. The slight squeaking of the balloons and my speeding heart was all
I heard.
She tilted her head to me again and grinned, "This is really getting to
you isn't it?"
I slowly nodded my head once again in acknowledgement. It was the only motor
function I was capable of at the time other then unzipping my pants.
-- Loons on the Hill, by Looner
The balloon's sensual qualities of growth, expansion, tension, pressure, and
explosion actually seem ideally suited for sex romps once you get over (or maybe
not) the odd tingling thought that this is child's play. Another aspect cited
by looners is the unmistakable scent of popping open a fresh bag of virgin balloons.
According to Web sources there are several thousands of admitted looners,
who cross over gender and orientation barriers. There are gay and lesbian looners
who masturbate with their favorite balloons as physical partners. There are
hetero-couples who add the spice of lying on balloons or positioning them between
their bodies to enhance their lovemaking. As with all fetishes, there are variant
groups dividing, for example, into "poppers" and "non-poppers."
For some it's pretty much a visual turn-on, watching some hottie blow up a balloon or, once inflated to maximum, bouncing on or masturbating with the smooth, sleek bulb of latex and breath. But to others, the thrill goes far deeper.
Poppers want that excitement of the exploding sound to coincide with their own climax. Poppers, too, separate themselves into cliques of just how the balloon explodes. There are aficionados of high-heel popping, lit cigarette popping, pin popping, over-inflation popping, crush popping, and sudden-death popping in which the intensity builds up waiting for the used (or abused) balloon to simply give it up and break.
Looning is, perhaps, still somewhat of a new fetish, but the community is
stalwart and growing as individuals hook up with others via the Internet. Jaimy
Looners' Yahoo group has been around for about a year and a half and boasts
over 2000 members. Her Website claims to have over 7600 photos of looning.
I asked her what it was about balloons that excited her so much.
"For me personally," she says, "I get off most on the inflation aspect of it. When I'm blowing up a loon and I get that light-headed feeling, it's a real rush for me. Also, knowing that the loon can pop at any time and the anticipation of that is exciting to me. Then there's the feel of the latex on my bare skin when I'm riding my loons. It's amazing."
But Jaimy doesn't consider her loons as sex toys. "I don't really consider them as being sex toys or erotic accents," she continues. "They're much more than that to me. Without them sex or masturbation just isn't the same. That's all I'll say about that. Some things I like to keep private."
Like anything organic and alive, balloons also have their ephemeral life span.
They get used up. Jaimy agrees. "In the 20+ years I've been looning it's got
to be up into the tens of thousands. Wow! I never really thought about it that
way. That's a lot of latex! LOL!"
Jaimy's sites include looner photos and video clips, but she also says she's
aware that it will never be a huge financial success. "Trust me when I say that
no one is making a fortune with balloon videos or sites," she says. "The market
is just too small. The balloon fetish is tiny compared to other niches. If someone
is looking to make good money in the balloon market they're going to be disappointed.
I run my sites and sell videos and DVDs because I enjoy doing it and it gives
me an opportunity to have more loon fun. It's a labor of love. Unless you're
a real looner you won't find much support amongst looners. Everyone can spot
a fake balloon site. Those would be the kind the big porn sites do. Balloons
are basically a prop or a novelty on those sites."
Any search on Google will turn up quite a few of these fake looner sites. The language used, the typical "come on" barking, is redolent of snake-oil salesmen and carny shills as opposed to the dedicated and experienced looners who are genuine fetishists.
I asked Jaimy finally, if she could design her own perfect loon, what would
it be like. In a time when everyone seems to be eager to re-invent the sex toy
in their own image, her answer was both surprising and pleasing to hear.
"It's a hard question to answer," she says, "because I don't think in those terms. There are many great loons already being made and I love experiencing as many as I can."
