I Turned My Fetish for Pool Inflatables into a Six-Figure Business

For this installment of the Secret Lives of Men we spoke to Mr. C., a 44-year-old from northern Alabama who gets turned on by plastic. When he was a teenager, he developed a fetish for pool inflatables. After years of trial, he made his own orca suit. Now he fashions inflatables for others with the same fetish.

My first memories of plastic are of a vinyl raincoat I loved when I was four or five. I was often caught by my family with nothing but the raincoat on. When I was about seven, I discovered my baby clothes in storage and found that the plastic underwear was made of the same material as the raincoat, and I started wearing it. The material made me feel so good and did things to my body that I didn’t know it could do. I remember my dad smacking me on the butt and saying, “Are you wearing a diaper?” and my sister laughing. I turned beet red.

Around this time, I found that my family’s inflatable pool toys were made of a similar material to the diaper. I dreamed of being inside them while floating in the pool.

On a trip to Hawaii with my family around age 13, I spotted an inflatable whale in the gift shop. When everyone was sleeping, I snuck out and bought it. I quietly blew it up and got naked with it in the hotel bathroom. Somehow I woke my mom up. She knocked on the door and said, “Are you okay?” I said, “I’m having stomach trouble.” She didn’t ask any further questions.

Soon after, I was home in my bedroom lying on the whale when my parents knocked on my door and asked to come in. I told them they couldn’t. They busted in anyway thinking I was using drugs. They were shocked at what they saw. My mom went to a therapist to ask about my unusual interest in plastic. Thankfully, the therapist told her it was just a fetish.

I once tried to make an inflatable whale suit as a teenager. I finally succeeded when I was 20. I took one orca pool toy, put it inside another, and sewed them together. Initially I was just into the plastic material. But when I got in the suit, I realized I really liked the pressure, the full-body-hug feeling, which is similar to a weighted blanket.

I can get in there and just be very calm. After a stressful day, I can escape into an inflatable suit for an hour, and it’s as good as drinking a couple beers.

Around the time I made the suit, I began dating my now wife. We were both in college, talking a walk in a park, and she said, Tell me something you haven’t told anyone before.

“I like plastic,” I said.

“I’m going to need more context,” she replied.

“I enjoy plastic as a kink,” I said.

She didn’t say anything for 45 seconds. I was scared I’d blown it. Then she broke the silence.

“Okay. Cool. Tell me more,” she said. I was so relieved.

She accepted me and even got into latex herself. I knew my plastic fetish was goofy, so I made a video to show my vanilla friends of myself dancing around in the orca suit. It was 2003, back in the days of AOL Instant Messenger. I put a link to it in my away message.

I didn’t really think much about the video after that. Then, 14 years later, my now wife called me at 11:30 p.m. She’s like, “Turn the TV on.” I’m like, “Did we go to war?” And I turn it on and see myself dancing across the screen in my whale suit. My 2003 video was airing on the Comedy Central show Tosh.0.

Around 2017, people began asking how they could get an inflatable suit. So I set up an Etsy store, thinking I might get an order every few months. I got six the first week. But I had a full-time job, so I couldn’t fulfill all of them. I asked some of my coworkers to help. They knew I had a plastic fetish and were eager to pitch in. We started experimenting with inflatable shirts and pants. We bought off-the-shelf inflatable elephants and modified them into wearable suits. In some suits you can touch your genitals, and some you can’t. Sometimes denial of pleasure is the fun part.

I created an LLC for my inflatable business but kept my full-time job. Our kitchen was the shipping and receiving area, our guest bedroom was a craft room, and our garage was the storage room. Now we send designs to our crafters in China.

We do stress testing at home. I’ll get in the inflatable and dance around. We make the suits as safe as possible. We always try to have a valve near your mouth on the inside of the suit or breathing holes near your eyes, nose, and mouth. So far, nobody’s died in our suits. Obviously we don’t want that to happen. But this is a high-risk fetish. Everybody who buys a suit has to sign a waiver and watch a safety video.

Orders come from around the world. People have all kinds of kinks. Some want to be parade balloons; others the blueberry girl from Willy Wonka; another a fuckable penne noodle. A full suit costs up to $3,000, but an inflatable shirt is just $100.

Though the business grosses six figures, I’ve never really made any money from it. It’s always been a passion project. My parents know about my business. They’re like, Wow, there’s other people into this? So my fetish isn’t as weird to them now.

People misunderstand this fetish and think we’re all zoophiles. That’s the furthest thing from the truth. We don’t want to have sex with animals; we want to escape from reality into a blanket of air, inside a character we love.