Little

What is a little?

A little is an adult who takes on the small role within ageplay and lets themselves be treated that way. The English word is used untranslated in Dutch. The role says nothing about real age, gender or sexual preference. On the other side stands a caregiver, in practice often called daddy or mommy.

Being a little versus doing ageplay

The difference between being a little and doing ageplay sits not in what happens but in whether it is performed.

Katrin Tiidenberg and Susanna Paasonen interviewed women who call themselves little for Sexuality & Culture, and captured that difference in their own words. One of them says she is herself when she is little, and that she only takes on a different age once explicit ageplay comes into it. A second adds: with ageplay she puts it on. The scene can be identical in both cases. Eating a peanut butter sandwich can be ageplay and can be little.

That same group adds two things. Littleness, for one of them, is a level deeper than being submissive: submissive but not little is far easier, she says. And being little is not always fun or cute, says another, because ageplay is for fun and being little is sometimes really crying and reaching real emotion.

What littlespace is

Littlespace is the headspace that belongs to the role.

Tiidenberg and Paasonen describe headspace as a shift in feeling and thinking: a different way of being in the world and making contact with it during BDSM play. The word comes from research into puppy play, where Liam Wignall and Mark McCormack interviewed thirty men and saw that the headspace is the main way that play gives relaxation.

With littles that state turns out to come in gradations. The researchers note that their participants described the very most intense form of it as “sacred”, both the space and the role itself. One participant puts into words what falls away then: letting go of control and letting someone else drive, without layers, masks or walls, only vulnerability and being.

A safe, familiar place

The core of the role is not what you do, but how safe it feels. As a little you step into a space where for a while you have to carry nothing, and that only works once the space is right: soft, familiar, with someone who pays attention without your having to ask.

Sex plays no part in it. What draws people is the sense of safety. Being cared for without it being called weakness, and being allowed to be small with someone who stays big. Nothing physical has to come with it, and it doesn’t. The safety is the goal, not a step up to somewhere.

Why people like the little role

The pull sits in being allowed to stop being big, and not in wanting to be younger.

A blogging participant writes it sharply: she is little and content with her age, she doesn’t want to be younger, but the role lets her feel weak, small, feminine or emotionally young when she wants to. She calls herself, in the same breath, a strong and clever woman. Not a contradiction, but the whole reason.

• For the little herself the gain lies in hours where nothing has to be arranged or performed, and where being cared for is not weakness but the agreement.
• For the caregiver it offers a way to care that is explicitly asked for, instead of guessed at.
• For a couple a form arises where vulnerability has a place without it turning straight into a conversation about the relationship.

That same research shows the other side. Littles asked intensive care work back from their caregivers, and the participants also expressly said being little is not always pleasant. Anyone who uses the role to work out something heavy from their own early years asks of it something a role-play cannot deliver.

Kinds of littles

There is no standard little, and the research names three that women distinguish themselves.

1. The princess little is drawn by a certain look and by the feeling of being seducible, with room for bitchiness and for steering from the bottom, always in a consistently cute form.
2. The pet little plays from a wanted sense of fragility, and from the trust that someone treats you very carefully while at the same time being in charge.
3. The challenging little makes cheek and testing boundaries the core of the scene. That behavior sits close to that of a brat.

What the researchers add weighs more than the list. Their participants did not stick to one style: the position shifted with the mood and with the partner. Stability came up for them less as a matter of identity than as something you build with a particular partner.

What a little is not

“A little plays soft.” Not necessarily. Tiidenberg and Paasonen establish that the littles in their study can play hard by BDSM standards, and that a taste for a childlike look says nothing about the intensity of what happens. Some of them enjoyed heavy pain and humiliation and had no interest at all in the leather aesthetic.

“Being little is a fixed identity.” That is exactly what the researchers dispute. Their participants moved between roles, and the researchers argue for treating the little role as play and not as a box someone belongs in.

“It’s something for women in a straight relationship.” No. The role exists just as much in queer circles and among men. DDlg is one form of CGL, not the only one.

What I notice myself

I am Victor, gigolo, in the BDSM world since 1990 and trained as a psychotherapist. Ageplay with diapers is on my no-list, so that’s one I don’t weigh in on. The word itself, I do.

Women who bring this up almost never use the word “little” first. They say they want an evening where they have to do nothing. Only when I ask further does the jargon come, and usually with an apology attached.

Coming out of it weighs more than going in. Going back to plain talk after a few hours in which someone took care of you is, for most people, the most awkward part of the evening. So I agree on that moment just as precisely as the start.

What you can do yourself

• Work out whether you want to be a little or want to do ageplay, because the first asks something different from your partner than a bounded scene.
• Agree on how you come out of littlespace, with a sentence, a gesture or a fixed ritual, and set time aside for it.
• Tell which style suits you instead of only that you’re a little; those three each ask something different from the other person.
• Ask for aftercare and give it too, because the littles in the research asked for more care and emotional effort than average play.
• Look for help apart from the play if a hard childhood sits underneath it, because a role is not a treatment.

More on littles

On this site, ageplay explains the role-play this role exists within, and caregiver describes the other side of the dynamic.

Off this site, you can read Tiidenberg and Paasonen free; it is the only study that lets littles themselves speak at length. How the same headspace works in another role-play is in Wignall and McCormack on puppy play.

Where this fits on this site

Want to experience such an evening without directing it yourself? The caring part is something I do; diapers not. Touch and skin hunger covers what a booking without performance pressure looks like, and the preparation covers what we go through beforehand.

Sources

• Littles: Affects and Aesthetics in Sexual Age-Play. Katrin Tiidenberg & Susanna Paasonen, Sexuality & Culture 23(2), 375-393, 2019 (DOI 10.1007/s12119-018-09580-5, open access). Full text read. Provides the group interview that sets being a little against doing ageplay, with the example of the same sandwich and the statements that littleness sits a level deeper than being submissive and that being little is not always fun or cute; the description of headspace as a shift in feeling and thinking in the way of being in the world during BDSM play; the gradations in which the very most intense littlespace was called “sacred”, with the quote about letting go of control without layers, masks or walls; the blog quote from the participant who is content with her age and calls herself a strong, clever woman; the three styles princess little, pet little and the challenging little; the finding that the participants did not hold to one style but shifted with mood and partner and that stability there was less a matter of identity than of a bond with a particular partner; and the observation that these littles can play hard by BDSM standards because a childlike aesthetic says nothing about the intensity.
• An Exploratory Study of a New Kink Activity: “Pup Play”. Liam Wignall & Mark McCormack, Archives of Sexual Behavior 46(3), 801-811, 2017. Only the abstract was readable; no claims from the full text were used. Provides the sample of thirty interviewed men and the finding that this play also works as relaxation, which the authors say shows mainly in the existence of a headspace. This is research into puppy play and not into littles; it stands here for the origin of the term headspace.
• Ageplay. English Wikipedia. Provides the terminology of the roles around age-play and the finding that only adults take part, which the fact table rests on.

Related terms

• Ageplay. The role-play the little role belongs to; a little is the small half of it.
• Caregiver. The counter-role, with the work and the aftercare that come with it.
• CGL. The abbreviation for the dynamic between those two roles.
• DDlg. The best-known form of it, with a daddy opposite the small role.
• Daddy dom. The counter-role under its own name.
• Brat. The behavior that the challenging style of littles brings.