What’s a ‘Diaper Spa,’ and why is it raising eyebrows in New Hampshire?
https://www.boston.com/news/local-n...-spa-raising-eyebrows-atkinson-new-hampshire/
“People tend to fear anything that they fail to comprehend," said the owner of The Diaper Spa, a new business that's stoking local controversy.
By Abby Patkin
updated on January 30, 2024 | 1:55 PM
A debate over a new spa is brewing in southern New Hampshire, where some residents in Atkinson are taking a stand against The Diaper Spa — a nursery-like business for adults who role play as children and, yes, wear diapers.
According to its website, The Diaper Spa is open to “all diaper-wearing individuals who seek acceptance, respite, and care.” Photos on the spa’s page show a space decorated with the soft comforts of a nursery, complete with toys, folded diapers, and an adult-sized crib.
Dr. Colleen Ann Murphy, the spa’s owner, offers a range of services that include virtual playdates at $200 an hour, as well as a $1,500 all-day “Diaper B&B” experience that promises rejuvenating pampering “for the little one inside of you.”
But for now, Murphy said, the vast majority of The Diaper Spa’s business involves telehealth services and life coaching. A recent Christmas-themed event featured a festive story, freshly baked sugar cookies, and a stocking to take home, she explained in an email interview.
A board-certified integrative medicine physician and sexologist, Murphy settled in Atkinson in 2022; the home-based spa was a recent addition.
Working in and out of high-stress hospital settings led to burnout and fatigue, and Murphy eventually began focusing on sex and relationship coaching with an emphasis on overlooked populations — including ABDL, or adult baby/diaper lovers.
“This led me to find a community of people who had varied needs to wear diapers, whether they were physical or emotional, such as vets wounded in combat with incontinence, people with progressive and congenital musculoskeletal conditions, and victims of trauma and abuse,” she explained. “The void of care was there, and I sought a meaningful way to fill it.”
What does adult baby/diaper lover mean?
Adult baby/diaper lovers are people “who act a voluntary regression to a previous age and/or wear a diaper for psychological reasons,” according to a 2020 article in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.
The authors speculated that several physiological and psychological factors could cause ABDL fantasies, including continence issues, childhood abuse, and the premature loss of a parent.
“ABDL behaviours could have different functions, including sexual gratifications or strategies to cope with negative mood states,” they wrote.
Murphy emphasized that the ABDL community is vast, and her business focuses on a specific subgroup who “see this lifestyle as a physical or emotional necessity rather than just entertainment.”
Drawing comparisons between unhealthy coping mechanisms such as smoking, alcohol, and self-harm, she added: “For these individuals, being a part of this community brings comfort and solace, providing a haven from the stresses, traumas, and triggers they have faced in their history or that they face daily.”
And while sexuality plays a role in some ABDL cases, research published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine in 2017 concluded that adult baby role playing in particular “is more likely to be an interpersonal, non-sexual behavior helping some individuals decrease attachment anxiety and negative mood states.”
For her part, Murphy was emphatic that none of her services have a sexual component.
“The most common misconception I hear about ABDL is that the community is composed of pedophiles, perverts, and sex offenders,” she said. “This is blatantly not true.”
What are neighbors saying?
Still, The Diaper Spa’s debut has stoked fear and concern among some residents of Atkinson, a town of about 7,000 people near the Massachusetts border.
Speaking to The Eagle-Tribune, which first reported on the controversy over The Diaper Spa, Kayla Gallagher expressed concern about the spa’s proximity to a local park and the possibility of run-ins with families.
“That is something that I will never be willing to expose my kids to, so now we will no longer be able to use that park,” the mother of three told the newspaper.
Gallagher doubled down on those concerns in a Jan. 28 Change.org petition, which calls on town leaders to reject any business and zoning licenses and applications for the spa. Murphy has submitted a home business application to the town’s zoning board.
“It has come to our attention that this business is advertised to individuals whose sexual fetish involves childlike behaviors,” Gallagher wrote in the petition, which had more than 260 signatures as of Tuesday morning. “This business, per their website, has advertised our town playground to their potential clientele. Thus their sexual fetish will involve the town park where our children play.”
She sounded the alarm about “potential incidents that pose a threat to the safety and well-being of our community members, particularly our children.”
Photo courtesy The Diaper Spa
Boston.com has reached out to Atkinson’s town administrator for comment on the petition. Murphy, meanwhile, stated that all spa services are offered exclusively on-site, and she’s since updated her website to make that clear.
“All clients are respectfully dressed in public, and besides this media attention, there is no reason that anyone would have thought that they were any different than any other neighbor or visitor from the outside,” she added.
Murphy also has several safeguards in place, only taking clients aged 21 and older, and barring cigarettes, drugs, alcohol, and weapons.
“These are standard safeguards for most businesses,” she explained. “In any business, you want to keep yourself, your clients, and your community safe. I take this responsibility very seriously.”
While the community’s outrage saddens her, Murphy expressed hope that her neighbors will come to learn more about what The Diaper Spa is — and, more importantly, what it isn’t.
“People tend to fear anything that they fail to comprehend,” she said, adding, “However, I know that the people in this community are reasonable and intelligent, and I am optimistic that, with time, their concerns will dissipate, and we all will resume enjoying this beautiful life we are all so blessed to have here.”
