Duty of Care

[whippingboy]

I hope nobody minds that I write this, but I just felt I had to say something because I have learned something tonight. I received delivery of some new items - in latex, as it happens - and as I set about unwrapping and storing and such like, I realised something very important. These items, whether they be latex or pvc or whatever, they are bestowed upon us and essentially we have to look after them. We are really just custodians. I personally feel now that I have a duty of care to look after the items in my possession - they may never be made again, they may become rare and valuable, they may become a thing of the past - I feel it my duty to care for them. And not just in terms of hang them in a wardrobe to be catalogued and forgotten about, they need to be cared for and appreciated and tended. That was all I wanted to say. I just felt it very strongly tonight, that whilst I may "own" certain things, I am really only looking after them.

[cagouligan]

I like that idea. Fetish conservation!

[merv]

I suppose it does make you think of so many missed opportunities in the past.

When you consider that going back to the 60s, 70s, perhaps even the 80s, raincoats were so readily availabe, and a plastic raincoat was considered a cheap throwaway option. I know I never thought, oh these will be so much harder to come across in a few years time. If only I had known.

I have bought afew of the pakamacs in the largest size which are still available on ebay for around £7.50. Tey have always been my favourite anyway. Others may think it wise to do the same.

[ilikecoated]

Whatever you do, those things deteriorate by themselves even if you leave them alone. By wearing them, especially with not much underneath, you start to make them ageing a little faster, due to aggressive content of human sweat.

Therefore I don't expect my items to last too long and I even actively destroy a piece once in a while by shredding, burning etc as long as they still look presentable. I prefer that over the imagination of leaving them rot under a pile od rubbish in a public dump.

[cagoulion]

It's nice to try to look after things if you value them. To be honest it's quite difficult to keep PVC things over a long term. I saw a really good link on this just today in regard to plastic pants that I'd like to post which was from a post on Fetlife by a member of the Plastic group. The link is an incontinence group but the detailing of the problems of keeping vinyl or PVC in good condition is appropriate to those of us who use it, either in rainwear or plastic pants. Both are equally likely to suffer damage if we use them.

http://www.incontinentsupport.org/chap8.php

I'm sure I'm not the only member here to have had some PVC items that have disintegrated after use or from age. I have 1980s jackets that are still great while others that got brittle and just fell apart. It's partly down to storage but it's mainly down to use. Some of the unused things are like the day they were bought but there isn't the same fun in having something you've never got to use! The only solution can be to buy more than one and just wear or use the ones you have duplicates of. I like my nylon gear partly because it is more robust and survives getting muddy and wet much more easily, even after many years of work. In fact the biggest problem that I have encountered is loads of PVC backed nylon jackets that have been ruined by charity shops trying to wash them to put them on sale destroying the PVC/nylon layer by inconsiderate machine washing.

[merv]

I think this is why I would never want to pay sky high prices for pvc stuff, even if I could afford it, which if I did would mean doing without something else. The fact is that I always feel things are for making use of and pvc doesn't last when you do make use of it, so much as I would like to be a custodian for the future I know its not likely to happen. Meanwhile buy 2 if you can, one for now, and one for the future. Who knows what little will be available in 10 or 20 years time.

[latexstorm]

I suspect "PVC" or "plastic" as it's used by retailers is a catch-all for any number of chemical formulations - some more prone than others to breakdown. Maybe someone here who has worked on the retail side can confirm?

I know that I'm a lot more careful than I used to be caring for rubber rainwear. I just replaced a vintage Kleppermac that I didn't maintain properly, and as a result it was eventually damaged beyond repair. I'm being much more proactive this time, including finding a seamstress who can do minor repairs before they turn into major ones. I had to wait the better part of two years for the exact model I wanted to surface again on eBay, and I no longer assume another will turn up in the future. Even the far more common single-breasted, single-layered Klepper raincoats don't seem to list as often as they did a decade ago.