Shots for adults

Media outlets around the world have reported on a somewhat worrying trend in China: the use of pacifiers by adults to calm anxiety. The first to alert the public was the newspaper South China Morning Post And, without official or verified data, it seems that thousands of pacifiers have been sold online. For a change, TikTok may have contributed to making silliness a necessity. Medical experts have appeared advising against this practice due to the dental and psychological risks.

Although we may be magnifying a residual fad, a search in different languages and platforms is enough to see that these adult pacifiers are for sale and can be easily purchased. On Amazon, there are several brands and colors, between seven and twelve euros, advertised specifically for therapeutic purposes: "Adult pacifier. Large silicone nipple. Snoring reduction. Soft and comfortable pacifier." Among its properties, it stands out the possibility of reducing the risk of teeth rubbing while sleeping. On the same website, but in the North American market, there is a much greater variety of models and colors.Big size adult pacifier for anxiety", announces one of the pacifiers. In all cases, the children's themes are maintained to decorate these silicone widgets: bunnies, kittens, little bones or squirrels that try to disguise this utensil for covering the mouths of adults with a touch of innocence, and that makes it even more disturbing. There is a Canadian brand: there is a Canadian brand that costs twenty-five dollars. They have a more austere appearance and very professional and serious packaging. The box specifies that it is exclusively for adults and indicates a sales website that, in English, includes the words pacifier and addictionThe size must be about nine or ten centimeters in diameter. In the photo, the pacifier is resting on two clasped hands of an adult. This is not, in any case, a costume. The price is no joke. And they sell all kinds of replacement silicone nipples and even ribbons to tie the pacifier with a safety pin. The website becomes sordid from the moment that, in addition to the pacifiers, adult female models appear in innocent poses wearing bibs, diapers, or bodysuits with baby-like prints: unicorns, puppies, and pastel-colored dinosaurs. It could be a purveyor of some filiation. The line between the calming properties of pacifiers and fetishism must be very thin.

If we start finding adults on airplanes or in the cinema sucking on pacifiers to relieve the anxiety of not being able to smoke or try to sleep, or to alleviate the effects of certain psychological traumas from their past, it will be grotesque. It will be yet another example of a growing and very disturbing collective immaturity. We have long lines of adults trying to buy stuffed animals, a constant need for learning through gamification, styles that perpetuate a childlike fragility, the use of emojis to write, influencers Thirty-year-olds with pubescent behavior and mature men who spend their days hooked on video games or promoting failed soccer leagues. Even when it comes to making demands, a victimhood that is closer to a tantrum than to the ability to argue is becoming widespread. The pacifier is secondary in this panorama, but it makes us think about this inertia of a harmful social infantilization, which deactivates personal and social responsibilities and encourages the simplest narratives. It can also facilitate paternalistic policies that end up smothering our mouths with a pacifier.