Hmm ... a strange thought, maybe ?

[Mirf]

Ok .. anyone who ever searched for "sneeze" or anything similar on youtube or other video portals probably has seen one of those videos. Not our all favorite Panda .. but one in which parents sneeze or fake sneezing to make their baby laugh.

So .. i wondered with this whole origin discussion that pops up every once in a while. What if maaaaybe my parents did that to me when i was a baby too. Maybe our parents did that to a lot of us ? I wouldn't ever have the guts to ask my parents directly about something like that. Not even close . But it really is something i could imagine. Even if it probably isn't a pleasant thought for most of us, since there is a tendency to dislike your own family member sneezing. But think about it for a second. It doesn't seem to be unpopular to do judging by the amounts of videos there are. I'm pretty sure sneezing in front of your children isn't exactly rare since you spent a lot of time with them. And depending on the first reaction of the child it might lead to a kind of general "make your baby happy" things. Like blowing on the stomach or making faces and the ever popular seeming "Where is *insert whoever says it*".

Anyone else ever thought about this or do you think i'm completely deranged ? No wait .. don't answer the second one .

[gryffin]

Parents' sneezing (especially fake, I think) seems to be something babies find funny in general - perhaps too general for it to have any relation to the kid developing the fetish later on? But I don't know, really.

[The Mute Poet]

You know Mirf, as scary as it might seem to alot of us... I think you could well have hit on something here...

I think most parents might have seen it as just more of an innocent thing to do to please their child, but at the ages when children might be entertained by something like this it's easily believable that some sort of early link might have been formed between the act of sneezing and positive attention/reinforcement...

I dunno... again it's a very tough thing to prove, but many psychologists do believe that a child's first sexual focus (yes, infants can be thought of as having sexual drives) rest on the parent of the opposite sex... so I'd say this is at least believable... it does seem to fit in quite well based on the little we do know.

Nice detective work Mirf - Wilhelm Voont would be proud .

[Sternuto]

I disagree.

The fake sneezing thing merely entertains the baby. Its all cutesy wootsey. "aahhhhhhhhhhCHEW!" with a smiling face and alot of eye contact. If mommy or daddy did a real sneeze... Junior would be scared shitless.... or horned up if he's one of us. Whatever.

[SomeoneRandom]

this is a very interesting proposal. definitely something to explore. as mute poet said, sexual development starts in infancy. according to that new thread survey about our origins, it seems that nearly everyone here has had this fetish for as long as they can remember. it must have had to do with something that occurred before age 3-ish, when most people have their first memories.

[smiles15]

Wow, that's really interesting.

I never thought about that before but

it seems very logical.

Good post...

[;

[Heathcliff]

That's an interesting point. I've also heard that sexual preferences are thought to arise from early childhood experiences, so I guess this is possible.

However, I have to agree with Sternuto on this one. I think babies laugh at faked sneezes because they like to see and hear their parents making a silly noise- in a similar way to playing "peek-a-boo" or even just saying "Hellooooo!" to a baby in a cutesy voice. I'm not sure they will remember the noises as sneezing more than anything else.

It just seems to me that the origin of the fetish is unlikely to be something so consistent and simple. Surely babies are entertained by many other simple things, which they don't develop a particular fetish for later on?

Thanks for starting this topic, though- I enjoy reading these discussions about possible origins for the fetish.