Updated: July 2002

"For five years, Polly Borland took photographs of men who find sexual or emotional solace by dressing and behaving as babies. Now she's collected them in a book. The result says Susan Sontag, does far more than simply shock." —"The Sunday Review," The Independent on Sunday (cover story plus 4 page excerpt)

"What starts out as a seemingly innocent series of traditional images of infancy soon unravels into an unsettling but gripping expose on adults who feel driven to don frilly dresses and diapers. The Babies brilliantly captures the juxtaposition of the delicateness of childhood with its overgrown practitioners. The contrast is further underlined by the pastel ruffles and candy-colored toys set against a typically dreary English suburbia. Borland's work is both shocking and enthralling. You'll want to turn your head at the same time you'll want to turn the page." —Baby

"A veritable treasure trove of fetish fashions from the worlds of rubber, bondage, exhibitionism, and spanking, Polly Borland's The Babies is a bit of perverse eye candy that's wailing for attention. In Borland's satin-soft photographic study of the secretive world of infantilism, the babies—adults who obsessively re-create their own childhood fantasies—are perhaps more fitting for a freak show than a nursery." —Carlo McCormick, Paper

"Borland documented the playtime of infantilists—adults, usually men, who enjoy regressing to childhood. Attending parties worldwide, Borland saw it all: cross-dressing (in cotton, terry towelling and easy-to-wash plastic); games (such as Pass-The-Parcel); tears, tantrums, and punishments like having to stand in the corner or having jelly stuffed down your front. While the parties may be fun and games, Borland admits that the public reaction to her work has sometimes been extreme. 'Some people laugh instinctively,' she says, 'and then some say they never, ever want to see pictures like that again!' She rationalizes, 'Being an adult baby is about abdicating responsibility, but men are brought up to be in control. So some people freak out when they see man portrayed in a vulnerable light. It touches a lot of raw nerves.'" —blue

"The photos, mysterious yet human, evoke the abject infants in our brian who never die, little piggies fattened nonverbal memories that even Sontag can't intellectualize—the crib, the mouthful of mushy food, the feel of pissy cloth snuggy-bunched between chubby thighs, the stifling security of the nursery. These fetishists give form to the terror of growing out of one's baby body without growing out of one's infantile need—the need for love that once missed is too unbounded to imagine, let alone picture." —Nerve

"What cultural message is encrypted in Borland's study of a naked man gazing pensively at what appears to be a glob of cum dangling from his baby-powdered penis, about to plop on the adult diaper at his feet?... whatever the meanings of the hermetic messages coded in Borland's shadowy photos of middle-aged infants, one thing is certain: No one who reads this book will ever look at babies in quite the same light again." —Mark Dery, Bookforum

"...the works are moving, unsettling, both joyful and melancholy, representing people who are both emancipated and ensnared in a claustrophobic imnaginary." —Photofile

Given a "potted plant" icon (critical equivalent of "a joy to the senses" according to their ratings system) by Jane magazine

More Press Coverage !!
While You Were Sleeping, Double Page Spread
Washington City Paper, Featured Review
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