If you were born in the 1980s or late 1970s, there were a lot of slime-based toys in the marketplace while you were growing up. I wonder if playing with these as a child or in my case, not being allowed to have these, is one of, if not the only reason, I am into WAM (in my case, I'm really only into gunge / slime, but I've recently gotten in pies in the last few years).

I received the Ghostbuster fire house for Christmas one year, I was about 4 or 5 years old. A famous feature of this particular toy was that it came with a large pot of pink slime, which you could pour into the top of the playset and it would ooze through the grated floors, covering your figures on the way. Unfortunately, my parents wouldn't let me have the slime. I can probably see why; my mum is very house proud probably didn't want me getting it on the carpet etc. I assumed they'd thrown it away; but about a year later, they finally gave in and let me have it, but when i opened it, it had all dried up and was rock solid.

Anyway, a few years later, I got my hands on a slime toy. I think it was a dinosaur egg with full of green slime. I was playing with it on my windowsill one day in the winter. I went to get dinner and when i came back; the slime was gone!

When i looked down i saw much to my horror that it had slowly oozed off the windowsill and into my radiator! And was now oozing all over the carpet. Red hot green slime. I remember my mum and my dad on their knees trying to clean it up - me standing there apologising over and over.

I often wonder if being disallowed slime toys as a kid made me develop some kind of fetish for it as an adult. You know how kids crave the things their parents say cant have? Psychologically, that must have some kind of effect as they develop into adults?

Until recently I had attributed my fetish to seeing women gunged on NHP, but i reckon it might be deeper than that...

Would love to hear your thoughts and stories.

Interesting. I attribute my own wam identity to a number of factors, which are a little different to yours but definitely have some overlap. My parents are/were quite OCPD and had an obsession with not wasting things, especially food - to this day, my mom can't stand to see food being used as a prop or otherwise wasted on television shows, whether it be food dropped on the floor in a drama, a dish that went wrong being thrown away on a cookery show, or slime or a pie in someone's face in a children's or comedy/light entertainment show. She reacts with loud complaint and visceral disgust to scenes like those on TV, no matter what the context - it bothers her on some level she doesn't even understand, almost certainly in relation to her upbringing in a post-war rural community where you simply did not waste food because there wasn't always enough. At the age of around 6-7 I can remember her reacting so badly to scenes of a kids' TV presenter pouring custard on people that she talked very agitatedly about it for what seemed like hours. So as a kid I definitely absorbed and internalised the message that people getting messy was illicit, forbidden and dirty in some secret, unspecified way that I didn't understand.

Add to that the fact that my parents preferred intellectual TV, so when I was growing up I didn't often have the chance to watch "messy" gameshows etc as it was too trashy for them and I wouldn't be allowed to - the wam content I saw on TV growing up was either by chance or while I was unsupervised/they weren't around, until I got a TV in my own room around the age of 13 and could watch what I liked.

The final factor: my father was almost totally emotionally absent (I think today he'd be placed on the autism spectrum, probably quite far along) and never hugged me his entire life - the most joyous physical "contact" I ever got off him was aged around 5 when we were all in the garden one evening and he kept spraying me with the hose (while I was naked) as we all laughed. I remember finding the physical sensation of being sprayed with the hose exhilarating and overwhelming, and it took place in a context of love and affection. Add it all up and that's probably why my sexual identity is what it is today.

Thats a fascinating story. You've obviously thought very hard about it, I wonder what freud would make of us!

I had a game called Beware the Bog when I was a kid. It was epic. A life sized version would be insanely cool.

We had Gak sometime in the mid '90s, it was right around when my grandmother died, and my cousins brought it with them when my mother and my aunt were getting her house ready to sell. I think they gave us some, either for Christmas that year or before they went home. I might have "borrowed" one of my sister's Barbies and pushed it through a pile of the stuff.

I've just started a thread about the hypothetical 'ultimate gunge tank' in regard of something else, but.... if anybody ever builds a life-size version of that He-Man toy, I'm in!

(can't find a helpful image or video that doesn't have kids in it, but have a look online if you don't know what I mean)

I remember having the ninja turtle slime. Not the toy, just the slime.
And my family made some cornstarch slime to play with once.

I remember these toys being around and really wanting them but NEVER voicing it...the 'excitement/embarrasment' thing was already ingrained I think. Years later as a teen I saw the 'Jurassic Slimy ' toy in woolwortH's on my way home from Saturday job and bought but kept stashed away with my cheeky magazines for...ahem...recreational activities.

The adverts for this game used to make me tingle with excitement, would have loved to have it. I remember seeing it at boot sales but the slime was gone.

Ah interesting! Now that you mention it, I seem to remember my brother having a barbie - it wasn't his though, he had borrowed it or something, anyway, I remember getting it while he was away and sliming it! Which i have to say, was really exciting.

I remember a friend of mine for the Ghostbusters House for Christmas. And I was, naturally, relentless about wanting to play with it when we were at his house. His mom never let us use the Ecto Plasm... because it might attract ants.

yes i did!! hahaha. great topic