Calling my partner “daddy” in bed is new to me — I used to find the kinky term of endearment to be stomach-churning, but now I call my partner “daddy” in bed because I think it’s pretty hot. I’m 30 years old, and I’ve had sex with people of all genders, but mostly cisgender men, for half of my life. My biological father is still married to my mom. I’m not sure if I qualify as a card-carrying member of the stereotypical “daddy issues” club. I’m the byproduct of an anxiety-ridden mother and a narcissist father, but I never endured physical or sexual abuse at the hands of either of them, and I loathe the levity with which our culture mocks people who suffered abuse at the hands of their loved ones or caregivers, and I believe it’s impossible to find any individual who doesn’t absorb or reflect some of the faults or neuroses of their parents, even if they were Mommy and Daddy of the Year.

Over the years, I’ve dealt with the average amount of immersion in the misogynist culture that we call America, where gender roles and traditional family structure are prized as the norm. My father taught me to throw and catch a baseball and encouraged me to climb trees, and that alone was outside of the gender norms in the small town where I grew up. I grew up where the only export is avocados, and if you hold hands with someone of the same gender while in high school, people are sure to call you despicable names like “fag” or “dyke,” at the very minimum. Growing up, the boys played sports and the girls did dance, and the boys with the fastest trucks or the speediest cars were the ones supplying the alcohol at the parties.

Being raised in such a repressive modern culture surely affected my sexual self. When you’ve been called “slut” in a derogatory manner more times than you can count before you’ve even had sex for the first time, your self worth as an adolescent girl becomes a bit shaky. Perhaps my bra strap was showing, or someone thought I smiled at their boyfriend, but I heard that slur more in my youth than I do as an adult.

My role play with my boyfriend allows me to act out a salacious script that’s often used against me while simultaneously letting me flip a middle finger to the hatred that I (and so many of my peers) so commonly endure.

So I find other ways to stage my rebellion. For me, I like to role play with my boyfriend. I have many hats to wear between the sheets. Sometimes I embrace the role of “The Whore,” one of society’s favorite archetypes to hate. I ask him to f*ck me like he will never see me again;, to slap my cheeks and breasts, and I ask him to tell me that I’m cheap. It’s a fun little game that we play — the joke is that I am what many consider to actually be a whore: I charge a healthy rate for sexual interaction with clients. However, when I’m working, when I’m in the Real World, I don’t allow for such disrespect. I don’t allow my clients to strike me, and I definitely don’t allow verbal abuse. My role play with my boyfriend allows me to act out a salacious script that’s often used against me while simultaneously letting me flip a middle finger to the hatred that I (and so many of my peers) so commonly endure. With my partner, the man I love, I can safely do this.

 

Sometimes, when my partner plays the role of “daddy,” I role play as the “b*tch.” In this scenario, I don’t allow him to touch me or penetrate or stimulate me until I finally relent. We wrestle, we play fight. I make him use his body to pin down my own, and in this way I make light of the fact that women are and should be the “gatekeepers” to sex simply because we are often the ones stereotypically thought to be penetrated. As a survivor of rape, I find this light-hearted struggle a catharsis for much more sinister events I’ve endured. We have a safe word — “skateboard” means stop in any scenario. I always love these pseudo-struggles because I know I’m safe with this man. And I get to thumb my nose at a half-lifetime of walking the tightrope of the Madonna-whore complex.

“Anything said or done within the context of a consensual and caring sexual relationship is fully acceptable”, Donaghue tells me. “Arousal requires novelty and transcending the mundane. The use of ‘daddy,’ either as a term of sweetness or submission (or even to eroticize parental reenactment) is an attempt to move into fantasy or sex play that leaves behind everyday life, which is the power and goal of sex.” I co-host a podcast with a stripper peer and a sex counselor, and my sexuality counselor co-host Buster Ross has said it before:

If only, on the first day of sex ed, you were told that, ‘You will be aroused by things that are taboo,’ maybe fewer people would have anxiety over what is quite normal and healthy.

Yes, I am a parent. But my status as someone’s mother doesn’t automatically withdraw my right to sexual pleasure. When I’m with my child, I’m loving in my touch, expressive in my play, and articulate in my language. When I’m with my lover, I’m loving in my touch, expressive in my play, and articulate in my language. The sex I have is of no relevance to my ability to take care of my daughter. I am a consenting adult in adult spaces, with adults, doing adult activities. Did my parents ever have kinky sex? I have no idea, because it’s none of my business. Will my daughter have kinky sex? I have no idea, because that too will be none of my business. My only hope is that she’ll have confidence in her body, and share touch with people who treat her in the way that she dictates, just like her mom does.

Originally published on Romper.com