Reading the controversy in these pages about Lolita fantasies got me thinking about an essay I wrote several years ago about the other side of the story—that is, women's Daddy fantasies. Following is a version of what I wrote back then, originally published in On Our Backs, which—because of this essay and a fictional Daddy story—was forbidden entry to Canada, and is thus included in Forbidden Passages: Writings Banned in Canada (Cleis Press, 1995).

Most women who have Daddy fantasies say they are not envisioning their actual fathers, but rather the gestalt of Daddy: An authority figure, not necessarily male, who doles out punishment but also protects and nurtures. Likewise, we don't necessarily see ourselves as children in the scene, but rather powerless sex objects wholly at the mercy of someone stronger than ourselves—just as in any scene involving dominance and submission. In the Daddy fantasy, chronological age is irrelevant: a mentality comes into play that is ageless. Nonetheless, there's no denying that negative reactions to sexual depictions of fathers and daughters, even if spelled out as fantasy, are based on valid concerns.

It goes without saying that incest and child abuse is always wrong. Sex between an adult and child can never really be deemed consensual. Because of this, we're apt to experience guilt for these fantasies, or for being turned-on by images of older men/younger women. So we repress or deny our feelings, which only leads to more guilt and confusion. But just as rape fantasies are not actual rape, so too are Daddy fantasies not actual incest.

Years ago I experimented with the Daddy fantasy by conjuring up an image of my father during masturbation, hoping to shed light on that part of my psyche. I visualized being spanked as a child, and in a flash recalled that every time my father's big masculine hand came down across my ass, it produced a corresponding pressure where my clitoris touched his knee. The words that came to mind as I masturbated were, "Please don't stop, Daddy, don't stop hitting me." When I came, I was laughing and crying simultaneously as the utter innocence of the whole dynamic came crashing down upon my feminist consciousness. It became crystal clear that whenever my father had turned me over his knee—infrequently—I had most certainly enjoyed it purely due to the logistics: My clit was forced up against a hard object, his knee, and was stimulated. This revelation was totally liberating: I had previously assumed that my penchant for being spanked originated in self-loathing or masochism. It awed me that such a simple dynamic could become so distorted over the years, every new attempt at analysis only adding another layer of shame to the original experience.

Spurred on by my experiment, I extended my fantasies to visualizing my father during fucking. As it turned out, the incest taboo was greater than my quest for self-knowledge, and the fantasy didn't work in this context. But it does work to simply turn one's partner into "Daddy," to utter that word, to hear him or her say "Come for Daddy."

The shame and secrecy permeating this topic is intense. It isn't easy for me to confess my thoughts on the subject, much less my fantasies—but I learned a long time ago that examination of sexual fantasies can help dissolve the guilt surrounding our sexuality, and can be as beneficial as years of psychotherapy or meditation.

Given the frightening overtones of the Daddy fantasy, then, it's understandably easier for most people to explore its power when the actual people are removed; that is precisely why genderbending—two women, for instance, playing out the fantasy—feels safer.

There are many complex and even contradictory aspects to the roots of the Daddy fantasy. Probably the strongest element is the desire for a sexual partner who will love and nurture us through anything. There's a telling scene in the film The Misfits in which Marilyn Monroe, tears streaming from her heavy-hooded eyes, sobs to Clark Gable that he must have stopped liking her because he expressed displeasure with her behavior.

"Come on, honey," he says, pulling her into his big bear arms, "didn't your Papa ever spank you, then pick you up and give you a big kiss? He did, didn't he?"

"He was never there long enough," sobs Marilyn. "Strangers spanked me for keeps." She collapses into Gable's arms: the quintessential little girl and the archetypal Daddy. (Unfortunately, the camera doesn't follow them into the bedroom, but my imagination has completed the scene.)

As implied by this dialogue, there's a lesson conveyed to a little girl when her father spanks her for being naughty, then showers her with affection. This is not to make a case for corporal punishment, but only to say that many of us were spanked as children and came to associate the act with love and/or sexual arousal. We may also have learned that punishment doesn't necessarily mean rejection—on the contrary, as Monroe's response implies, the absence of any fatherly attention can be more devastating than a slap on the rear. And though it's true that abused children often grow up to become abused women, in this case Monroe missed a vital experience, one that might have led her to tell those strangers who spanked her "for keeps" to fuck off.

The dynamics between Gable and Monroe are fascinating: She is at once a vulnerable little girl and a powerfully erotic adult woman. When she yields to him, she temporarily gives up her power, something Monroe frequently did with her leading men. Similarly, one friend I spoke to confessed that when she plays at having sex with a Daddy, she feels that she's relinquishing her coveted female powers to the force of "his" masculine desires. This is true whether or not the Daddy in question is biologically male or not.

Regardless of whether our daddies spanked and then kissed us as children, the yearning for an omnipotent lover who will stick with us though pain is a powerful image that lies at the heart of most dominant/submissive fantasies. When the word "Daddy" is introduced into this context, it carries a weight of added elements, even if we don't imagine our actual fathers. How is it not possible for any intelligent woman brought up in the age of psychotherapy not to at least fleetingly wonder about the relationship between her sexuality and her father? We are repeatedly told that he carries a heavy influence over our development, that we even seek out partners who remind us of him. How could it not occur to us that our relationship to him might carry elements of eroticism? Whether consciously acknowledged or not, a sex scene involving a Daddy figure is fraught with Freudian overtones, shrouded in secrecy, full of taboo. What, I ask, could be hotter?

A major element of the Daddy game is that we revert to the safety and innocence of childhood, even infancy. Some psychoanalysts have postulated that, for heterosexual women, sucking a penis is the closest they ever come as an adult to sucking a breast. Slobbering over "Daddy's cock" can put us into an emotional space akin to infancy, a time when we had no responsibility and didn't know rules existed, much less what they might be. We simply responded to external stimuli, hopefully—but not always—of a nurturing quality. It's significant that it's always the child-like word "Daddy," not "father" that carries erotic weight.

In fact, it isn't only women who use the Daddy fantasy for an erotic charge: Witness the vast number of personal ads in gay men's magazines seeking "father/son" sexual relationships, or Pat Califia's anthology Doing It for Daddy. Even more astounding is that a significant number of heterosexual men with absolutely no homosexual experience harbor similar desires. When I worked as a phone sex operator, I reduced husky-voiced males into simpering infants through my impersonation of a cruel/loving big-dicked papa. It was profoundly moving to me to hear a grown man plead to "suck your big dick, Daddy," while I pretended to whip it across his face. He would break down and come when I crooned, "Come for Daddy, baby girl."

The bottom line is that, as in other dominant/submissive scenes, we're being coerced to engage in sex, relieving us of guilt or responsibility. When Daddy is the one doing the coercion, it's even better: A parental figure is not only allowing us to be sexual, but acknowledging us as sexual beings. If Daddy's making us do it, it must be okay. And if we please Daddy, we're rewarded by being called a "good girl." The ultimate paradox is that we're also bad little girls who incur Daddy's wrath and get punished. So we get to be bad and good simultaneously, both erotic roles. We get to please Daddy, to be punished by him, and in the end we are still loved. Daddy forgives us everything.

The question naturally arises as to why Mommy is so rarely conjured up to serve the same purpose, especially among lesbians. Simple answer: Mommies pretty much lack erotic power in the culture.

(Finally, it should not be necessary to state, but given past reactions to my work I feel it is: By articulating fantasies about Daddy I am in no way endorsing incest, child molestation or abuse.)

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