On Writing Daddy Porn

(Heads up about content: as is likely clear from the title, this post is about writing Daddy porn, and thus describes and gives specific details about different sorts of Daddy play, including references to ageplay, Daddy play with trauma survivors, and consensual non-consent.)

I write Daddy porn. In fact, a good portion of my published erotica is Daddy porn. So it may surprise you (as it does many of my prospective play partners) that I don’t do Daddy play.

Let me clarify: I have done Daddy play. I did it for many years, when I was first doing kink. I have been a Daddy to boys, and to girls. I’ve been a Daddy’s boy and a Daddy’s girl. Daddy play was a central kink of mine, an aspect of most of my early kink D/s dynamics as a submissive and as a dominant.

So, the fuller sentence is: I don’t do Daddy play anymore.

That’s not often what I say. Because it tells a story, instead of setting a clear boundary and I want to be careful about how and with whom I share that story. Because it hints that I might do it again (which is extremely unlikely). Because it can push folks’ buttons who have internalized shit or just plain ambivalence about Daddy play and I don’t want to invoke that kind of stuff if I can help it. Because it references a loss that is a rather deep ache for me. Because it invites questions, and stories, about doing Daddy play or giving up Daddy play. Because it opens up room for assumptions and queries about why I stopped doing Daddy play.

The why is not important, or even relevant, much of the time, except to me. I firmly believe that boundaries do not require explanations about their origins or reasons. In my opinion, the appropriate responses to a boundary are: 1) a discussion about whether that boundary can/will be respected (because let’s be real, sometimes they cannot and that ideally is known ahead of time and discussed so that folks can figure out what to do) and/or 2) a clarifying conversation about the nature of the boundary and what it would look like to respect it. (In my experience, people sometimes respond to boundaries with questions about why you are setting them, accusations and anger, hurt feelings, nonconsensual violent behavior, pressure to relax or remove the boundary, or immediate violation of the boundary in question. This kind of behavior can give me really good information about how someone responds to my boundaries.) We do not need to say why in order to say no. Often, a why question is really a push back against the no. Like I said, good information to have about someone.

So, I try to be very clear and stark when setting boundaries. Because of common assumptions about me based on my erotica, I make it a point to discuss that as well. I attempt to be very clear and upfront about how although my erotica may give you a window into my head, my life experience, and my desires, it is not an exact reflection of what I do, kink-wise, in life. Many people assume (or hope) otherwise about erotica writers, that our smut reflects our life, that our work is all thinly disguised memoir. (And for some erotica writers, this may be the case. It is not so for me.) One of the examples I use most frequently when I clarify that is that I write Daddy porn but I do not do Daddy play (anymore).

I write Daddy porn because I find Daddy dynamics to be deliciously complex and full of conflicting motivations and desires, a lovely framework for grappling with intimacy and fear, with deeply connected play that brings out internal conflict. I write Daddy porn because it is an outlet for kinks that are still vital and important to me, even though I’ve put them down and do not intend to pick them up again outside of my writing. I write Daddy porn because it feels like I must; every time I go gooey for big eyes or touch my own desire for rescue or protection or face the intensity of intimate betrayal I realize again that I still have shit to work on here, still have places I need to explore. I write Daddy porn because I need to re-imagine possibilities of Daddy play that do not feel inherently abusive or irresponsible, that touch the sweetness and the loving care that are possible as you meet deep needs for intimate fear and risk.

I bleed when I write Daddy porn, ride the razor sharp edge of my own desire unfulfilled, of my own fear, of the landmines of my history, of the intensity that comes from touching needs that continually go unmet.

Sometimes you need to bleed as a writer. Sometimes you need to feel the rush of red and metal, the roaring in your ears and the pounding of your heart as you write. Sometimes you need to trust that your will and your courage and your stubbornness can ride you through fear and betrayal and lighting hot dangerous desire. Sometimes you need to prove to yourself that it’s worth it in the end, even though it is both terrifying and torturous as you move through it.

The most consistently viewed post on this site is the one that talks about queer Daddy porn, and gives multiple examples of Daddy porn stories I have read. (It is also the post that folks find most from web searches, for things like “gay daddy stories” and “lesbian ageplay stories”.) In that post, I name four common forms of queer Daddy porn that I’m going to repeat here.

1. Daddy/boy stories printed in gay collections sometimes feature older man/younger man sex with no overt leather, ageplay or consensual non-consent elements.  (I have not found similar Daddy/girl stories)
2. Leather Daddy/boy dynamics that are not about ageplay or consensual non-consent, but more often about mentoring in leather lifestyle and/or a sweetness and a bit more levity/playfulness to the connection between Dominant and submissive. (I have not seen this often in Daddy/girl stories, but it sometimes occurs.)
3. The Daddy/boy or Daddy/girl dynamic is mostly about language, the shared language of ageplay dynamic, where both parties are delighting in the dynamic, the sense that the language is filthy or taboo. There is no psychological edgeplay where the story illuminates characters pushing past boundaries or comfort zones. Instead, both characters are deeply enthusiastic with little internal struggle being described.
4. Queer Daddy erotica with psychological edgeplay. These stories are more likely to intertwine with trauma, more likely to be darker, where characters have inner conflict and are vulnerable in their desire. This kind of Daddy erotica tends to feature consensual non-consent and ageplay, and often references histories of real world child sexual abuse, and generally more likely to reference real world childhood.

I have written stories that fit all of these descriptions, except #1. I often write a combination of more than one of these.

My edges change shape and heft and sharpness throughout my life. And for me, writing Daddy play (hell doing Daddy play, too) has always been edgeplay. How I push those edges, how deep I go, what feels like it’s riding the line, depends on so much in the moment, and varies widely.

Sometimes I ride the edge of consensual non-consent (#4). Sometimes I make the Daddy dynamic a light touch of sweetness and care threaded with possessiveness (#2). Sometimes it’s all about evoking an ageplay dynamic through shared language (#3). Sometimes Daddy is about learning the ways of leather (#2). Sometimes Daddy is about the kind of trust you need to push the edges of your own trauma (#4). Sometimes Daddy is undone by the seduction of big eyes or begging or charmed until he’s wrapped around the finger of a little one (#4).  Sometimes Daddy is big enough to hold your fear or your anger and love all of what you bring to him (#2).

I often go into the story with a clear idea of the kind of Daddy dynamic I want to create. But sometimes it catches me by surprise. The story that needs to be written is not the story I intended to write. The characters demand something else, even if I’m not sure that I’m up for writing it.

“It’s My Job” is a good example of this kind of story. I wrote it originally for a leather themed anthology back in 2007. (“Willing” was printed in that collection instead.) I sunk into leather fetish for this story, imagined a deeply sensory long scene involving all sorts of leather worship and pain administered with leather, in the context of a Daddy/boy relationship that felt like it centered mentorship and learning leather life.

I loved writing about how the boy sinks into worship of his Daddy’s leather. And yet, threaded throughout the story are these delicious bits of language that work to get Daddy players hot. I can see that now, reading it, but at the time, I was sunk deep into the worship, the different ways his Daddy’s leather was going to touch this boy, the deliciousness of worshipping his Daddy’s boots all the way up his chaps to his cock. The reverence of taking pain for Daddy.

I didn’t see the next part coming. The part where the scene sinks deeply into consensual non-consent and ageplay dynamics. Even though I set it up throughout, writing lines like, “It’s my job to stand still and take it for Daddy,”  “Good boy. Feed Daddy your tears,” and “Everything you have is mine. I made you and I will hurt you, bleed you, eat you and fuck you as I please.” It still caught me by surprise when the scene turns, and the boy that is so focused on worship and being a good boy for Daddy is pushed to take more than pain.

At the time, I didn’t want to take the story there. I pushed against these characters, didn’t want to go to that kind of edge with them. I tried to write something else, I tried to claim that I was in charge of where this was going. But every time I pushed back, insisting I would not go to that razor sharp place, the words left me. I couldn’t write a different ending. So I wrote the one that demanded to be written, and I bled in the writing of it.

That’s the thing about writing Daddy porn. (For me anyway.) It can be relentlessly stubborn, and twist on a dime to go to edges that you don’t think you are ready for. As if it thinks it knows best. And maybe it does.

The end surprised me, akin to the way a BDSM scene can turn to someplace edgier than you thought it would. In the process I learned something about writing my edges: however carefully I begin, I can end up somewhere more intense than I intended, and rip through my own armor in the process. An important thing to remember about writing (and about edgeplay), no?

“It’s My Job” was printed in the collection Hot Daddies (ebook on sale in October for $2.99).

ETA: “It’s My Job”, along with the rest of my Daddy stories, are included in my recent collection, Show Yourself To Me.