“If you’ve had to repress your sexuality, it’s understandable that your emotional development has been delayed and may not mirror straight/cis peers.”Īnother quality popular among daddy-lovers is their maturity, which makes them more confident, less dramatic, and less likely to play games when making a romantic connection, which is all too common in our community. I’ll be on a date with a man whose sexual and emotional development, as it relates to queerness, is around the same as mine, though I might be 15 years younger,” they say. “I’ve noticed this countless times in NYC. They assume that, since older men grew up in a far more homophobic society than the current generation, that many men in their 30s and 40s are having the same queer “emotional renaissance” (i.e.: coming out, exploring their sexual identity, etc.) as younger gays, who’ve generally been brought up in a more progressive climate. James’s last theory is one of my favorites. Obviously, this is not mentoring or guidance directly, but it might be a form of it sexually.” “Our gay male culture doesn’t value mentoring or guidance and having elders. “It could also just be the eroticization of the younger-older dynamic,” Dr. The daddy archetype is often all three, though daddies can be any size, shape, and age. Meaning if you’re submissive, you may naturally be drawn to someone bigger, stronger, older, and more mature than you. With masculinity comes an ill-informed association with dominance. Since we’re societally conditioned to associate masculinity with strength and power, the more hyper-masculine a man presents––think Tom of Finland––the more they’re perceived as stable and comforting companions, which is very appealing for somebody who wants to feel loved and cared for. “It’s the ruggedness for me,” Brodie, 30, concedes.
“Daddies visually represent everything I love about men: the facial hair, the body hair, the big arms, etc.,” Dan, 34, says. Many gays confessed they were drawn toward daddies for their masculine appeal. “Younger people who may be struggling with validation and self-acceptance may accept the affection from older men and form a schema around the daddy type.” “So many older men are attracted to younger men because of their innocence, naivete, and because they physically embody the media standard of beauty,” they say. Instead, they suggest the attraction is symbiotic. “It’s something he loves about me, so I don’t externally seek much validation for my queerness from other (older) men.” “I’ve dated a bunch of daddies.Īnd my father and I are incredibly close and speak often and openly about my queerness,” they say. “In my mind, any daddy I see has a better job than me and would handle tense situations so I wouldn’t have to.” James Rose, a queer activist, writer, and educator, is not as convinced. “I’m partly driven by the daddy stereotype that they’d be more prone to protecting/providing,” Garrett, 31, says.
So as reductive as this theory seems, it does have some merit. Were mentioned a lot while conversing with individuals about their attraction toward daddy types. I also noticed two words one often associates with father figures, “comfort” and “stability”. Saying, “It’s normal that we work out parental issues in our romantic relationships. Joe Kort, Ph.D., agrees with the theory and defends the behavior. Of the many theories tossed my way, the perception that gay men have daddy issues was by far the most popular.Ĭonnor, 26, says gay men love daddies because they represent “a surrogate father figure many of us didn’t have.” In other words: many queer men lack a crucial bond with their fathers that they seek that connection in their romantic life.ĭr. Curious as to why I brought the question to our community and a queer therapist. Like a moth to a flaming elder, I, and many gay men, cannot seem to escape the hair-fisted clutches of a daddy. Despite these experiences, I continued dating daddies since not all daddies are duds (just the ones I’m attracted to, ha!).