Columns Sep 21, 2011 at 4:00 am

Daddy Issues

Comments

1
And here I was hoping to never read the term "earlabia" after last week's column...

Amen on the advice to DAD - listen to Dan and don't do something stupid that could mess up your dad's life and relationships!
2
Sick, and disgusting
3
DAD: Watching a porn scenario does not mean you want to actualize on it. I enjoy lesbian porn, yet I have no desire to have a sex-change operation so that I can have sex as a lesbian.
4
F--k, that's one for the awkward award. For the sake of your dad AFTER you leave you might want to figure out a way of bringing up the importance of erasing search history without letting him realize what happened. You know, just in case someone else inconviently uses his computer.
5
You know, I'm a little squicked by the dad viewing that porn while the adult child is in the house. It's not logical or rational of me, but it's a squick.

Agreed that said adult child should go on this new job and let this information settle before taking any action.
6
@2: I agree. The term "earlabia" is indeed sick and disgusting.
7
DAD doesn't elaborate on what the "incest porn" consisted of, but just about any gay porn or online hookup pitch that involves a big age disparity seems to use the "daddy/son" nomenclature.

Personally, it creeps me out – and I say that as someone whose boyfriend is 17 years his junior – but I suspect that most who use those terms in that context aren't fantasizing about actual incest, any more than "bear admirers" fantasize about sex with actual bears.
8
I like dad/son porn stories. But I don't actually want to have sex with my dad (or son if I had one). I think DAD is flipping out unnecessarily. I also like rape scenarios in porn, but I don't want to rape anyone or get raped.
9
I'm assuming that the incest scenerios reflected the same genders of DAD and hir father? If that's the case, I'd totally call him out on it. Or at the very least, advise him that he should clear his internet history.
10
One of the first porns I ever saw was Taboo from the early 80s. It's still a favorite. Kay Parker has sex with her son, big mustaches and massive amounts of pubic hair. Much as I enjoy it, I have no desire to have sex with any of my children, nor do I have a yen for big mustaches or massive amounts of pubic hair.

DAD needs to learn about boundaries, and respect her father as a sexual being in his own right, completely independent of anything that has to do with her. Self centered much? Jesus. Since when does having adult children preclude one from having a separate sexual life? My oldest child is nearly 20, and I have no intention of turning in my sex card, fuck you very much.
11
Is this what happens when you "move home with your parents" but they're divorced? You shuffle back and forth with your belongings in a HelloKitty backpack, as if you were 13 years old again and had no options?

One option (if she weren't about to leave the country anyway): she could tell her mother that her dad left some porn visible on the computer. (Please, please, don't specify the details - just say you clicked away as soon as you saw a penis.) In the ensuing brouhaha, the parents will presumably find a solution that gets her out of her dad's house, but without cutting him out of her life.
12
"If your discovery had led you to connect a bunch of deeply creepy dots, DAD, that's surely something you would've mentioned in your letter."

I don't agree with this premise.

I think "Should I trust what my gut is telling me and pack up, jump in a cab, and never talk to him again?"

Is suggestive that there's something going on beyond just "wow that porn is icky".

In my eyes anyway.
13
DAD, just tell your parents that it's important to erase their browsers and clear their caches and whatever else to protect their information from phishing online. No need to drop the info about porn. Tell them you saw it on 20/20 or some shit.

A little white lie goes a long way. And FFS, don't mention that you saw that stuff, especially if you otherwise have a good relationship with your parents. Porn is not necessarily a substitute for something the viewer desires to actually experience.
14
Gay men should not refer to other men as "a huge asshole to me".
15
If you go on my computer, you're going to find some nasty stuff. How about fuck off? It's my own private business. What are you doing poking around in my stuff anyway?

Yeah, let's go with that...
Johnny D.
16
For the love of God, computers are plentiful and cheap. Why can't everyone just get one of his/her own, or at least assign individual user accounts. I'm sick of children who "accidentally" find sordid parental browsing footprints.

Really, it's like sharing a toothbrush, or underwear. Sheesh!
17
@16: I suspect parents may want to keep an eye on their children's internet activities. Not necessarily to look for sordid browsing footprints, but to protect their children from online predators.
18
"Should I tell him that I know about it and I'm not interested in having a relationship with him anymore? Do I tell my friends or family? Should I trust what my gut is telling me and pack up, jump in a cab, and never talk to him again?" for god's sake, DAD, since when did you get promoted to the fantasy police?

It's not the nature of the fantasy that bothers DAD, so much as it is thinking of her father as a sexual being. How dare he?!!!
Get over it, DAD. Your parents don't need to submit their sexual thoughts and fantasies to you for your approval.

For the record, I get off on incest scenarios in my erotic imaginary life. I like to read about them and to role-play with partners (I don't tend to watch video porn). However, not only do I not *approve* of incest in real life, I can think of no one in a million years less sexually appealing to me than any of my family members. DAD, have you ever heard of "make believe?"
19
Gotta agree with 18. DAD what if the situation was reversed and it was your father who found the porn on your computer?

Would you like if he decided that made you a pervert, cut off all communication and humiliated you in front of friends and family?

If the answer to that question is 'no' that do what Dan says. Put it down the memory hole and stop acting like your Dad is a pervert because he has fantasy that aren't about having missonary-in-the-dark sex with -insert acceptable person here-.
20
Watching porn with roleplay scenarios definitely doesn't make you want to act on it. Also, DAD's real fantasy might simply be about wanting to fuck a woman young enough to be his adult daughter. For awhile in my twenties I had a fantasy about wanting to fuck a much older guy in his late 40's or 50's- old enough to be my dad. My fantasy had nothing to do with wanting to anything sick or incestuous, even if I did look at a few "Daddy" scenes.

I thought older guy porn would be an extremely easy porn scenario to find, but I found it surprisingly difficult to get. I didn't want Lolita-type porn, but there wasn't much else available. Other than the gay leather daddy sites, the only other sites I could find were called things like, "fuck me grandpa" with adult actresses in pigtails and knee socks- not quite what I wanted, but the closest I could find to my older guy scenario. I looked at it anyway, because I couldn't find any other age-difference porn.

Maybe DAD just has a kink for younger women with guys his age. Plus, roleplay is just that- roleplay. Most people know the difference between fantasy and reality. As long as DAD didn't do anything creepy in rl, no need to judge the man by his porn viewing. Plus, DAD's daugher would've been horrified and disgusted no matter what porn it was. No one wants to know what their Dad uses to get off!
21
Oh, for flip's sake! All these disdainful, sexually sophisticated people who are criticizing DAD for being squicked over incest porn amuse me. Stop trying so hard to be hip before you strain something already. Then you wouldn't be able to have disdainful, sexually sophisticated sex. Wait a minute, that might not be such a bad thing...
22
Personally, I think DAD needs to thank her lucky stars that all she witnessed was the evidence and not the act. Walking in on her dad looking at that could've resulted in years of awkwardness for the both of them, but as it is, the awkwardness is only hers, internally. It's not much, but it's an upside.

My only other advice to her would be to use her own personal laptop and/or smartphone to browse at her Dad's place from now on. Or, at the very least, install a separate browser for herself, to avoid having more search history dumped on her.
23
@16, I don't know, if this person just finished college and hasn't started a job yet, an extra few hundred bucks might not be that easy to come by.

@17, good point in general, but this kid is 22.
24
re: DAD
Excellent advice, Dan. You understand well the human psyche. Porn watchers are their own breed and if a person has never watched it, almost any of it seem be sickening. One of the worst experiences I ever had happened on Twitter. I don't use it to this day because of that one incident. Some gay guy posted a porn picture that I clicked on like an idiot. I won't go into the details, but what disturbed me more than the actual shocking image was what my imagination was cooking up about the pure evil that had to exist in the person who posted it. I felt physically ill for several hours. I felt the human race was doomed, not so much because of the porn but because of how Twitter was being used: to inflict shock on total strangers. It was a day I felt the Taliban maybe had a point.
I still feel whoever did that is evil, but the image itself wouldn't freak me out at this time. Porn is so prevalent I wouldn't be surprised if it went mainstream soon. It almost has. Who the h. knows where we're headed as a society and culture. Much of what this fine new information age of ours is bringing isn't so wonderful, but then how is that any different from any other media revolution?
Anyway, DAD, if you're father's behavior is OK then you've got to look at and relate to that. That's the real person. Don't tell me you have never had one icky thought your entire life. I won't believe it. But you still identify yourself as a decent human being, right? If you dislike your father for other reasons, then that's a different story.
25
re: DAD
Excellent advice, Dan. You understand the human psyche well. Porn watchers are their own breed and if a person has never watched it, almost any of it seems sickening. One of the worst experiences I ever had happened on of all places Twitter. I don't use it to this day because of that one incident. Some gay guy posted a porn picture that I clicked on blithely like an idiot. I won't go into the details, but what disturbed me more than the actual shocking image was what my imagination was cooking up about the pure evil that had to exist in the person who posted it. I felt physically ill for several hours. I felt the human race was doomed, not so much because of the porn but because of how Twitter was being used: to inflict shock on total strangers. It was a day I felt the Taliban maybe had a point.
I still feel whoever did that is evil, but the image itself wouldn't freak me out at this time. Porn is so prevalent now I wouldn't be surprised if it were decreed to have gone mainstream soon. It almost has. Who the h. knows where we're headed as a society and culture. Much of what this fine new information age of ours is bringing isn't so wonderful, but then how is that any different from any other media revolution?
Anyway, DAD, if your father's behavior is OK then you've got to look at and relate to that. That's the real person. Don't tell me you've never had one icky thought your entire life. I won't believe it. But you still identify yourself as a decent human being, right? If you dislike your father for other reasons, then that's a different story.
26
@12: There are plenty of children (adult or only aspiring thereto) who are deeply squicked out by the idea that their parents have a libido AT ALL. There have been at least two letters that I can remember in the last year or so here where people freak the fuck out over their parents' sex lives in ways that inappropriately play the incest card. One was about a parent dating somebody's best friend, and the "child" in the situation interpreted that as the parent wanting to fuck the child by proxy. One person said that just having to think about their parents having sex felt incestuous.

This case is rather more explicitly about incest than that one, but still, I think that gut reactions from children about their parents' sex lives tend to be gut overreactions. LW should think really, really hard about whether there was any concrete evidence that this was anything but abstract fantasy for the father -- a hugely different concept than if it was about or involved him/her specifically -- before going nuclear on him.

27
Also can't help but wonder how much digging through the ol' history did DAD have to do to get so sickened.

If it was just a glance at the website titles in the history, those can be misleading. (There's a lot of porn about "my sister/mother/son/whatever" that turns out to be about "my sister/mother/son/whatever's hot best friend, who jumps me while sister/mother/son/whoever is off at the store")

On the other hand, if DAD investigated deeply enough to confirm his/her initial impressions, what the hell was he/she doing that for? Invasion of privacy much?
28
I never even considered that enjoying incest porn was scary to some people... I'm going to start wiping my history more frequently.
29
The third thing to keep in mind is that, given the usual production values of most porn shoots, the premise is invariably the thinnest veneer of plot, costume, and location, which very quickly devolves into yet another pair of naked people of average porn star age and looks, rutting in the usual manner. DAD's dad may simply have liked the looks of the actresses (who are all over 18 and not actually related to him) and the incest angle may have been entirely incidental.
30
To the death, huh? I admit I am not nearly so altruistic - should a choice come down between my life and the ability of a stranger to get off on ear sex, I'm gonna choose the former. But that's why Dan is such a good advocate for kinksters - he's really committed, you know?
31
@11 Whoa, telling Mom is NOT a good idea. As an adult child of divorced parents, I resent the drama they continue to drag me into whenever I go home to visit - a bombshell like this would prevent DAD from ever having a significant life event again that wasn't filled with fights and managing the parental tension.

It is possible that the mother isn't totally crazy and would just tell her adult kid to grow up upon learning that s/he saw teh porn, but my experience with divorce dynamics informs me that even sane people become crazy with respect to the former spouse.

A much better solution: why doesn't DAD just go to their mother's house and say s/he just wanted to spend more time with her? Wait out the squicks there. Problem solved.
32
Excellent column once again, Dan! Kudos!

Stretched out earlabia. That's a new one for me.
33
Viewers of porn, who don't want their porn to get looked at by others they share a roof with: individual accounts. Sign off EVERY SINGLE TIME. Make it a habit.

DAD, take above advice to heart. Give yourself time to settle into the new gig & new digs. Decide then if something needs to be said. Plenty of people like to look at sick-n-twisted stuff who'd never ever do it IRL. Don't punish your dad for having a moment of dark fantasy. BUT, your letter has me worried that's not all there is to it, too.
34
@31 - I take your point. I was just searching for a way to stop the kid from being bounced house to house like a ping-pong ball. (And I was imagining mom insisting: "If you're living here full-time, then your dad better be paying your rent.")
35
@21 (catseye), way to miss the point of every single comment written here. You get the clueless award for this year!

To DAD: Dan's right. Has your daddy ever done anything that suggests he wants to actualize those fantasies (is your 'gut feeling', as someone above suggested, based on something other than 'this porn is icky')? Then you may have a real problem. Otherwise, it's just another situation in which finding porn in someone's computer freaks us out because we didn't expect that person (father, mother, brother, sister) to have an interest in that.

If I told you the things I find arousing, you'd probably consider me an icky perv. Yet I'm a successful, well-mannered, I'd even say well-balanced person who doesn't represent a threat to anyone (including my daughter) or to society.

There are bad people out there, and your dad may be one of them. But then again, there also are good people out there, and your dad just might be one of them, too, despite the icky kink (we don't really ask to have the kinks we have, as Dan pointed out). To say nothing of all the in-betweens.

Life's not simple. Whatever you do, there'll be consequences. Just think about it before you act.

(By the way, are you sure it was your father who searched for those sites -- or could it be that some third person used his computer while you weren't looking? You did, so maybe someone else did, too?)
36
I enjoy the hell out of brother-sister incest porn but I so do not want to fuck any of my brothers. I think part of the appeal is the taboo, partly the idea that it's a bond stronger than any other (say they grew up together, know each other better than anyone else, won't let anyone else close)... the fucked-up dependent dynamic that goes along with so much of it just appeals to me. My relationship with my brothers isn't even anything like the brother-sister incest relationships I enjoy.

And come on, how can you be a fan of X-men and not want Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch to fuck, seriously. :P
37
Hey, where's the Joe Newton illustration? I love those
38
What the fuck, DAD? Incest fetishes are ridiculously common. Is he/she really that surprised? It's just not that disturbing.

@12: You have a tendency to read abuse into things when it isn't there... DAD said he/she felt disturbed and physically sick, and "going with my gut" in this case meant going with that feeling and his/her instinct.

@24: Now I have to know what the picture was.
39
For what it's worth, DAD, I have a couple of fantasies (neither of them involving incest) that really turn me on but would never, ever want to act out in real life. In fact, my girlfriend in the fantasy isn't even my real-life girlfriend or anyone I've ever met.

Why the fantasy is hot while the reality would be totally gross and depressing is a complete mystery to me.
40
@18, 15, 10 - nothing in the letter to indicate that DAD has a problem with her father having a sexual fantasy life. It's just this particular fantasy that prompts the very reasonable, I think, question - does this mean he wants to do this to me?

Dan answered that - "not necessarily". Problem solved.

@11 - she's 22, not 15. If she's got issues with shuffling back and forth between parents' houses, she doesn't need to get her mommy to intervene. Just negotiate a living situation that works, as an adult. "Mom, I'm getting tired of shuffling back and forth. What would you need from me to have it work out if I stayed here fulltime?"
41
I've watched incest porn before not because the idea of incest turned me on but because I enjoy watching an older women fucking a younger one and it just turns out that the porn God provide this in the form of incest porn. Could just be the age thing for DAD dad too.
42
@40 (agony)
You say that finding out your father watches incest porn "prompts the very reasonable, I think, question - does this mean he wants to do this to me."
What if she'd found centaur porn? Would it be reasonable for her to think her father wants to really find a mythical creature? People do watch porn of things they'd like to do, but they also watch porn all the time, about things they wouldn't do in real life (hello, 40 foot tall woman porn).
The letter writer is judgmental because the dad's porn breaks incest taboos, and because she doesn't want to think of him getting off to something she doesn't approve of. He might well not even transfer those thoughts to his own, real daughter, let alone want to pursue them. Unless she has any reason to think that he is getting off to specific thoughts of her (and even that, if it stays always in the realm of his own imaginative life, seems icky maybe, but as long as it remains unshared, benign and none of her business.) or she thinks he has been planning to try and molest her, this is absolutely about the existence of her father's having a sexual fantasy life which she is disgusted by.
43
To DAD, if you're simply creeped out that your father looked at the site, just assume he was looking at other porn and clicked on the link accidentally. That can happen. And if you're creeped out he was looking at porn at all, fuck you.
44
Oh my gosh! Any parent who has every watched one of the vintage (and now essentially mainstream) Taboo porn series NECESSARILY DESIRES TO HAVE SEX WITH THEIR CHILDREN!

This is breaking news, and I think everyone with an incest fantasy needs to be sterilized and forcibly separated from their children.
45
Hmm, I think Dan really REALLY likes writing "earlabia".

33: Better yet, the major browsers now all have a feature called "Private Browsing" or something similar: no cookies, no history, no temp files, no nothing. When you close the browser, all data concerning the private browsing session are wiped. Everyone: use this for porn browsing if you share a computer. That is exactly why it was added.
46
@37 I know, right? Instead it's that guy who demonstrates what a t-shirt is on Wikipedia.
47
One thing that may be relevant in DAD's case: Do you have siblings? Are your siblings of another gender than you are?

If dad was watching dad-on-daughter porn, you're a son, and have a sister, well, I may begin to pay some extra attention to her relationship to dad, see if everything seems normal or if there's anything that seems off about it.
Same goes the other way around, if you're a daughter, has a brother, and he was watching dad-on-son porn, try to figure if anything seems wrong with your dad's relationship to his son(s).

Try to be supportive of your siblings, in case they need somebody to talk to. Don't mentioned what you found unless there's a pretext to mentioning it.

If this isn't relevant, Dan's advice is sound.
48
DAD getting all self-righteous about her father's incest porn--he might want to do that to her!--is like a straight homophobe believing that every gay man, by virtue of their being gay, wants to fuck him. It's arrogance mixed up with disgust, fear, and a huge amount of narcissism.
49
@42, Geez, have a heart for DAD. Your point about the centaur may be logical but it's not pertinent. (If the kid were a centaur, then it would be.) Her "eek" reaction is totally reasonable, even if she wasn't able to reason the whole issue out the rest of the way. That's why she wrote to Dan. (I hope she takes his advice.)

Once, I heard the shake of a rattle and I jumped sky-high. When I landed, I realized that I had subconsciously thought the rattle was a rattlesnake. Turns out it was only a musical instrument. My reaction hadn't been "correct" but it sure was reasonable!
50
Just a quick tutorial...to use InPrivate Browsing on your computer you can usually just click Control+Shift+P or use the Safety link on your toolbar. Anything you view there will not show up on your history. My husband and I (he way more than me) use it so that others on our computer can't see what we've been looking at.
51
I can understand how the advice-seeker would be squicked out by her dad's activities, but I hope she'll reflect on the situation after leaving home, and will decide to leave well enough alone, but not cut her dad out of her life.

If she doesn't want to learn about her father's personal life, though, and she can't stop herself from following up on weird things that pop up in the web browser, it's time to leave the nest for good, and find a different place to live when she returns to the States.

Yeah, the economy sucks, it's hard to get a job, blah blah blah, but where there's a will, there's a way--roommates, something to tide one over till a better job comes along, etc.

If you're going to live with your folks as an adult, you've got to afford them as much privacy as you would want them to give you. If you can't do that, it's time to get your own place. Even if the job and first apartment aren't very nice, the peace of mind and the experience of learning how to stand on your own two feet will be worth it. It's possible that the advice-seeker is doing just that by going overseas, of course, and if so, I applaud her for it.
52
@49: You say to Have a heart for DAD--but she isn't willing to try and ignore what she knows--from snooping on his computer--about his private sexual fantasies, which there's no evidence to suggest he has ever forced upon her in any way at all. No, she is deciding whether she should cut him out of her life forever, tell all the family and friends what he masturbates to, and write him off as a would-be sexual predator, who would rape his own daughter (I'm assuming that her fear is that he would want to have sex with her and since it clearly wouldn't be consensual . . .)
Shouldn't she have a heart for her father? Or at least develop some amnesia?
53
@52, you don't know what she's willing to try. Again, that's why she wrote to Dan. She's freaked out -- pardon her -- and now that she has gotten such good advice, I hope she follows it.

I think DAD has just as much right to be freaked out as anyone else has to have sexual fantasies. As long as her freakout remains private, as long as she doesn't act on it, why would you vilify her for it?
54
I get off on crucifixion porn with lots of slavery and rape. Does that mean I am likely to go out and kidnap one of my ex-girlfriends, enslave her, and then brutally snuff her over a period of weeks? Well, maybe that is a bad example because I really do fantasize about doing that.

However, there is no evidence DAD's dad is getting off on actual sex with his, you know, actual daughter. Most "incest" porn is really old guy/younger girl porn which is about as universal as it gets in the porn/kink world. DAD does not seem to appreciate that (most) incest porn on the web (just like most crucifixion/NC/Snuff) involves ACTORS and does not actually involve fathers banging their real daughters.

The previous posters are correct but I would take it even further: DAD is really put off by visualizing her father as a sexual being with actual needs and is using her "discovery" to fuck her dad in real life. Get over it, forget what you saw, and STOP SNOOPING. Oh, and how about get the hell out of the house already.

Stretched out earlobes are gross. If you want something inside to be licked, why not mutilate and stretch out your clit (for gay guys try the glans). A big fat hole there would increase the surface area with the added benefit that at least the rest of us don't have to look at it every day.

Finally, I have never heard of a 30 year old gay man who has only been in two relationships. He needs to find a gay-friendly therapist and unpack this non-consensual pack job that apparently led him into the gay world. I think Dan only included this letter because of the salacious and entirely irrelevant claim that his rapist became a 'born again Christian.'
55
I can totally understand why DAD would be freaked out, she should probably just try and forget she ever saw it if possible. I found straight porn on my gf's comp one time, and as far as I knew she was a lesbian so does that in turn mean she wants to fuck men?
56
Because, Drusilla, DAD isn't talking about keeping her freakout private. Re-read her letter. She's talking about outing her father to everyone she and he knows as an incest-loving perv, and her gut feeling is to never talk to him again. I don't know how *you* define a private freakout, but this isn't the same as hearing a rattle and jumping.
58
"It's the thrill of violating a taboo, not a child."

DS way out of his league with this smug and ill-informed assertion. He writes, "But that's another column." Yes, and another columnist. Or not a columnist at all, but a psychiatrist with a lot of clinical experience.

DS rarely errs in this way -- failing to acknowledge his limitations. Always disappointing when he does.
59
DAD~

Unless there is something in your actual relationship to make you feel bad, this isn't a catastrophe. Probably caught wind of My Stepdaddy Made Me #495.

True, it is kind of icky to find out TMI about the 'rents. However, I'm sure you have your kinks and will likely be a parent in the future. They only get better with time!! ;)

Anyhoo, I'd say get a job, but as you live with the rents, you're probably struggling. You do need to find $ to get your own computer/tablet then get a place of your own.

I also agree that you should drop a hint about the 20/20 episode that dealt with clearing your cache.

I can't even guess what someone would think of me if they got a hold of my internet history.

**

I'm starting to gauge my ears. They don't have to be huge.
60
in DAD, I think that the writer is actually the dad in the situation and is trying to find out if what he's doing is right or wrong. HE SIGNED IT DAD!
And now he's pretty much given the go ahead by Dan to continue. BAM!!!! THE WORLD IS FLIPPED BABY!! WEVE ALL BEEN DUPED!! aaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!
61
I have no problem with a pic of Dan at the top of the column, but... WHERE'S MY JOE NEWTON ILLUSTRATION?! :(
62
22 isn't the same age for everybody. There are 22-year-olds who are very worldly and who've been around the block several times by then, and there are 22-year-olds who've been quite sheltered, who know very little about sexual fantasies and/or porn, even 22-year-olds who are still virgins.

Yes, all of us older folk know that incest porn is quite prevalent and that what a person likes in fantasy may have no relationship to what they like in reality. But all of this may be brand-new, unknown territory to a "young" 22-year-old.

I agree with Dan that the letter-writer needs NOT to out her father and needs to understand that her father can like incest porn without wanting to do anything incestuous in the real world. But geeze, give the kid the benefit of the doubt, okay? We're not born knowing this stuff; we have to learn it somewhere along the line. Today in Dan's column is when and where the letter writer is learning it. Before knowing the things that Dan has just taught her, I think it's natural for the letter-writer to be freaked out and to think that indulging in the fantasy indicates a wish to indulge in the reality.

63
To DAD regarding your letter and comments from everyone else,

Stick with Dan's advice and take the discovery at face value - your father is turned on by incest porn. This does not mean that he is turned on by you or would be interested in actual incest.

To everyone else who is accusing DAD of being out of line for her reaction (cutting off contact, spreading the word about her dad's kink), calm down and cut her some slack. Incest porn is the kind of thing no one talks about or imagines anyone liking. After all, real incest is freaking illegal and often warrants sex offender status. DAD isn't thinking of outing her dad just because he likes porn. She is freaking out because she is afraid her dad is only one step away from being a sex offender, potentially with HER as the victim. But again, unless this is one of many signs that her father actually fantasizes about her, she should just leave it as him having the unusual kink.

For me, the bottom line is that the creepy situation of finding your parent's porn stash was made worse by the nature of the kinks. Outing his kinks to everyone would be out of line, but when the kind of porn they like would warrant sex offender registry if done in real life, we need to cut her some slack for freaking out.
65
her point about moving from house to house is that the incest site timestamps correspond to times WHEN SHE IS IN THE HOUSE. That is kind of creepy.
66
@65-great point. Somehow we all missed that. It is creepy-she just needs to stop staying with him.

Also the 30 yo guy really needs to get some therapy!

70
DAD, while I can fully understand why you might be squicked out by incest porn, you need to take a deep breath. Stop. Do NOT go running to mom or other friends about this.

Incest porn is super common, and very enjoyable by lots of older guys. It is a fantasy of many older guys to have sex with younger women. Most incest porn just capitalizes on this basic theme. We are all well aware of the fact that the actors in the porn are not actual fathers/daughters. It just adds a little taboo tease to the otherwise common older guy/younger woman meme.

You should NOT leap to the assumption that your dad actually wants to have actual sex with his actual children. At least, not based solely on the evidence of internet porn. If he's doing other creepy behaviors too, then that's a whole different story.
71
DAD reminds me of a funny story. When I was DAD's age, porn came on videotapes, and people had cassette shelves where they kept their tapes. I was visiting a friend's apartment, and while he was in the bathroom I started looking through his videos. Then, because I'm nosy, I looked at the other tapes on the bookcase shelf behind the videos. One was a series of vignettes in which straight men had gay sex under various levels of coercion (the photos included a man standing in front of his boss' desk and drill sergeant and a private). I had a similar reaction to DAD's. I asked him about it a couple weeks later, and he was embarassed, and assured me that it was just porn. Then he asked me why I didn't ask him about it at the time. I said, "Oh sure, then you'd say 'snooping is wrong. Now you have to make it up to me.'" He's teased me with that last line ever since.
72
DAD, please keep in mind that your father's fantasy might be to be the hypothetical daughter being seduced by the hypothetical dad. Regardless, base your relationship on how he treats you, not his fantasy life.

Also, stay off your father's computer.
73
This shows that fathers with older kids really need to be aware of their computer expertize. Some years ago, my wife found some videos I had downloaded and made me delete them so the kids don't ever find them. I thought I did. Years later, I swapped the hard drive for a larger capacity one and gave the old one to my son. He had special software that could find deleted files and threatened me about it. I told him mom already knows about the videos so go ahead and tell her. He went out of his way to find dirt on me and I still resent him for that.
74
Wen you are done with a hard drive, take that mucker out and scratch it with a nail real good. Bend it, break it if you can, pour acid on it.
75
@73: Need to arrange a little accident with Sonny-Boy's computer. "Gosh, so sorry I stumbled and knocked your computer off the desk, seventeen times, until the hard drive I gave you made grinding noise and a burned smell."

Then tell him that's the last gift he can expect to receive from you, ever.
76
Just wanted to chime in on item one, in case DAD looks at the comments.

1. I have a major incest fetish and read incest sex stories all the time.

2. The thought of actual incest with my dad really makes me ill.

3. Go figure.

4. Let it go and stop snooping on Dad's computer.
77
DAD - always trust your gut feelings, always. If you don't feel safe by your father, by all means move out, ASAP.

But - don't out him, if there's nothing more icky than him viewing porn while you're in the house. It's his life, his ways, nothing to see there. And don't cut all ties to him. You'll be pretty busy soon, you'll have time to reflect on things. Meeting him from times to times, in safe places, will let you check whether really he's considering you as a prey or not, while staying safe.

Hopefully he's really a decent guy and you'll end up realizing that everything is OK, and he won't think of it as anything else than an urge to leave the nest that was just a phase in your life.

But if you were to subsequently discover that he's really contemplating incest (because he tries to hold you too tight, compliments you too much on your body, looks aroused when he meets you, insists on meeting you in places without witnesses, gives you expensive gifts that you have to come and fetch alone at his place, etc.) then it will be time to out him as suspicious to your close circle - and to sever the ties.

From an incest survivor.
78
@73 what did he want, in exchange for his silence? (The incest-porn-loving part of me hopes he wanted a blow job from you; the empathizing parent in me hopes to god not.)
79
Letter #1 - without having read any responses - once, many years ago, I found a sexbook (you know, an actual BOOK, all text, no pictures) all about incest in my dad's room. It deeply, deeply, creeped me out, but due to our circumstances at the time (poor as shit, one step off the streets in a communal situation) it was reasonable to assume that this was just a lucky piece of porn he had come across somewhere without having to pay for. At least, that's the story I told myself to keep my sanity, since as a fourteen year old I had nowhere else to go. I chose to imagine that he was as creeped out by the incest part of it as I was, and just changed all the pronouns in his head as he read it.

Realizing now, twenty years later, this is probably not the case. But since my Dad NEVER actually DID anything even slightly creepy towards me, I can let it go. What the hell, I have weird and creepy fantasies, too, and I know I would be horrified if any of them became reality (actual alien abduction, not as sexy as fantasy alien abduction).

Try to put it out of your head.
80
@65, restating her letter your way definitely increases the panic level.

If the only times the father watches corresponds to her visits then maybe she should limit her visits to when she isn't alone with him. Having been stalked by my uncle, I wouldn't tempt fate otherwise, especially if the father drinks to excess.

Peace.
81
@79 "not as sexy as fantasy alien abduction"
Ain't that the truth!

@80- but, as cockyballsup says @68, maybe he looks at porn when his kid is there because that's when his girlfriend isn't there. In the absence of dad actually acting inappropriately toward DAD, I say there's no need to panic about porn.

82
@73 mrivera,

I would randomly turn off the power to his room and lock the breaker box, if your wife consented. I would also consider taking him to therapy because his actions require a huge amount of pent up hostility. In the mean time use a secure filesystem, separate users, and the secure erase feature that should be a part of every modern OS. You should also check for trojans or applications that could spy on your computer use, and then lock out your computer with a password every time you physically leave the computer. A physically isolated and locked situation might be a good idea as well. You might also wish to consider locking down your credit cards when they aren't on you as well.

Good luck.

Peace.
83
Things like DAD's dad are why this column is a service to humanity: Don't persecute people who never performed any harmful act. Don't assume that fantasies are reality.
84
Re: the 15 year old boy in the podcast ... he & his girlfriend just lost their virginity to each other, have done it several times since & it's still painful for her.

You missed something very obvious:

*How long have they waited after the first time they had sex to repeat?*

The wound/cut/abrasion created by breakage of the hymen can take a few days to heal completely - just like any other wound/cut/abrasion.

If they're going at it every day like horny 15 year olds, she may be reinjuring her already-broken hymen each time they have sex.

They should just take a week off and see what happens before worrying about anything else.
86
There are a lot of videos on sites like pornotube, etc. with titles like "father has sex with daughter".

But you have to wonder how much a guy even cares about that story at all. In the videos it is an older guy having sex with a young woman. If she is sexy, a guy will watch that in spite of the title and in spite of the plot. I mean, most guys that watch porn skip the story and go right for the sex.

Could be that the dad just likes watching old dudes (like him) fucking younger women.

Frankly I've watched those videos myself not because I have any fantasies about incest at all, but because if there is a hot girl in the video, I will watch it, skipping the beginning.
87
Yes, yes YES to the answer to DAD. I love sibling incest in fiction, but I have zero interest in my real-life siblings. Blech.
88
Even if this girl's DAD is not interested in really fucking her... that doesn't mean he's masturbating to some generic idea of incest and "taboo-breaking".

What if her DAD is masturbating while thinking of her specifically? Visualizing her face, her body, etc? Watching his incest porn and masturbating while she's staying there because it's hot for him?

I'll answer - then that would be gross and not cool and she has every right to ask him and decide what she thinks is going on and if she wants to exile him or not.
89
You know some of the current Malware adds fake browser history to porn sites so you may see it and click to figure out what it is. so he could be totally innocent.
90
@88: Actually, no she doesn't. That would be demanding access to the inside of his skull. Talk about violating appropriate boundaries! Is there nowhere that is considered one's own private space?

For that matter, what good will it do? What can he possibly say about what goes on inside his own head that she will believe? None of it is verifiable in any way. How can she be sure, absolutely sure, that he isn't secretly fantasizing about her, even after he denies it?

There is a very good chance that all he was doing was looking at some random porn, and didn't give a shit about the supposed plot of the film. Unless there was some actual outward inappropriate behavior, she needs to give him the benefit of the doubt. (Problem is, chances are extremely good that starting today she will start interpreting everything he says and does in the worst possible light.)

For her to go charging in and demanding an explanation of exactly what he was thinking and feeling while watching it would be orders of magnitude more awkward.

If she absolutely can't let this go, and just has to go interrogate him -- I have a very strong suspicion she won't, and will -- she can do that, but he will be perfectly within his own rights to be pissed at her invasion of privacy and her overreaction, to tell her that children are not supposed to involve themselves in their parents' sex lives, to back the fuck off, and to stay the hell off his computer if she can't act like a grownup.

Either that or he should password protect his account (he should have done that in the first place), and give her an account of her own. Probably better install parental controls on it, though.
91
I can understand DAD being extremely grossed out and disturbed by finding the incest porn, but contemplating estrangement from her father seems like a totally melodramatic overreaction. DAD, your father's a human being who happens to have some fucked up porn preferences. Assuming he's been a decent parent, you'd have to be a pretty shitty daughter to sever ties with him over something like this.
92
@84: I haven't seen that podcast and I'm dealing with a similar issue. I can't watch podcasts... what did Dan say about it?

@88: I suspect a lot of parents probably do masturbate about their kids: so what? As long as they don't tell their kids or abuse them, and it's all in their head, what's wrong with that?

A more interesting question is whether and under what circumstances it's ok to ask your adult kid/parent/relative for sex. Theoretically, an adult asking another adult if they're interested should be ok, but it's complicated when it's family.
93
@Blackrose

When it isn't there?
Do you have psychic abilities that myself and Dan lack? He was the one who acknowledged in the first place that it was a possibility.

He said: I'm operating under an assumption: again, that your father has never done anything that made you feel unsafe. If your discovery had led you to connect a bunch of deeply creepy dots, DAD, that's surely something you would've mentioned in your letter.

An assumption. Not a certainty. I personally think the basis for the assumption "you would have explicitly said it" isn't the best one.

Maybe her feelings of disgust were valid. I'm willing to admit they weren't, but I don't understand the eagerness to dismiss that they could have been.

I'm also curious as to where you get "ridiculously common" from. I think you tend to think that certain things are more common than they actually are based on your personal experience.

But if you have any sort of stat I'd love to hear it for sure.
94
"I suspect a lot of parents probably do masturbate about their kids: so what?"

What would lead you to suspect that?
95
The conclusion of this life story is the real point and unfortunately the outcome was a troubled teenager who could see no other outcome than the ending of his life. My heart aches for him and his famly who will live the rest of their lives evaluating what could have been done differently that might have changed the tortured stuggle by a young male seeking a normal life and acceptance by others. I am saddened by the outcome and outraged by those who influenced him to take his life. May they live many years, more than most, agonizing over what they have done to a solitary human being seeking love and acceptance. Is this not what each of us desire every day? In memory of a brave young man we will miss and hopefully not forget as our busy lives take us on to the next topic of the day. May you find solice, peace and happiness James....finally sheltered in the arms of a loving and accepting god...
96
@93: Sure, it's possible that the father did abuse DAD or do something to make him/her feel unsafe. It's hard to understand why someone writing in asking if he/she should end the relationship wouldn't mention that, but it's possible. When I said "it isn't there" I meant that there's nothing in the letter to indicate that, not that it wasn't a theoretical possibility.

Based on what we know (DAD saw incest porn in the father's browser history) DAD's feelings of disgust were not valid. We have to go based on what we know, and the question asked about the reaction to the porn, not other things.

I think incest is a common fantasy based on what shows up in, for instance, erotic stories: check out asstr or storiesonline and look at how many stories have the incest code. Given the taboo nature of the kink, I doubt there exist accurate statistics on what percentage of people have a kink for incest fantasies or stories, though I'd love to see some. It's a pretty standard kink though, and shows up on lists of turn-ons. Do you think it's very rare?

@94: Again, hard to know for sure, but people often find youth attractive, the taboo nature of it makes it appealing, and people's kids are around them a lot. When kids start going through puberty, suddenly parents realize they're sexual beings in their own right and they have to deal with that. They see their kids in a new way, so it doesn't seem surprising that a lot of parents would think about their kids being sexual and get turned on.
97
One sex question answered, two opportunities taken to complain about a fashion trend that's very popular with your readers. Uh, good... column? :/
98
Wrong answer from Dan and all the children on here who just wanna be free.

When you have a kid, job #1, before pleasuring yourself, is to protect the kid. If the kid is in your home, and there's even the remotest chance the kid will find you perving on incest porn, DON'T LOOK AT INCEST PORN AT HOME. Because the kid's mental health and relationship with you are both more important than your desire to jack off to Daddy's Little Princess.

As for what the girl should do? Take a vacay from a dad who's irresponsible and selfish enough to look at that shit while she's in the house. Maybe now she's got some insight, though, into why her parents are divorced. Not the kink: the selfishness and irresponsibility.

I'm seriously disliking Dan as a spouse and parent. Guy more or less bullies his boyfriend into accepting an open relationship, and then puts kink ahead of a kid's wellbeing. I think he's a selfish twat, really.
99
@96 I think you are probably right that many parents get some kind of sexual charge from seeing their teenagers develop. As the parent of a daughter going through puberty, it's hard to keep my mind totally pure every second of the day. I don't masturbate to thoughts of her, but fleeting sexual thoughts do traverse my brain, regardless of my best intentions.

I don't talk about it (let alone act on it), just like I didn't talk about the pleasure that came with nursing my babies, and how that sometimes felt sexual. But I like how Slog can be a place to acknowledge that sex is often on our minds, and sexual thoughts do seep into aspects of life where society says they don't belong (the classroom, the workplace, parent/child relationships).
100
@98

The "kid" is 22 fuckin years old. She is NOT a child and odds are, she probably does a whole lot of things that are in those videos.

This is WAY different from him using the computer in the rec room that an 8 year old uses to do his homework.

She's 22 and a temporary visitor while she prepares to move away.
101
I continually have dreams in which I am having sex with my brother. They are dreams. I can't control them, they just happen. The thing is, in the dreams, the "brother" I'm having sex with isn't ever my real life brother. It's a made up brother. And in the dream there is always this incredible titillation that we are doing something bad and that we might get caught but our desire for one another is so strong that we just can't control ourselves. I guess one would call these incest fantasies. But in real life, I have absolutely NO desire to have sex with my brother.
102
Well, I could easily be the "major asshole" that NEN, the second letter writter is talking about. I briefly dated a 30-year-old who had very minimal experience with men. As far as the stretched earlobes, that was never discussed. But I do know that he had fooled around with a guy way back in high school or something and that guy was now married with kids, but he never shared anything with me about being raped. So, I could easily not be the "major asshole" as well, but I'm sure the guy I was dating thinks I am. That's because even though I really liked him, I got tired of him being closted and not willing to talk about it and then the fact that it felt like the relationship had to be 100 percent on his terms.
So, I told him I couldn't do it anymore and I told him why, I also told him that he needed to stop being so afraid of what everyone else would think about him, as far as being out, including family and friends, that his family would still love him and any friends worth anything would still want to be friends. But, I never got a response from him, after calls and emails. I hope NEN gets some counseling from a good fair professional, and I also hope the same for the guy I dated, because if he got his shit together, I would love to give it another try.
105
I'm not interested in cleaning my browser's porn history. If someone who lives under the same roof I live -those christian hating fundamentalists- and they don't like what they could see, why are they looking into my always signed-in PC with my always signed-in porn and non-porn sites accounts? Its like those time they -my not so bad though christian hating fundamentalists folks/parents/whatever- asked me questions about my sexuality -or my political ideology- and they didn't like what they heard. Why ask then?
107
@103 & 104, You're a creep. Go plug your blog somewhere else.

@105 I've experienced the same. Usually it's because they want to 'correct' or 'fix' you/your outlook. The generic ending to idealogical/moral arguements with my grandmother: "Oh, trust me. Someday you'll be older and see that I knew what I was talking about. Then you'll change."

Que internal screaming.
108
Dan Savage, Your are a piece of shit of the lowest kind in the CessPool of LIBEERAL SHIT HEAD FILTH. Go stick your sewer head shit brain up your ass and eat your own shit while it is stuck in your ASS.
109
@98, how exactly do you know Dan "bullied" his husband into an open relationship? Also, agree with @100--DAD is 22, not 12!

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