So because this POS has inappropriate feelings for a child, she loses his support, her aunt, her escape from a POS father. Why can't he grow up up and allow her to have her family? Every time a grown man sexualizes a girl she has to pay for it, in the loss of herself, her innocence, her family, something. This is entirely on him and he's putting it all on her sohe doesn't have to control himself. He's still a POS and always will be

@1 Well, yeah, it's not ideal, BUT, it's much better that she spends less time with him and the aunt than ends up in bed with him. I think, under the circumstances, the LW has taken positive steps to prevent utter catastrophe, and that much at least should be commended.

It'd be better if he'd never gone there mentally in the first place, or if he could just snap himself back into sense. However, he's gone there, and if he can't snap back, then knowing his own limits is infinitely preferable to letting himself become a ticking time bomb of destroying this girl's life and family.

I think it's right that the guy crushing on his gf's niece separates himself from her. The price of stopping the hand-holding has to be a little distance. It isn't a good relationship, one constructed on an equal basis, as it is. I'm not sure the LW has entirely weaned himself off his self-deception. The way he's putting it now, the only way it could start--could start legitimately, in his mind--would be for the young woman to initiate it. No! There is no way it could start legitimately. The relationship would be too unequal. Putting it as he does, the LW could cue or set up his niece to make a move--or could do this in his mind. No. There is no relationship of the sort he fantasises about. It's a non-starter. It can't happen (let's hope); it's only a slightly sad, slightly seamy fantasy. The guy does not need to explain himself. About 7% of children in the US may be abused; there are 7.4 million referrals or reports, as on the SPCC website, a year (I think). He hasn't added to the statistics; let's be thankful for that, and note that in judging him. But we do not have to rule on whether he's read the situation rightly, or understands or does not understand his partner's niece, to tell him 'no'.

Incidentally, I've been in loco parentis to a teen (one reason why many suppositions about non-procreative queers or trans women are wrong), and one does not project as a 'father' or authority figure by sitting round late at night holding hands with a young person. One says things like, 'actually Newton formulated three laws of motion' and wait for the eye-rolls. 'If this apple had been pushed and were in an inertial frame like space, it would keep on moving at a constant velocity'. Eye-roll. 'Pretty rad, no?' Eye-roll. And keep one's pretty rad getting-stuffed with an extraordinarily large and shapely dildo by the kid's father WELL OUT of their mental space.

Yay for the 40-year-old for seeing reason. This 16-year-old girl now runs much less risk of turning into SCARED from this week's column. Yay too for OPENER, I wish the both of them luck. And Dan, no, sorry. Speaking as a 110-lb female, "skinny bitches" is not ok.

On the bleeding:

I have had partners that would bleed every time we did certain positions or started without enough moisture. While all the other advice is good, if it turns out LW is medically fine, foreplay and lube, foreplay and lube.

RE: dude hitting on his girlfriend's niece.

Good move, stay away from her. Maybe at some point in time, a year or two, you guys can form an appropriate relationship where you can be a supportive and present person in her life without being a creep. Maybe, with hope. But all the shit you're doing now has to stop completely.

But skinny women have degraded bigger women for along time.

Something else for the 40-year old to consider: after the sorta kinda niece-in-law has gone off to school: he can still be supportive (as her actual father isn't) by staying in touch - perhaps by email? - asking her about her courses and extracurricular activities but, under NO circumstances, asking whether she's dating. That's creepy AF (and also echoes how semi-incestuous some fathers sound when claiming they won't let their daughters date until they're thirty).

@8: No he can't. As she gets older she will remember what happened when she was 16 and realize it was creepy and inappropriate and not want that guy trying to be involved in her life at all.

Another reason he should exit this family entirely... He doesn't need to be the creepy uncle at every one of this poor girl's future family gatherings.

Smfh... I feel like your bill for this will come in due time. "She won't be staying with US..."? You already fucked up, guy. You initiated something you had no business dabbling in in the first place, and now you're just shoving the girl to the side and carrying on with her aunt like the faithful boyfriend you aren't?

This is where you'll DEFINITELY find out how mature she is...by how readily she steps to the side and lets you carry on pretending to be Uncle. You did the right thing, but you did it the wrong way, the selfish way. Better hope she doesn't decide to burn you and, in the process, damage her life and her family ties. Good luck, LW.

The 40-year-old man on the brink still insists he's "been crushed on before, and know[s] what it looks like." Dude: you're full of shit, and you don't know shit. How is this even relevant? So what if she's crushing on you? My gut says you're not done with this. You may have been shamed into backing down for now, but your dick and/or your mid-life crisis sense an opportunity, and your moral compass is stuck up your ass.

Re: Bitch

Didn't Meredith Brooks figure this out in the 90s by giving us terrible music?

@9: Absolutely! Well said.

To the 40 year old: When I was 18, in my first year of college, I had a much beloved mentor in his sixties. Three years later when I was again living in the same area and going through a bit of a rough patch he distanced himself in a way that I did not understand. As an adult, it is quite clear that he thought I had a crush on him, and unlike you he automatically defaulted to the right thing. My mom and I discussed it at the time and she told me it sounded like he thought I was in love/crushing on him. I was completely horrified by the idea, and extremely dismissive of it. It has never occurred to me to think of someone that much older in that way at all, and I was five years older than your niece. Also he was a good person with heathy ideas of the world, and although he misunderstood my behavior he made a reasonable and honorable decision based on his (mis)understanding. It’s a pretty safe assumption with a kid of 16 that she is not thinking of you the way you are thinking of her. To you she is physically an adult. To her you are Old, and family, and therefore safe to not worry about. I would suspect she loves you, as family and as a mentor. I’d guarantee she’d be completely and utterly devastated, and fucked up for a long time if not for life, if you act on it any more than you have. She will likely be at least somewhat messed up by it when she grows up a bit and understands what you already did with her trust. You failed the test of whether you can stay in her life when you indulged any of this fantasy, and need to get the hell out of her life.

Also, it’s pretty damn messed up that a teenage girl cannot develop affection for or a mentor/mentee relationship with an adult man without a high likelihood that her feelings will be weirdly sexualized. It denies young women of a lot of personal and professional connections that would be available to her male equivalent, and it is really disconcerting to realize that a cross gender, cross heirarchy friendship was assumed to be a sexual attraction. I do realize there can be generational differences at play in this, and that it is partially a cultural failing rather than a personal one, but it is seriously detrimental to women, let alone girls, that sexual attraction is the default assumption.

The follow-up letter from aunt’s boyfriend shows he’s still in denial about some disturbing aspects of his actions and personality. You don’t know-at all-whether she has a crush on you. You don’t even address that your thoughts and behaviors are also unfair to your girlfriend. She clearly loves her niece and has stepped up to help raise her in a difficult situation regarding the girl’s father. So not only are you acting inappropriately with a teen girl, you are actively deceiving your girlfriend. Do you have any idea how upset and disgusted she will likely feel if she were to discover what you’ve been doing? How do you think she would feel realizing she’s been having sex with someone who has sexualized her neice? Violated, I expect. You are violating informed consent with her by hiding something that would very likely make her dump you and certainly never have sex with you again. You need to leave. Now. Your sexual ethics are seriously out of wack. Get therapy.

Biggie @9: Gold star comment. He should NOT stay in touch with the niece. It will be obvious that he's just keeping her simmering until she's "old enough" -- whatever age that is in his mind -- to hit on. Yuck.

Coffeepunk @7: Yes, and we now know it's wrong, and it doesn't give men the right to degrade women of any size as revenge. Just because Dan is gay doesn't mean he gets away with it.

@7 & 17. Bi & Coffeepunk. I'm of the view that we should dial down on our usage of any descriptor to do with size. 'Plump', 'hefty', 'well-built', 'corpulent', 'well-upholstered', 'built for comfort, not for speed', 'lardy'--I've had them all. Usually shamingly sexualized. And I've worked all my adult life to be thirty pounds less--and have often gotten there. The comments are just cheap shade. Cheap, but a useful recourse for people because racist and homophobic superiority is now non-U.

Whenever some group resignifies a pejorative, the test of whether someone can use it should be whether they would evidently be recognized (or accepted?) as part of that group. Dan saying 'faggot'? Fine. My saying 'happy camper'? Yes, but it's the sort of expression I don't like. My saying 'lardarse'? Probably OK, but I've kept a lot of the weight off. The public battles Tina Fey is fighting are not quite the same as Dan's.

@15 kiddo makes an excellent point about contacts and networking.

Re; 40 y/o follow up

Definitely upping my minimum age requirement for friends to 25.

Even in his self-effacing follow-up, he failed to mention his girlfriend. Extricate yourself from this family, and every one of it's women.

Thank goodness that (since it turns out his letter was unfortunately real) SFFN has stopped.

@3 Harriet_by_the_bulrushes
"I'm not sure the LW has entirely weaned himself off his self-deception. The way he's putting it now, the only way it could start--could start legitimately, in his mind--would be for the young woman to initiate it. No! There is no way it could start legitimately."

1000% correct.

@16 OwlSayIt
"The follow-up letter from aunt’s boyfriend shows he’s still in denial about some disturbing aspects of his actions and personality."

1000% correct.

Given that SFFN remains riddled with denial and self-deception, I probably shouldn't go here, but...

I wonder what y'all think about the comment ScandaliciousHobo made
https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2018/08/15/30821848/hes-40-shes-16-shes-also-his-girlfriends-niece-what-could-go-wrong/comments/100
"Do you think you'd be able to have two separate conversations with the girlfriend and the niece, ending this? I feel the niece deserves an explanation and respectful closure. She needs to know this is not her fault."

Am I wrong to wonder if this could be a positive step?

I'm guessing since SFFN is unfortunately not (as he should be) leaving his GF, that he won't tell his GF (and probably wants to now just give his niece a disappearing act). And even if he were to give the niece closure knowing it was not her fault, maybe that could/would do even more damage to her?

Since she is the harmed party here, he should obviously prioritize doing whatever helps move the niece towards healing. Even bloody if SFFN is afraid that a healing/closure talk with the niece might get back to the GF. (I hesitate to say it in case people think this plan wouldn't be a positive step, but honestly, SFFN, I think a mere disappearing act would be far more likely to lead to the niece getting back at you by telling your GF the terribly wrong things you already did to her.)

SFFN would need to first get himself the fuck out of denial and self-deception (do therapy multiple times a week, bud, the niece is still being hurt by your past behavior as I type), then be a good communicator, and he would need to to communicate in a way that made it 1000% clear (and platonically so!!!!) that all that was his fault, he did wrong and is profoundly sorry, it should never have happened and would never ever happen again. Ever.

Esteemed commenters, should SSFN ever try, and if so, what words from him would help her?

Curious2 @21. Absolutely not. He should remove himself completely from her life. Any conversation about why will do more damage, and as he has already groomed her to do so, will open up a window for her to convince him to stay/convince him she wants it.. which I suspect would be his point. If there is anyone he should tell the truth to it is his girlfriend, the aunt. She is in a position to protect her niece, and it would be good information for her to have regarding him. The niece is not the only wronged party: the girlfriend is in a relationship with a man who has been using her for access to an underage girl, and does not seem to have given any consideration to his partner at all. The only way he can redeem himself in this situation is to leave both of their lives, and an explanation to his partner would be a kindness. Leave the girl alone.

Actually, I take that back about telling the aunt. I’m assuming a level of emotional health in the aunt that I just don’t have any data on. If there is any chance she would blame the niece, or use the information for anything other than keeping him the fuck away from her niece, don’t tell her. Leave them both cold, change states, and get therapy.

@22@23 Kiddo
"Any conversation about why will do more damage, and as he has already groomed her to do so, will open up a window for her to convince him to stay/convince him she wants it.. which I suspect would be his point."

Yeah, you're right Kiddo, this man remains too deluded/fucked up to make it reasonable for me to hope that ScandaliciousHobo's hope that SFFN could do right by them while ending it (let alone leaving them as of course he would do if he cared about them instead of just himself). I'm so sorry I went there. I wanted there to be some way to help the niece (and yes you're right, the aunt) heal, but there is none he's capable of taking part in (other than his departure!).

SFFN, we're all glad you've at least gotten to where you are. But don't think you're done with the work on yourself; over time hopefully you can continue to peel away the layers of denial and self-deception which you of course still have. Inner work isn't easy, but nothing is more important. Get out of their lives, get out of town, get a therapist. If you don't do all this, look forward to being found out and every minute of every day living with being deeply hated by everyone.

@Kiddo and curious2: He needs to leave now and NOT tell them why. He should point blank say to his gf that he needs to work on his (mental) health and become the person he needs to be. No details. Why? Because this will likely destroy gf. Like I said, by continuing to sleep with her, he’s violated her informed consent. And you know who she’ll likely blame? Herself. Because that’s what women are conditioned to do. “How could I have missed this? How could I have not protected my niece?” even though, given the info we have, she’s blameless.
And he should have no further contact at all with the neice. She’s already going to be disgusted at some point, maybe not now but eventually, that her creepy de facto uncle flirted with her and made it physical. And guess what? She’s going to blame herself in some way, too. He’s been destructive enough, their well-being is way more important than full disclosure at this point. The only accept ion is if niece contacts him as an adult and wants answers. Then he should be remorseful and say he was inappropriate, no buts, no “but I was sure you had a crush, too!” Just that he was wrong and if she asks, he walked away to prevent more damage to her and her aunt.

Follow up: answering your initial question and contributing to some of the back and forth, y’all get it but he doesn’t. And he will read these comments.

@20 ... exactly so. His comment gives the appearance of earnest and self-effacing concern. I have no way of knowing whether he's sincere or not - however, the total absence of any mention of his girlfriend / the 16yo's aunt gives the impression he's completely missing the larger picture - or being a total bullshit artist.

As for the 18 year-old letter writer who traveled alone with an 28 year-old man, she was not similarly situated to the 16 year-old niece being romanced by her aunt's 40-something year-old boyfriend.

We have to draw lines somewhere and 18 is typically the age we consider someone an adult, and allow them to make adult decisions. One of the decisions that this LW made was to live for an extended period of time with a man in his vehicle. So the LW wants to have it both way, one, be considered mature enough to travel without parental supervision with a stranger, and two, be treated like a child in otherwise adult situations. He may have "reminded [her] of family," but in the absence of any other details, it appears that she didn't have any prior connection; he was not an old family friend, or someone she had know for a long time and always considered to be family.

@28.. wow did you miss the point she was making.

Was anyone else bothered by this part of SFFN's response: "I realised that by continuing the hand-holding all I was doing was maintaining the fantasy that something could happen between us. But that's all it could ever be: a fantasy. So it has to stop. I've followed your advice and taken steps to stop her from staying with us."

"It has to stop" is not the same as "I've removed myself from their lives." It could easily be something that "has to stop" sometime in the future. He's still thinking that the idea of them having sex is just "a fantasy." He doesn't say that it's HIS fantasy alone; he still suggests that they both fantasize about having sex with each other. I wish I could feel as good about this letter as Dan seems to, but I still see the same guy who wrote in looking for permission to fuck his girlfriend's 16-year-old niece because she's six feet tall and "wise beyond her years."

And the solution is to ban the girl from the house? As if she's done something wrong--she's going to blame herself for this anyway if and when she finds out or figures it out. And the fact that he's sending her away from her own aunt's house suggests that he's holding her responsible for his behavior. Plus what will his girlfriend, the aunt, think when he kicks the niece out? Will she think, "my 40-year-old boyfriend can't trust himself around my 16-year-old niece so he's chasing her away from me, her actual aunt, so he can keep his dick in his pants." Or will she wonder why all of a sudden her boyfriend seems to dislike the niece he seemed fond of before, and ask why he doesn't want her around anymore. Worse, the aunt might override his actions and invite the niece over anyway.

The best way to deal with this is for him to remove himself from the situation.

Sounds like he has figured out a way to do the right thing (in terms of leaving the teen alone) without having to remove himself from a starry white knight role in the situation and without having to reflect at all on his own motivations or behavior.

And yes, no mention at all of the betrayal to his girlfriend. He decides to stay in this relationship and remove the niece from it. It's bizarre to me that while "struggling" with the decision of whether or not to fuck the young girl, he never even considers the fact that he'd be lying to and cheating on and betraying his girlfriend. So in choosing to remove the young girl from the situation (and limit her contact with her niece) he again doesn't even consider that maybe HE is the problem and he is the one that should leave.

But whatevs. What's wrong about the situation is that he would not like to take advantage of her daddy issues when she has flattered him with the role of a father figure, so he will sacrifice his own desires, how noble.

Also I don't know what he means by everyone universally saying he is a pedophile. I did a quick search for that word in the last comment section, and one person implied that he was something similar to a pedophile and literally everyone else who mentioned it was talking about how this is not pedophilia, so actually the only thing even universal about the comment section was that no one straight out called him a pedophile, most said he is not, and only one out of over 160 comments even implied that he is something similar to one. As for predatory behavior, well buddy the shoe fits. Maybe sit with it for a moment.

Finally I think it sucks that the girl loses her room away from home and the close contact with the aunt and the dude gets to keep his girlfriend, gain a study, and feel like a fucking hero paying a small price to not destroy the rest of someone's life.

Also yes it is possible that this dude can be entitled AND the teen could be crushing on him and flirting with him. The fact that high schoolers are sexual beings doesn't need to be washed away for us to condemn this sneaky and creepy behavior. I hate it when people start painting teens as if they are clueless doe-eyed victims. Maybe the gal is misplacing her desire for a father figure, or maybe she just recklessly wants to explore her sexuality with the LW while under her aunt's roof. In either case, it doesn't affect that it's shit for the LW to encourage her.

The reason this is important is that it creates some false dichotomy here between innocent little clueless victim girls and slutty sexy vixen types. In either case, the older man is excused the uncomfortable but potentially beneficial process of self-reflection and self-criticism and he gets to constantly center himself as a hero, as this LW does, patty himself on the back for choosing to do the responsible thing and not take advantage of her sweet little daddy issues by secretly fucking a teenager under her aunt's roof.

One of the smartest choices Nabokov made in Lolita is that she was not an innocent sexless girl. She was scheming to survive, interested in boys, sexually active, reckless without the guidance of a parent, etc. This doesn't excuse a damn thing that Humbert did to her. If she'd been a innocent virgin, it might be a more palatable story but there'd be little to nothing to learn from it.

Re SSFN, the chances are extremely high that, at some point, the niece is going to tell someone - another family member or a friend - about the hand-holding you two were doing. Even if the hand-holding stops right now. This will get back to your girlfriend, and you yourself would likely looking for a new place to live and a new girlfriend in veryshort order. Do not postpone the inevitable, especially when you have so much work to do on yourself. As others have said, break it off with your girlfriend and move out now.

@21 He needs to keep this secret until the grave. In the interests of protecting her from guilt she may not even feel he'd basically be fucking with her head. And that she might not even have a crush on him would only make it worse.

@35 moodar
If someone said it's always true that "hand holding in familial situations is nefarious", I agree that's wrong.

But SFFN earned his scorn. There's platonic kisses and there's the other kinds. There's platonic hand-holding, and then there's:

The LW and his niece "take every opportunity to sit closely and hold hands. This can be for 30 seconds while everyone's out of the room, or for hours at a time". And they "steal glances and smiles".

There's a clandestine fervency about SFFN and the niece putting hands together every spare second alone, etc. that makes me angry every time I think about it.

Ms Fan/M?? Harriet - I never use the Barbara Bush word, and found Mr Savage's use of it distasteful. I do not class it with the F word, however, as it is apparently a phrase deemed suitable for television, appearing in an episode of the latest GSN version of Chain Reaction. "Skinny" might have been the start of the chain, the the BB word, then "please" and then "respect" (which seemed a bit thin) and the rest of the chain I don't recall. It struck me most as a remnant of Mr Savage's mutton-dressed-as-lamb side, and I am a little loath to agree too strongly, as I suspect that Ms Fan would not welcome impassioned agreement from someone who refuses to sanction the funeral of "whom".

M?? Harriet reminds me of Mr Coltrane's singing in one of the episodes of Cracker. I'll disagree with one slightly about the F word - Mr Savage can call himself it, but his over-liberal application of the word to other gays is on a level with mis-gendering, and it is a serious wrong to pin his scarlet F on Dr Bachmann or others such.

Once again we find that the late Sir John (Mortimer) was ahead of his time; it's such a shame that his stories of the early noughts were never televised. In the same collection of stories as Rumpole and the Rights of Man (in which Rumpole convinces a panel of PC European judges that a racist English judge's concealing his prejudice and giving a non-white defendant a fair trial was a dirty enough trick to justify overturning the conviction, only to learn that he'd freed a dangerous terrorist) we were treated to Rumpole and the Model Prisoner, with a subplot highly pertinent to discussions of size.

The bumbling and lecherous Claude Erskine Brown has acquired a pupil, Wendy Crump, whom Rumpole considers to be as capable as his own former pupil, Mizz Liz Probert. When Rumpole congratulates Claude on Ms Crump's aptness, Claude can only lament her being plus-sized and long for one of the young women who hang all over the flashy Nick Davenant. Rumpole learns that Ms Crump herself is quite taken with Claude, whom she thinks not only elegant but also (her one serious lapse in judgement) a tremendous advocate.

Chambers drama ensues when Claude asks Henry, the senior clerk, if he's seen, "my fat pupil." This is overheard by Mizz Liz Probert herself. A meeting of the Sisterhood of Radical Lawyers is convened. By consensus, Claude is to be black-balled and not sent any briefs by any of the firms of solicitors that employ any of the Sisterhood.

Rumpole himself has a scene with Mizz Liz in which she declares Claude guilty of judging a woman by her appearance. He gets Mizz to describe him, she calls him fat, and he asks whether he ought to get people to deny her work. I thought it a fault that Sir John just ends the scene by having Mizz declare, "Of course not; you're a man," without anything more reasoned by way of defence.

Meanwhile, nobody tells Wendy herself what happened. She knows Claude is losing work, but not why. Even Rumpole finds himself curiously reluctant to fill her in, and admits as much during a discussion, about Claude's future, with Soapy Sam Ballard, Head of Chambers. Ballard congratulates Rumpole on showing Gender Awareness.

The key to saving Claude comes from the most unlikely of sources. Rumpole encounters Nick Davenant, who is just seeing off another of the female solicitors who do him all kinds of favours. Nick mentions Mizz Liz, and tells Rumpole he doesn't think there's anything wrong with her backside. This curious remarked is explained. Nick reveals that Liz has been telling him about how she goes to a salon each week and reads a magazine for an hour while her derriere gets reshaped.

In what could be Claude's last case, he and Rumpole are co-defending. Wendy whispers to Claude all the questions for a superb cross-examination, much as Rumpole himself used to do when he'd been led by Guthrie Featherstone. After the case, Rumpole finds Wendy in tears outside the court, asks if someone's told her, and finally reveals that Claude called her fat.

Wendy laughs. She reveals that Fatty Crump was her nickname at school. It's how they told her apart from all the oil paintings - that and her better marks. She's only upset because she's just realized that Claude is incompetent. But she doesn't want him to lose any work, at least not for an insensitive remark.

Rumpole then goes to Mizz Liz and asks if she's been enjoying her magazine reading lately. She learns that she knows of her visits to the salon. What would the Sisterhood of Radical Lawyers think if they were to discover that their most prominent feminist were attending a salon and getting the shape of her posteriour altered in order to please men? Mizz is appropriately terrified by the thought of discovery. But she is not sure she can extricate Claude at this point. Rumpole, a master of rephrasing things he's uttered under his breath which have been half-heard, suggests that what Mizz really heard Claude ask was, "Have you seen that pupil of mine?" Claude is saved and life goes on.

[This story was also interesting to revisit after learning of Sir John's affair with Wendy Craig.)

Harriet @18: Wait, what does "happy camper" mean to you? I thought it meant...well...a happy person?

@38 ciods
The usage most common (and the only one I'm familiar with) is more like 'a person happy with a given situation'.

"...someone who is happy doing what they're doing, or has just had a happy experience. " (definition 3 at https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=happy%20camper ) Maybe Harriet @18 was referencing the odd definition 4?

Hm. Why am I still skeeved?

@37. Venn. On reflection, whether one can get away with the revaluing-by-resignifying depends on the word used. I don't mind anyone who is not normative in sexuality--let's put it, at neutrally as possible, like that--calling me 'faggot'. (I'm supposing the word means only 'homosexual of some stripe'). But I would be raising an eyebrow if anyone called me e.g. 'bender'.

@38. Ciods. A camp person, a jolly, slightly silly expressive homosexual, especially a man of the limp-wristed type. A lot of the homophobic invective I know is English. It’s because I mostly went to school there (middle and high--'secondary'). I'm sure Anglophlies like Venn and Brito-denizens like Bi will know lots of the terms. I am not an Anglophile, btw; readers of the New Yorker, imv, would have a demonstrably superior culture to the British ruling classes.

@42

I've heard people use "campy" and "camp" in the way you describe, Harriet, but I've never heard "happy camper" used that way and honestly had no idea it could be interpreted like that. I was as confused as anyone else, and even in the context of the conversation could not make out what you meant. The only way I've ever heard or read it used was the way Curious described above @39. Is this a regional thing? Have you heard it used this way before? Is this something new?

Wow. "I only hope that she doesn't come to see me as indifferent a shit as her father, but that's probably a small price to pay for not ruining the rest of her life." Sorry, that's not going to wash. You're responsible for getting her into this situation, so you're responsible for getting her out undamaged. At minimum, that means talking to her, voicing your concerns, and agreeing on an innuendo-free level of closeness that both of you can live with.

You should also talk to your GF so that she understands why you suddenly turned from a doting step-uncle into an insensitive bussiness-before-family clod.