Boy Talk

In the scene, there are often discussions on which of the many labels and relationships we choose to give ourselves. Each of these labels have not just the meanings they have in the BDSM vocabulary, but also come burdened with the meanings that exist outside the scene. "Slave" is one that has come up often, but this isn't the one that I'm going to talk about.

No, I'm talking about "Boy" and "Daddy".

My Daddy and I did not start out where we are now. Over the course of our relationship, we have spent a lot of time and frustration going through a number of different styles of relationship, trying to find a style of BDSM that allowed us both to feel comfortable in the role, and give us what we needed without depriving the other of too much. We went through the Sub/Dom relationship and made a brief and unsuccessful attempt at Slave/Master, etc. As we grappled with these relationships, we both found that I couldn't feel comfortable in those very heavy roles, and what my Daddy was looking for in me couldn't be found while I hung onto those roles.

We didn't look for Daddy/Boy. Absolutely not. In fact, we spent a very long amount of time running away from the idea. Daddy/Boy, on some level, reminded us of Age play, and we not only had no interest in that, but the idea itself caused us a great deal of anxiety. But, one day, we'd reached crisis point, what we'd been trying hadn't been working, and the two of us slowly had a look at this idea. Daddy/Boy. One day, at an event, we decided to give it a try, to see how well it would work. For possibly the first time in a while, I'd felt completely comfortable in the role, and my Daddy could bounce off of me in a natural way.

When we finally tapped out, we went to a fast food joint and had some food, and at one point my Daddy looked at my face, got a serviette, and wiped the sauce off my face. And we looked at each other for a moment and realised that we'd never actually tapped out - The role we'd been playing at was actually pretty damn close to what we were doing outside of scene all along.

And that was when we realised we'd found something that worked. From that point on, we've never had a conflict about roles. We've never felt uncomfortable in these roles.

What I have been uncomfortable with is the reaction of some of my friends. A couple of good, really good friends have made very clear their dislike of the word "Daddy" in such a relationship. It's not even the relationship itself that bothers them, but the very word itself. It causes a lot of tension, and has probably resulted in us being a little more distant from each other than we used to be. But no other word works better. Any other word would be a lie, really. We're not Protege/Master, we are definitely Daddy/Boy. That level of nurturing and discipline is not expressed by any other word.

So I am a Boy, and I proudly call my partner my Daddy. This is not some dalliance, we're not unthinking in the use of the term. We have thought long and hard, and travelled a long way to get to where we are, and I won't let people shut me down because of a word, if there's no other way of expressing myself.