Father's Day

Riding home in the cab a couple of weeks ago, after the long, hot, sweaty, beer-drenched marathon called Folsom Street East, I was pondering an odd, uneasy moment of self-realization that had come over me a few hours earlier.

The Folsom Fair fell on Father's Day, and as my friends well know, whenever a young(er/ish) gay man affectionately or flirtatiously calls me "Daddy", I get a bit squicked out because I'm always wondering if the kid is simply using "Daddy" as the in-vogue word for describing a hot older man, which is fine, or if he's using "Daddy" in the all-too-common hope of sparking some sexual role play between us, in which I'm a sexual substitute for his actual biological Daddy. Which is not fine.

And which has happened. More than a few times.

But not lately, because now I've always got my biological "Daddy" radar up at all times. Yeah kid, it sucks that your father molested, rejected, or never loved you, but please please fatherfucking please, do not work out your psychosexual emotional trauma through me. Is everybody with me here?

So here's the contradiction, the "Daddy" epiphany that I had on my way home from the fair: Why is it when young Latin guys call me "Papi", none of that psychobabbly crapola leaps into my mind? Instead, I often get a little bit bump in my heartrate. I don't think I particularly eroticize Latin men over others (well, no more than any of my friends, anyway), although having lived in Florida, California and New York, there have been no shortage of Latin/JMG encounters.

Why is it that being called "Papi" feels hot, yet being called "Daddy" feels.....not?
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