You know what’s a quick way to turn me off?
Mention my father when you see me being sexual.
No, really. I honestly do not understand this impulse to bring up a woman’s father when she is being sexual. It’s actually pretty creepy and sick. It gets even worse though. People don’t even stop at bringing up a woman’s father but men, somehow, also think of their unborn daughters when they see a woman being sexual. Take a trip on Twitter and underneath a tweet of a woman expressing her sexuality, there is a man saying “This is why I don’t want a daughter” or “Where is your father?” It’s extremely odd.
But you know what? Their responses speak to a larger idea that is a permeating issue in our society. It is the idea that a father owns his daughter’s body and her sexuality. It is the same idea that fuels these virginity pledge balls where young girls pledge to their fathers, through an extravagant ceremony, that they will remain virgins until marriage. The fact that these balls are only for fathers and daughters also trumps the counterargument that remaining “pure” is just as much as an expectation for men.
What I find most troubling is the fact that a father essentially owning his daughter is a normalized idea. People don’t even stop to think that it’s rather odd and quite alarming that when they see a grown woman talking about her love for sex or showing off her body, they have this urge to bring up her father who is completely unrelated to what is going on. It’s also weird that men think of their unborn daughters when they see a woman being sexual.
For a man to deny that his daughter will possibly be a sexual human being is not only immature, it’s unrealistic. There might come a time where your daughter will want to engage in sex. In order to accept that, a man will have to accept that women, related to them or not, are sexual human beings and they have every right to be. Men’s denial is informed by sexism. They can not and do not want to accept that their daughter will want sex because they do not want to “tarnish” their daughter’s “purity.” They do not want their daughter to be a “hoe.” They are fine with their sons having sex with as many women as they want because that is what “makes them a man.” For men, how many women they can “conquest” is one of the key things people value them for. For women, it is how many men they can keep out until they find their partner--that is where people place women’s value. Misogynist math is so funny right?
Before men bring daughters into this world, it is important for them to unpack patriarchal notions they have come to internalize--the thought that their daughter’s body and sexuality belonging to their father being one of them. A woman’s body and her sexuality is hers and only hers alone. Instead of denying that their daughter will have sex, men must accept this and instead educate their daughter about what all comes with sex--contraceptives, emotional and physical impacts, and so on.
I know one thing for sure. If you were to show my dad my tweets of me being sexual, I’m sure he’d be weirded out because I’m his daughter but most of all, he’ll probably be disturbed by you feeling the need to show him that. Thankfully, I have a father who understands that my body is mine. Sex is inevitable fate for me in particular. He gets that and he accepts it because he is mature and he understands that I make the rules when it comes to my body. Hopefully, one day, more men will understand this.