When my friends started having sex in middle school and I wanted to know if that was wrong, he told me there was no right answer, and taught me that it wasn't okay to shame my friends or call them slurs just because they were experimenting sexually earlier than I was. This is because of the way he raised me after my mom passed, and also because he was always open-minded about any issue I brought to him. My father has never used the word "feminist" to describe himself, although I would categorize him as one. Then when I started dating in high school, we had a follow-up to this conversation and talked about getting STI tested, cheating in relationships, and being attracted to more than one person. The same year, he and I had an in-depth sex talk, which walked me through not only pregnancy prevention, but also STIs, sexuality and same-sex attraction, gender identity, relationships, romance, pressure, and consent. At age 14, I had my first HPV prevention vaccination. Shaving was only the first of many similar conversations to come. Even though he isn't a woman, my dad walked me through the societal pressure that is placed on women to shave their armpits and legs.
Even though he isn't a woman, my dad walked me through the societal pressure that is placed on women to shave their armpits and legs, and reassured me again that it was my choice to make. It never even occurred to me that other girls my age were being taught this skill by their moms, women who had probably done the exact same kind of shaving for many years.
XHAMSTER GAY DAD TEACHES SON HOW TO
I wore a short pair of shorts to save myself some embarrassment.Īlthough my dad shaved his face and his head–rather than his legs and armpits–he was skilled at using a razor, and he explained in detail how I could use it successfully. We went over how to reapply shaving cream, how to rinse my razor so it stayed sharp, how to avoid razor burn, and how to avoid accidentally cutting myself. My dad and I squeezed into our cramped, apartment-style bathroom with all the supplies. Soon, we set aside a time for me to practice shaving my legs. Then we awkwardly moved on to whether or not I should shave "down there." Then he went on to explain that my mom had shaved her private parts out of personal choice, but she would get extremely itchy, so he warned me to think carefully about it for that reason. He told me that I didn't have to shave just because other girls were doing it, or because the media told me I should. He walked me through the fact that many women and young girls feel pressured to share areas of their body (like their legs and underarms) starting at around 10 or 12. My dad said, "You're welcome to shave if you really want to, pumpkin, and I'll teach you how to do it correctly." He used my childhood nickname as if I weren't going through the worst experience of becoming a woman. My dad, actually, had never been shy about discussing all the things a girl would normally discuss with her mom. So, my dad sat me down for the most uncomfortable discussion of my life. I insisted I wanted to learn how to shave. This conversation, like many others, were now delegated to my dad. "You're too young to start shaving," he said. I do not seek to create a replica of my father, but a version of his desires and problems that is real.My dad paused for a few moments before responding, as he often did. I have tried to make a portrait of him that is filled with love but not sentimental or afraid to show his selfishness. While his illness came only five years later, he'd tire all of us out with all the things he wanted to do. While he was very shy as a young person, and he was deferring and self-sacrificing through his adult life, he exposed himself to risk over and over at the end - he risked by coming out to me, my sisters and his friends by trying to catch up with the contemporary gay social scene and, most of all, by falling in love. Having hidden from the gay world for his whole life he was, at 75, like a teenager: anxious and excited to join, naive about all the cues of gay culture, and very susceptible to the emotional upheavals of new love. Even as he passed away five years later to cancer, he was energized, reaching out he wasn't in any way finished. Change, honesty, and openness can happen when it seems least likely. His hunger to completely change his life was confusing, painful, very funny, and deeply inspiring. He was 75 years old and had been married to my mother for 45 years. " Beginners started when my father came out of the closet.