Last year, I turned forty, and with that, I finally stopped flinching when someone called me “daddy.” In fact, I started encouraging it. It felt, strangely, like an arrival. I tell myself that this is a respectable age to claim the title. My partner agrees. He affectionately counts the grey hairs in my beard while jokingly whispering “daddy” into my ear. It stuck.
I do not have children, but among my queer friends, I am often called “daddy,” both teasingly and tenderly. At work, where I coach agile teams, some call me Scrumcle Bas. When they are feeling particularly playful, they refer to me as Scrum Daddy. It’s all amusing, but to me it also hints at something deeper. Something relational. Something about how people position me in their lives.
So what does the word “daddy” actually mean? What are people seeing, or needing, when they say it? And why have I, after a lifetime of negotiating masculinity, come to embrace this term?
There’s an echo here of George Michael’s 1987 song ‘Father Figure’. I have carried that title around for years. Not the literal promise of parenthood, but the yearning inside it: devotion, steadiness, guidance. The lyric “I will be your father figure” says the quiet part out loud. Not “I made you,” but “I’m here.”
This essay is not about fatherhood in the traditional, biological sense. It is an exploration of what “daddy” means across family, identity, queerness, power, and care. It moves through pop culture icons and intimate relationships, chosen kin and kink dynamics, leadership and longing, authority and tenderness.
Daddy, it turns out, is a lens. And for me, it also serves as a mirror. It reflects back the kind of person I have become, and the kind I have worked to become.
Who calls someone “daddy,” and why?
The term “daddy” carries significant baggage. Soft to say, heavy to hold. Depending on who you ask, or how they say it, it can land as a joke or as a flirtation. In informal settings, some use it like “babe,” “sweetheart,” or “papi.” But more often than not, “daddy” carries a deeper charge. It implies presence. It implies a kind of power. It implies a kind of safety.
Traditionally, in queer subcultures, a daddy was considered an older, settled man, often masculine in look and manner, who dated younger men. Think silver hair, quiet confidence, maybe a leather jacket or a cigar. But like many queer archetypes, the meaning stretched beyond its origins. In practice, it has never been solely about age or appearance. A daddy is not defined by grey hairs or bank statements, but by energy: the way someone takes up space, and invites you into it.
But what makes someone a daddy? Less “years lived,” more “years carried.” Life experience. Emotional steadiness. Sexual confidence. The ability to guide, protect, and seduce, sometimes simultaneously. A daddy is someone who seems to know what he is doing, and does not need to shout to prove it. A daddy can offer structure without turning it into a cage.
Crucially, this role is not something assigned by force. It is a mutual understanding and a consensual dynamic between adults. Sometimes it’s playful. Sometimes it’s erotic. Sometimes it’s nurturing. Often it’s a blend. But at its best, it’s built on trust.
I also need to be honest about why this word hits me the way it does.
As a cisgender queer man, masculinity was presented to me early as the ultimate prize. Not in a noble way, but in a social way. Being a “real man” was the standard boys were measured against, and I could feel, even as a child, that I wasn’t naturally performing it the way others did. I wasn’t great at sports. I wasn’t loud. I wasn’t violent. I wasn’t eager to roughhouse. I listened more than I spoke. I tried to “act” male, but I often found the versions of manhood modeled around me harsh, blunt, sometimes uncivilised. I felt pulled in two directions at once: repelled by the cruelty, drawn to the confidence.
Growing up queer complicated that pull. It sharpened my attention to masculinity as an aesthetic, as a signal, as a language. Even in fantasies, I found myself gravitating toward the men who looked unmistakably masculine: the muscled builds, the blue-collar archetypes, tattoos, deep voices, thick facial hair. I idolised what I thought masculinity was, even as I struggled to locate it in myself.
Then, slowly, my body started to change in ways that felt like confirmations. A deeper voice. Facial hair. A broader frame. Even the loss of head hair, oddly, felt like an initiation. It’s hard to admit how much relief that brought me. As if my body was finally catching up to something I’d been chasing since boyhood.
And yes, looking back, I think that’s part of why “daddy” holds such gravitational pull for me. It can represent the epitome of a masculinity I once feared I would never reach. But I’ve also learned that chasing the “epitome” is not the same as understanding myself. The real work was learning how to inhabit masculinity without inheriting the toxicity I’d seen in it.
One more thing matters here, especially if I want to speak carefully: I’m describing my own relationship to masculinity as a cis man, but masculinity itself is not owned by cis men. Many people across the gender spectrum embody “daddy energy,” and have for a long time. What matters is not the body someone inhabits, but the presence they offer.
So who calls someone “daddy”? Often, it’s the person looking for a mix of safety and spark. Someone who feels grounded, generous, and just a little bit dangerous. And sometimes, calling someone “daddy” is less about what they do and more about how they make you feel.
Daddy is a state of mind
Once a niche term in queer kink scenes, “daddy” has broken into the cultural mainstream, rebranded as both meme and archetype. On TikTok and social media, entire fanbases rally around older, attractive celebrities, crowning them “daddy” even when there is no paternal link in sight.
Enter Pedro Pascal. No children, but a very convincing ability to play the kind of character who comforts and commands in equal measure. In role after role, he offers a particular blend: protective, capable, emotionally present. When the internet started calling him “daddy,” he didn’t swat it away. He leaned into it, joking that “daddy is a state of mind.”
That line crystallises something already humming in the cultural air. Daddy is no longer just about age or biology. It’s about posture. You don’t need to have children, or be significantly older, to embody it. You need presence. Care. A kind of grounded charisma. The modern daddy is often read as masculine, but not necessarily male. The energy shows up wherever someone can hold steady while staying warm.
The evolution of this archetype is striking because it counters what traditional masculinity has often rewarded: aloofness, control, emotional detachment. In contrast, today’s daddy is invested and attentive. Still sexy, yes, but sexy because he listens. Because he stays. Because he knows when to hold firm and when to soften.
I still feel attracted to masculinity, but I experience it more broadly now. I find myself admiring masculine expression in many forms, including cis women who identify as butch. That kind of grounded confidence can be magnetic. It has taught me that masculinity is not a monolith. It can be tenderness with backbone. It can be softness with spine. It can be beauty without apology.
So yes, daddy is a state of mind. And it may be a better version of masculinity than the one many of us were taught.
Tenderness as strength
I have always been considered “soft.”
As a child, I was shy. I avoided conflict instinctively. I listened more than I spoke. I was the kind of boy teachers called sweet, and relatives looked at with a mixture of affection and concern. Often, when I stepped forward to try to lead, or even simply to assert myself, I was met with a raised eyebrow, a laugh, or a hand that pulled me back. One close family member once bluntly told me, “You are not a leader. It’s just not in you.”
At the time those words landed harder than they should have. I had internalised the belief that being a man meant being a leader, and being a leader meant being hard. Being told it wasn’t in me felt like being told masculinity wasn’t in me. I was still shaping a self, trying on ideas of leadership and protection like a jacket one size too big.
When I left the cocoon of a protected upbringing and stepped into adulthood, awkward and wide-eyed, I started to find out who I actually was. The world of work, professionalism, and managing others taught me more than any family script ever could. You learn a lot about people when you are responsible for them. You learn even more about yourself.
Still, my softness never left me. In performance reviews, it always surfaced. “You are such a sweet and kind person… maybe sometimes a little too kind…” In project environments where assertiveness is prized and confidence must be worn like armour, I sometimes felt like an outlier. A big-hearted teddy bear in a battlefield of posturing.
So I tried a mask. I tried playing the role I thought people wanted: tougher, more unbothered, more “man.” But it felt like drag in the wrong key. Performative, hollow, exhausting.
The best professional advice I ever received came from a CEO I once worked under, as he said: “Stay close to yourself. You don’t have to exhibit harshness to gain respect. Be soft in your form, but assertive in your content.”
That was a turning point. I stopped trying to correct my softness and started building from it. I led with warmth, attentive listening, and presence. I created psychological safety without even knowing the term. I held teams through difficult transitions. I earned trust. And I began to understand that people follow not only those who talk loudest, but those who make them feel safest.
This is where my definition of masculinity began to shift.
Masculinity, to me, is not dominance or volume. It is presence. It is steadiness. It is the willingness to hold space for others without needing to control them. It is strength that does not require hardness. It is the capacity to protect and to yield. And tenderness is not the opposite of that. Tenderness completes it.
In doing so, I became the leader I was told I would never be. The person I wanted to become, without becoming cruel in the process. Not “non-toxic” as a badge, but as a quiet relief: I did not have to wound others to feel whole.
Fathers and sons
What is my frame of reference when it comes to masculinity and fatherhood? Naturally, I think of my father.
My parents were very young when they had children, barely in their twenties. Looking back now, I wonder what I knew of the world at that age. How could anyone, at twenty, be expected to know how to raise a child, let alone understand what that child might grow up to need?
My father’s approach to parenting evolved as he matured. He was a man with charm, wit, and great looks, but also with flaws. Stubborn, proud, often volatile. As I write this, reflecting on virtues and vices, I realise I’m a chip off the old block. He was raised with what he called old-fashioned values: authority, obedience, strictness. His own upbringing had been harsh. He experienced physical punishments, emotional distance, strict deference to elders. He believed that toughness had benefited him, so he passed it on. Who could blame him? It was what he knew.
His masculinity, like his parenting, was embedded in control and traditional norms. Heteronormative. Macho. In many ways, I grew up under that shadow, always measuring myself against it.
And yet, there was also love. When I came out as gay in 2003, I feared pain and rejection. But my father surprised me. He accepted me, not perfectly and not without confusion, but with sincerity. The tears we both shed were not from loss, but relief. While he didn’t understand every part of my life, his love showed in his willingness to try. That effort, for him, was tenderness.
My father passed away in 2013. Even though it happened more than ten years ago, the loss feels both distant and present. I reflect often, and I am not shy about questioning my past. But when it comes to my parents, I judge gently. Compared to the absence, neglect, or violence many queer people experience from their families, both my parents were, in many ways, a blessing. My father was not a blueprint for how I want to “father” others, but he did what he could with what he had. He made mistakes. He tried. He loved. In many ways, that love transcended ego, tradition, and fear.
Surprisingly, I didn’t have to look far for my ideal image of fatherhood. That would be my younger brother.
He became a father later in life, wiser and more patient than our parents had been at the same age. Today, he is the proud father of three, and watching him with his children stirs something fiercely proud in me.
My brother spends time with his kids not out of duty, but out of delight. He lifts them up, listens closely, shows consistent interest in their world. He asserts authority without defaulting to anger. He sets boundaries without raising his hand. He breaks cycles without breaking spirit.
Watching him, I see a masculinity I recognise and admire: strong but not rigid, present but not overbearing, tender without being weak. He fathers the way I aspire to lead, with warmth, attention, and love that inspires trust.
Where blood fails, love takes over
Fatherhood is complicated. In queer circles, it can be fraught, painful, or simply absent.
The phrase “daddy issues” is often used as a joke, sometimes as a slight, rarely with the compassion it deserves. Behind it lies a deeper truth: many of us carry unmet needs from fathers who could not, or would not, be present in the ways we needed. Those voids permeate adult relationships. Affection is sought in places that feel familiar, even when they are risky.
Among my own queer peers, the stories of parents who failed are many: parents who disappeared, parents who chose religion or dogma over love, parents who could not stretch their worldview far enough to embrace a queer child. Some left in silence. Some stayed with coldness. The result often looks the same: a wound shaped like a question. What might it have felt like to be fully seen? Fully accepted? Fully safe?
And of course, these experiences vary widely. For some queer people, especially those navigating multiple forms of marginalisation, the stakes can be heavier and the exit doors fewer. That reality deserves respect, not a footnote.
In the space left by absence, the concept of chosen family emerges. It’s a survival strategy, yes, but it’s also a powerful model of kinship. A chosen family is not bound by biology, but by intention. It is the friend who checks in every morning. The ex who still shows up when your heart breaks. A constellation of care formed by love, not lineage.
Within this framework, “daddy” takes on new meaning. In queer and kink communities alike, daddy becomes more than a word for “father.” It can be a role, sometimes sexual, sometimes not, marked by care, confidence, and guidance. Yes, it can carry an erotic charge. But it is not about literal family ties, and it is not about power without consent. These are relationships between adults: conscious, negotiated, mutual.
There is a long-standing tradition here. Historically, daddies have been part of mentorship cultures in gay communities, especially in spaces like leather and bear scenes. Older figures carry memory and resilience, offering support to those still finding their place. A daddy in this sense is both protector and provocateur. He teaches. He guides. He holds space, sometimes emotionally, sometimes erotically, sometimes both.
It isn’t surprising that for many queer people, the daddy archetype offers a kind of repair. It provides a way to reimagine masculine caregiving, and to receive support or tenderness that was missing earlier. When blood fails, love takes over. And when traditional fatherhood proves brittle, new blueprints are drafted.
Power, care, control, consent
Power is not inherently toxic, but it is always charged, especially in intimacy. Within kink and BDSM culture, a daddy, more specifically a daddy dom, is a role, a dynamic, and often a responsibility. At first glance it might seem like a contradiction: how can someone be dominant and nurturing? How can control and care coexist?
And yet that is precisely what makes the daddy-dom archetype compelling.
In contrast to the cold disciplinarian often associated with dominance, the dom daddy figure is warm, attentive, emotionally invested. He sets the tone. He offers structure. He holds space. He co-creates a dynamic where trust becomes the foundation. The best daddies do not demand respect. They earn it.
These dynamics are not “just sex.” They are ethics, boundaries, communication. They require adults to know what they want, and to articulate what they need. Consent is not implied. It is negotiated, celebrated, and revocable at any time. Within that container, there is room to play, surrender, and explore softness and strength side by side.
The caring daddy is not a paradox. He shows that dominance does not have to look like cruelty, and that structure can feel like safety. When control is ethical and consensual, it can serve as a form of care.
I’ve used “he” a lot in this essay because I’m speaking from my own experience and cultural references, but the deeper point is not gendered. These dynamics exist across genders and bodies. What matters is the ethic: power offered with care, control held with consent, authority exercised as stewardship rather than ownership.
In a world where patriarchal masculinity often weaponises power, queer kink communities can offer an alternative: power as intimacy. Power as attention. Power as care.
If that is not fatherly, then what is?
Daddy, chill
So, am I a daddy?
If you had asked me in my twenties, I would have laughed. I was still peeling off expectations. Still chasing a masculinity that belonged to other people, one I admired from a distance, one I feared I would never inhabit. But now, in my forties, the term fits. Not as a costume or a joke, but as something lived-in and earned.
I am not a father. But I am a son. A brother. An uncle. A partner. A professional. I have learned to lead not by barking orders or proving dominance, but by offering consistency, care, and clarity. I have supported others through confusion and change. I have listened more than I have spoken. I have made space. And I have grown into someone others now call daddy, with affection, and sometimes with need.
Looking back, I can see the thread running through my life: a boy who longed for masculinity but did not recognise it in himself, a young man who tried on masks that never fit, and an adult who discovered that tenderness was not a detour from masculinity. It was the heart of it, all along.
I carry the title with awareness. It is playful, yes, but it can also hold something sacred. When someone calls you “daddy,” the message underneath is often simple: I feel secure with you. I trust you to hold me. I want to be seen.
Daddy goes beyond a state of mind. It is a way of being. It is a way of caring for others. It is a way of fully expressing oneself without fear of vulnerability. For me, it is the culmination of a lifelong journey toward a masculinity that does not wound, one that protects, nurtures, and loves.
And what if that makes me a daddy?
Then, gladly, daddy it is.
