Ask Beastly: I Want to Be a Good Boy—What Does That Mean?

Fetishes aren’t flaws—they’re identities.

Dear Beastly,

Thank you for your website, and congratulations on your recently published book. Thanks for taking the time to read this email. I wanted to ask about Daddy-Boy sexual fantasies and what inspires them. I myself sometimes feel a natural inclination to say "daddy" and be daddy's "good boy". What does it all mean? Best wishes.

Hey boy,

I’ll admit, questions like this have become somewhat trite. You’re overthinking kink. You want to call someone “daddy” and be a good boy while getting fucked. That’s great. Do it—end of story.

It doesn’t have to mean anything. It says nothing about you, your ethics, your goodness, your ability to succeed in life, or your chances of finding love.

In another post, a gentleman could not explain his tickle fetish any more than I can explain why I like fisting. He thinks he knows when and where his fetish was first triggered—in the crib, allegedly—but that is not an origin story. It does not explain why that crib tickling evolved into a fur fetish, nor does it answer the ages-old question: Was he born with it, or did that experience create the fetish? Arguments from experts go both ways. Most tickled babies do not become adults with “arsenals” of fur. Why did he?

Until we isolate genes that predict homosexuality 100 per cent of the time—and I hope we never do—sexual orientation will always work the same way. Some queers might bristle at the idea that homosexuality is just a kinky fetish, but in a sense, that’s precisely what it is. It’s a bend of our nature, a way of being, a built-in way of perceiving the world and experiencing desire within it. And a fetish can be just as deeply felt, just as lifelong, just as rooted in one’s core identity, as their sexual orientation, and for many, many people, their fetishes are their sexual identities.

Fetishes can be lifelong, beautiful, and powerful experiences. They can be identities that create and define us more than the gender of those we fuck or even than gender itself. My kinks live somewhere deeper than my gender identity and sexual orientation. This is why the words men call me in sex, like “faggot” and “pussy”, ring deeper and truer than “gay” or “queer”.

Kink is the closest I can get to what I really am. I cannot explain that or cite its point of origin any more than I can explain why I fuck men or why I sometimes fuck women. To overthink one’s kinks is to miss their point: they exist because we do, and they suggest forever the possibility that life is meant to be enjoyed, not understood.

Love, Beastly