
Dad disrespects boundaries, then accuses me of hating men
Just nuggets and fries. TW P*DOPHILIA/VIOLENCE MENTIONED. Sorry i wasnt expecting this to be so long 😭
I'm 19f and my dad is 63. He used to be my hero, but gradually became some sort of whiny toddler who loves to pick fights and then play the victim. Lately, his behavior around my boundaries with physical touch has really gotten out of hand, even though I always stand up for myself because I know he's in the wrong - gray rocking isn't effective on people like him :/
I am extremely ticklish and always pull away when i'm touched a certain way. Knowing this, he still shows "physical affection" by touching my shoulder, knee, wrist or back.. so when I instinctively pull away, he takes it personally and plays the victim:
His favorite phrase is "can't a father touch his daughter without being labeled a creep??". Then, he will give me "sarcastic lectures" by asking me how I will ever handle a romantic (and sexual) relationship, because "when there's a spark between men and women, physical touch is necessary". So... imagine a father casually guilt-tripping his daughter by using her future sex life against her 🤨 a non-existent one, too, bc im the biggest virgin on the planet. Never in my life have I gotten emotionally close with a boy, or a girl either.
That being said... I speak out about my safety concerns quite often, but my complaints are "gendered" most of the time. I mention creepy MEN as a reason why I dont like clubbing. And an irrational thing of mine is that (at home) I express my discomfort with the concept of male gynecologists, but I wouldn't walk up to one and call him a creep. Clearly though, my dad uses that against me, and that's where he tells me that I "hate men".
The other day, he annoyed me again and then told me that i "definitely think that men are perverts". He explicitly says that I think all men are p*dophiles, and that I'm projecting that mindset onto him. I'm just speechless, because there's so much behind this. I don't hate men - I hate the patriarchy like ALL women do. But maybe, just maybe, I hate men like HIM because he was never a good role model.
Maybe the worst part of this whole topic is that.. well, for example, my therapist of 7 months is a man. My dad has been romanticizing our therapeutic relationship since the beginning, and then began to subtly AND explicitly sexualize it (mind you, they've only seen each other twice). He refers to my therapist as my husband/bofriend or crush, and he and my mom joke that I want to hit on him or that he's flirting with me. But... my dad recently "joked" saying that he thinks we had sex in his studio.
I never associated him to a potential father or brother figure, let alone a goddamn crush. But my dad would FREAK OUT if he knew that I discussed the topic of sex and intimacy with that guy.. and he didn't bat an eye, and I didn't give a shit. Because my therapist is a MAN, not a fucking MANCHILD.
It still made me think really hard about the "you hate males" bs, though. Because honestly? I dont think badly of my male peers, but my dad influenced the way I view some men. In the back of my mind, I think that some fathers don't have good intent when they go out with their families. I assume they're secretly neglecting their kids and mistreating their wives. I have this unsettling belief that men are biologically incapable of feeling genuine affection and love towards their family, as if my brain thinks that fatherly love isn't real, because no male is capable of it.
I can't believe my father turned out this way. Despite my own irrational fears and beliefs, he still wasn't fit to have a family, and especially not a daughter. I don't "hate males," but why do they have to be like this?