Daddy Issues #4: Real Reparenting
Mitski, RuPaul, and other archetypes
Merry Christmas to those who celebrate, and happy chill 12/25 to those who do not! Mr. Dune and I are at the movies today, watching Nosferatu and Babygirl back to back like the sick maniacs we are. We're sending you all lots of love in this time of year, and, if we may, a reminder of who you are, which is a very actualized, kind, and awesome person whose journey of self discovery is changing the world. We love you <3
This is the fourth installment in a now five part series I’ve been releasing over the last month called “Daddy Issues.” I’m thinking of it as a micro-memoir/deep dive into the origins of my interest in D/s play. I’m getting into stuff here I’ve never talked about elsewhere, so this series will be pay-walled. If you are a collar club-level patreon member, you can also access it on patreon.
This series will culminate in an interview on December 29th with author Sophie Lewis, who wrote the book Abolish The Family: A Manifesto For Care And Liberation. You’ll be able to access the live interview if you’re a $6/month patreon subscriber, and the replay will be available for $8/month paid subscribers here on substack as well as for $11/month patrons. More info here.
If you’re not a paid supporter, there are alternative ways to access paid content! You can use your one free article unlock on any of the posts in this series. You can also get into the referral game and earn free months of a paid membership. More on that here. But hey… in these strange times, why not shoot an independent creator a couple bucks every month?
When the idea of inner child work first popped up on the internet, its purposes seemed a little ambient to me. What did it mean? What was it for? Who was it for? Due to The Trauma, I wasn’t even sure I had an inner child. I’d spent so many years being a little adult, trying so hard to be in control and exert any kind of power over my chaotic surroundings, that I couldn’t begin to imagine regressing in any way. What I didn’t understand was that in order to be a whole adult, I couldn’t skip over an integrated relationship with that inner child. The more I ignored her, the more she would run the show. As Mitski said, I was so young when I behaved 25, yet now I find I’ve grown into a tall child.
Earlier this year, Mr. Dune and I went to see RuPaul on his book tour. The House Of Hidden Meanings was a tender tale of Ru’s coming of age and struggles with substance abuse. For someone whose public manifesto has always been one of unwavering self-love, seeing behind the fully realized goddess was a huge comfort. Onstage, Ru strutted, giggled, and joked. He shared that he loves to get his friends together to play charades and laugh, and just as imagining a bunch of celebrities in his Architecture Digest-featued home began to border on saccharine, his tone changed. “I have to tend to my inner child. That little boy inside me. Because my parents taught me a lot of ways to mistreat a child.”
Boom.