THERE IS MORE THAN ONE KIND OF DADDY DYNAMIC OUT THERE

Not all Daddies are the same.

I can never say this enough, but DDLG is not the only Daddy-style dynamic out there. It’s become very popular, so we see a lot of Daddy Doms, especially in kinky fiction, but it’s important to remember that not all Daddies are DDLG.

Read more: THERE IS MORE THAN ONE KIND OF DADDY DYNAMIC OUT THERE

On top of that, I would like to add that a Daddy can be DD (Daddy Dom), but that doesn’t mean his partner is LG(Little girl). So, you can have a Daddy Dom without a DDLG dynamic.

I’ve broken down the definitions before, but it’s time for a refresher, and we’ll get into why in a minute.

DDLG: A BDSM dynamic that involves a caretaker style Dominant, usually called Daddy and a submissive/bottom who has a younger style of personality. See also: DDLB/MMLG/MMLB, however DD is not necessarily a gendered title.

Ageplay may or may not be involved. You do not need to have ageplay or any kind of age regression to have a DDLG dynamic (people forget this sometimes.). A younger personality can present as a brat, or just someone who is bubbly and full of energy.

Daddy Kink: A D/s dynamic that involves an older, dominant, partner that is called Daddy. The kink is in using the title, and doesn’t necessarily bring in any other BDSM aspects, but often does.

Sugar Daddy: This is a Daddy dynamic, but not necessarily a BDSM one. The Daddy here is wealthy, usually older, and may or may not be dominant. This is a financial arrangement where the Daddy provides the sugar baby with money or expensive gifts in exchange for companionship.

And in each of those categories there are an infinite number of ways to build a relationship. Every dynamic is unique and the only thing that matters is that it works for you.

Now that we’ve covered the basics…

As an author, it never fails to amuse me that when someone finds my books don’t align with what they believe to be true, they assume I didn’t ‘do my research’ or I ‘don’t have much experience.’ Of course, they don’t know I run a popular BDSM education blog, or that I’ve been in the lifestyle for my entire adult life.

They just know that I’m not writing what they are used to seeing. Many of them have very little BDSM experience themselves, so they are only going by what they’ve read in other kinky romance. And as we know, there tends to be a lot of similarities between popular books.

It’s almost as if there is a template for what must be in a kinky romance book in order not to upset readers. It often feels like there isn’t a lot of space to bring in unusual situations, or unique dynamics. In some ways, it feels like there isn’t even space for realistic deviations.

This leads to people who think aftercare MUST be given no matter what, and that the sub is literally not allowed to refuse it. It leads to people thinking only certain things are aftercare: water, food, blanket—done. When in fact aftercare needs are unique to each individual and sometimes those needs require being left alone.

It leads to people thinking that if safewords aren’t mentioned it’s abuse. Or a sub choosing not to use safewords means something terrible is going to happen, even though many people do choose to play without them every day.

Readers end up thinking that sex in BDSM clubs is the norm, and so are bars. They walk away thinking that anything that doesn’t fit the narrow confines of what they are used to reading is wrong. And they confidently take that wrongness to the review section to tell authors how they messed up.

Let’s forget that these books are clearly listed as fiction and not meant to be a template to base your relationships on. That these books are meant to titillate and excite, not to educate. That’s what this blog is for, not my romance books.

Sure, I do bring many years of real-life experience to my stories, and I do think that lends a lot of realism to them. I obsess over details a less kink-experienced author might ignore, usually because at some point those details were important to my own D/s dynamics, of which I’ve had many.

But at the end of the day… people who want to learn about BDSM and kink really need to be looking for non-fiction sources.

So I would just like to reiterate that:

The scene is very wide and there are so many different kinds of dynamics and ways to play out there. As long as there is educated consent and an awareness of the risks involved, there really aren’t many wrong ways to live this lifestyle. If you want to call your Dom ‘Master’ when you really have more of a brat tamer relationship that’s totally fine.

You only like pretend discipline for foreplay? Fine. You like lots of rules, structure, and punishment? Also okay. Your female Dom is Daddy to you? Sure, of course.

The only people who need to be pleased by your dynamic are the people involved in it. You are the ones who have to be comfortable with the titles you use, and the activities you enjoy, no one else.

So with that reminder out of the way, let me jump into the reason for today’s post.

I don’t check my reviews often. I try to avoid it, because most of the time it isn’t helpful. The majority of my reviews are positive, which means I’m doing things right and there’s no reason to change. My books aren’t for everyone though, and there will always be someone out there who doesn’t like what they read.

Which is totally fine. Anyone who buys one of my books has a right to review it according to their opinions, and I would never say otherwise. But reading those opinions doesn’t tend to be healthy for authors. Reviews aren’t for us, they are for other readers, and most readers don’t even like to think about the authors seeing their reviews. It makes them self-conscious about what they say.

However there are times when an author needs to check their reviews and no matter how much you try to avoid it, you’ll likely see some negative ones. “I hated it” honestly doesn’t bother me. I get many more people who say they absolutely loved it.

“The main character was too annoying!” is just personal preference and you really can’t take that sort of thing too personally. I do get frustrated when a review is less about their opinion of the book, and more that they read it with misconceptions about how the scene works. So, of course they decide that the book is wrong, and not that they maybe just aren’t educated about certain facets.

The upside, for me, is that it often opens a door for me to discuss things here. And I don’t do this because I’m calling them out. Most likely they will never see this.

I don’t do it to vent; I have friends for that. I do it because if someone leaves a review that shows they clearly have a misunderstanding about how certain kinks work, then I feel like they probably aren’t the only person to have this misunderstanding, and that makes it a useful topic for this blog.

I’d just like to say… if you stumble across this review somewhere, please don’t attack the reader. It just ends up causing me problems. I’m quoting part of it, without the name, simply to make it clear what the issue was.

“I noticed while reading the first book there’s no actual age play, but decided it might’ve been a book to lay ground work. It was things aren’t any different with this second book. These books are BDSM based, but having the FMC call the MMC “Daddy”, introducing discipline, or occasionally mention a stuffed animal does NOT constitute an age play book.”

Well… It’s accurate that using ‘Daddy’ and having discipline doesn’t constitute an ageplay book. Instead, it constitutes a Daddy Kink book, and I like to think it’s a very good example of the genre.

The book they are reviewing is one of the Daddy Takes the Reins series. Which is a Daddy Kink series. At no point anywhere is it listed as DDLG, because it isn’t. There is no ageplay, no Littles, it’s just standard Daddy kink.

As we defined above, Daddy Kink is where you have a Dominant partner, usually older, whom you call Daddy. It doesn’t even have to be a BDSM relationship. Daddy Kink is its own thing that doesn’t necessarily (but usually does) cross over with a scene dynamic. That’s pretty much the whole definition.

And this confusion comes up quite a lot when people don’t read the blurbs carefully. They see ‘Daddy’ and immediately make assumptions, based on what they have read before. I have had people get upset when they bought one of my DDLG books because there was a Little and ageplay. And people who buy Daddy Kink and get mad because they want DDLG.

I can’t make people read the descriptions, and I can’t do anything about them getting mad when they buy the wrong kind of book because they don’t. That’s just a frustrating part of being an author. But I would like to say that blurbs are there to give you an idea of what you’re buying. Books with DDLG and Littles almost always will have ‘Little’ in the blurb if not the title. It might say ‘She’s exploring her Little side’ for instance. Or ‘He’s always wanted a Little of his own.’

Those are your cues that you can expect a Little and maybe some ageplay. If you see ‘Daddy’ but nothing about DDLG, or Littles, or ageplay actually mentioned, then you probably are looking at Daddy Kink.

Daddy Kink is a huge genre. If anything, I would say there is more Daddy Kink out there than DDLG, simply because there is less stigma about it, which means it’s easier to list on major platforms. It wasn’t all that long ago that DDLG books were frequently removed from Amazon because it was ‘pseudo-incest’. In fact it still happens, although you can fight it.

So, I’m always surprised when a reader seems unaware that there is this whole category of Daddy books that isn’t about ageplay and DDLG. Although I do think a lot of people just lump it all together in one big genre and don’t really care which aspects it has, as long as it’s written well.

Now, I only showed a small part of the review, and I cut off the end where the reviewer implied that I needed to educate myself on DDLG, since they didn’t think I knew enough to write about it. It’s a bit hard not to take that part personally, all things considered. There’s probably nothing more frustrating than being criticized by someone who is confidently wrong on a topic you know quite a lot about.

But I prefer to channel frustrations productively, and if this article is helpful to anyone else out there, it will be well worth it.