I’m very touched by the article.

But what I always end up thinking is that I’m happy I had that man as a father. After I realized I hadn’t the strongest, richest or best looking dad in the block I noticed his flaws – as well as my mother’s, and there were times during my teens I sort of wished I had different parents. But teens are troublesome for everyone and by the time I made it to college I realized I had been blessed with an exceptional pair.

My parents love each other and respect each other enormously. They are colleages, friends, lovers and partners, and have been together for the last 35 years and counting. Many of my friends and acquaintances are cynical to concepts like “true love” and “soul mate”, and get burned in bad relationships… while no marriage is guaranteed for life, I think I had a great example of what to expect (and not to expect) from a relationship from my direct family.

My father never lavished my mother with expensive gifts, got a flashy car/home/holiday package, or did anything special in the book. Instead, he gave my mother what she really needed: encouragement to follow her dreams, support and absolute trust in her judgment. For her high brow academical projects and for her weekend sewing too. He never looked down on her, he always respected and supported her endeavors. That’s way more valuable than anything else in life, and no, you can’t buy it from a catalog store.

Now I’m 30 and I’ve been married for some 5 years, I’ve came to recognize how being that father’s daughter has shaped me. He taught me about dignity, courage, being true to your family, and to keep your ears open to what everybody has to say, be it the loony guy who lived round the corner or a rambling 5 year old telling about her day in daycare. He never sat down and told me “you have to be this and that”. He just was all those things.

These days, I think that the best thing about being my father’s daughter is that we’re both adults now and our relationship is still father – daughter, but it’s not adult – child anymore. People usually think of parenthood in terms of young adults and children, but I think there’s a lot more to it. Now that science allows us to get into old age in better shape, I believe there’s room to explore that unique bond in new ways. I hope more people will, too.

Does that mean I actually want that for my daughters? The answer is an emphatic “NO.”

That isn’t because I have an issue with the morality of the sex industry, but because I take issue with the value a lot of the women in the sex industry place upon themselves. I would also be concerned with their health and safety.

In my earlier comment, I mentioned that fathers have to learn to accept their daughters will one day be sexually active, barring an early enrollment into a convent. I’d like to hope that my daughters approach that activity intelligently and enthusiastically. I hope they value the importance of keeping a husband or lover happy at home.

However, in response to the suggestion that we find out what women in the sex industry REALLY think, one has to go a little further than watching a documentary on HBO or Showtime. Many (not all) get into the sex trade because they aren’t qualified for much else. During the course of their careers (which are frequently short), many of these women lose interest in having a romantic relationship with anyone because there are too many people with a preconcieved notion of what sex with a stripper, porn star, or prostitute should be like. Some of them just believe they aren’t worthy of a healthy relationship, and many of these women end up spending every penny they earn, with nothing to show for it at the end, besides some sort of venereal disease, a head full of bad memories, and (often enough) a drug habit.

Granted, there are women who use their careers to set up a nest egg, get their degrees, and prepare themselves for life after the sex industry, but they tend to be the exception rather than the rule.

As a counterpoint to your comments, I would suggest that we as fathers teach our daughters to trust us to speak openly and honestly (which has to be done over the course of their lifetimes), and accept that while our daughters (or sons) might choose to do things we don’t prefer, we can always be supportive and offer whatever help we can to guide our children towards success.