How open was your dad with nudity and affection ?

[Inwood]

I think I might have seen my dad naked once when I was 4 or 5 but never after that. I've seen my brothers naked and they have seen me as well. It's no big deal, IMO. Nudity is nothing to be ashamed about, nor is it titillating. We all have the same body parts, just different shapes and sizes.

As far as affection, well, that's a bit different. My dad was never very affectionate, physically. He says 'I love you' often enough, but hardly does the hug thing. I, on the other hand, am extremely affectionate with those I care about. My brothers and I always hug and kiss every time we see each other. If we're sitting together on a couch or bench somewhere, we'll toss an arm around the other. I'll sit on my little brother's lap sometimes, other times he'll put his feet up on my legs. We always say 'I love you' to one another- on the phone, in person, IM or any other way of communication.

Same with my partner Nick's son. He's 14 now, and I've known him since he was 7. We've always had a good relationship, and he always comes up and hugs us, or puts his arm around us or sits on our laps. He's a great kid, and has taken to sometimes calling me 'dad' as well.

Families that show affection to one another are much stronger because of it. There's less arguing, more nurturing and, well, it makes you feel good.

 

[G-Lexington]

Again with the thread resurrection.

I think the two issues - nudity and affection - can be related, but are still separate. For instance, my mother is quite affectionate - she likes to hug people hello and goodbye. But she's quite prudish when it comes to nudity. I have seen both my parents nude, but only quickly and briefly. They passed that on to me. I feel uncomfortable walking around naked, even at home with nobody else there. I don't know if it's prudish, or I'm just more used to having something on. Maybe some of both.

And my father is from a rather strict Catholic family, and so is not very affectionate. Not a lot of hugs from him. But that's fine. He always told us kids that he loved us as we went to bed each night. In retrospect, I realize it sounded a bit forced, but that's because it WAS. He felt uncomfortable doing it, but thought it was important that we knew he loved us. And I can appreciate it all the more knowing that.

Lex

 

[Brer Fox]

My father is naked often, walks around like that, sleeps like that. He does not try to be naked in front of anyone, but he will not rush to clothe himself. And any other time he is wearing nothing more than a pair of briefs which usually have a little pee spot on them. He is pretty disgusting.

He and I have a very hateful relationship that has nothing to do with me being gay, as he does not know. It is just a total lack of respect. He does not respect me, so I do not respect him. I can see right into his motives, and see that he views me as ruining his 'acting career' and he always talks this shit about 'having had to spend all his time raising me.' Well, it is not exactly my fault, and for all the time he spent 'raising me,' he sure seemed pretty neglectious to me. The guy tried to get me kidnapped regularly, he would just leave me in dangerous places and make me call people to come get me... I am lucky I am not dead. He is gross, a bigot, a racist, sexist, selfish, ignorant, zealous... the only thing he never did was routinely abuse I or my mother, and I believe that was curbed quickly by the fact I would beat him to within an inch of his life if he even tried.

So there is no affection, there never was, and there never will be. I consider him a traitor to his own blood, so I would rather see him dead than hug him once. All he has ever had to say was shit like I am an embarrassment, and that my legs are 'too white,' and he often slaps me on the rear and comments that I 'don't have an ass,' which is sort of odd. Why would he care if I had an ass or not? It does not trouble me, because despite its size I have a nice tush, and I will soon start informing him that I have a much larger dick than he does, so we are even. Our relationship has the facade of what you might expect from co-workers, which we are, owning a family business, and sometimes we have a good conversation and laugh a bit, but deep inside is a core of mutual contempt.

My mother and I, though, are best friends and I love her to death. We hug appropriately, but not all the time... my own personality is a bit distant by nature, but I am getting a lot more comfortable being touchy and I kind of like it. I give her massages and shit like that, so it gets expressed in different ways. We are almost always in each other's company, and we always eat together and do things together, so the affection is given. I want to spend as much time with her as I can before I should ever move out or get in a relationship or whatever.

 

[BrandonSBCA]

Dad wasn't very affectionate, but he's very supportive, and he really wasn't open with his nudity as he would try to hide it with me.

 

[Endlight]

Kudos to all above who had loving and affectionate fathers.

I do not recall ever, ever having a hug from my father, least of all a kiss. My mother told me, her husband never wanted to pick up any of his kids ( we were six) when they were babies.

Later in life, as my career took me across Canada and in Europe, I would get a handshake from him, when I dropped in on a visit, but seldom a gleeful greeting.

I really missed that.

You can image I never saw him naked, nor he, me.

I often speculate on how it could have been if he had been the least bit a family man.


Too late now, he has been gone these past twenty years.

 

[Shepherd 2]

My father was the quintessential
19th century man. He was open on nudity. YMCA was a man's world and the oldest man to the youngest boy swam in the nude, and was in the same lockerrooms and showers in the nude. Male on male nudity was differrent until well into the seventies when new college construction gave men more privacy and little shower stalls, and toilets with doors.
Affection was a different matter. The men before the 1970s never showed affection openly even to women, and never to boys especially, for it would have suggested being a predator, there
was not a lot of discussion of gay men at that time, but there was a real awareness ot the pedophiles. Sadly, there is a lot of confussion about this today.
Shep+

 

[evil_danger]

Dad left home when I was 2, so I wouldn't remember if he was open to nudity.

Didn't see my dad from the age of 7 untill i was 19, I visit once a week to see my little half brother, not to see my dad, if my brothers mum walked out, I wouldn't see my dad, visiting my dad is a side effect of visiting my brother.

I'm lucky now if my father even asked me how I am before he rants on about how his job sucks, what hes bought on ebay and generally puts me to sleep with information about the progress on fixing his transit van.

He has missed so much of my life, and he doesn't want to know what he has missed, if he does care about me in any way he doesn't show it, and I cant say care about him because I dont know him.

What worries me is that he is the same with my little brother who is only 2, he doesn't spend any time with him, he lives with my brother, I only see my brother once a week, yet I'm the one my brother runs to for a hug, I'm the one my brother plays with because he cant get that atention from our father.

 

[wundersteve]

My father is, and always was, a very affectionate and demonstrative person, hugging virtually every day and a kiss on the top of the head.