Abstract
Why are gay and bisexual men likelier than heterosexuals and queer women to have large age-gap relationships? This is the question that guides Tony Silva’s Daddies of a Different Kind. An insightful and fascinating read, Daddies of a Different Kind dispels various commonly held stereotypes about these relationships—and about gay and bisexual life more broadly. While fulfilling sex is part of what fuels these relationships, Silva also reveals mentorship, nurturance, intergenerational knowledge, community building, and the forging of positive masculinities as core to age-gap relationships between younger and older gay and bisexual men. Silva’s wonderful book is an important contribution not only to the study of gender, masculinity, sexuality, the life course, inequality, intimacy, and the family but also to the growing rise of sociological analysis that centers joy.
Daddies of a Different Kind enters uncharted territory by bringing deep sociological analysis to the cultural phenomenon of the “daddy,” a term used to refer to (sexually) desirable older men. Although not specific to gay and bisexual communities, older-younger pairings between adults are, as Silva convincingly shows, a distinct aspect of gay and bisexual cultural and social life that deserve special analysis. Silva builds his analysis on interviews with 39 self-described daddies between the age of 43 and 70 and 26 younger men between 23 and 33 who formed relationships with older men. Through these interviews, Silva dispels stereotypes that economic necessity drives age-gap relationships between gay and bisexual men, with “sugar daddies” giving money to younger “gold diggers.” Instead, Daddies demonstrates why both older and younger men desire, seek out, and benefit from age-gap relationships.
Daddies is a refreshing departure from gender scholarship’s general focus on the negatives of masculinity. As Silva acknowledges, masculinity is often wielded to buttress inequality, a dynamic that deserves continued exploration. Yet, Daddies provokes scholars to pay attention to the positives of masculinity as well. Mentorship, nurturance, and care are core to the age-gap relationships Silva centers. Both the younger and older men describe mentorship as a positive and sought-out element of age-gap relationships. Through these relationships, younger men learn how to have fulfilling sex, how to be emotionally intimate with other men, how to access gay communities, how to navigate homophobia, and so on. Silva invites readers to consider how, through the caring masculinities within these age-gap relationships, older men pass valuable intergenerational knowledge to younger adult men while younger men expose older men to new ideas and perspectives.
One of Silva’s most provocative contributions is on the topic of difference itself. As Silva points out, sociologists tend to focus on how differences between people lead to inequality (and thus to negative situations). Daddies shows that “[p]eople can build relationships around difference, and these relationships may be fulfilling for both people not despite the differences but because of them” (p. 181). For example, although age-gap pairings help both younger and older adult men navigate the pressures of masculinity, they provide asymmetrical benefits. Age-gap pairings help boost older men’s masculinity when aging could otherwise threaten it. For younger men, these pairings often provide a break from the pressures of masculinity—or even be affirming of their feminine attributes. While unequal and asymmetrical, both older and younger men described these effects as beneficial and even as driving factors for pursuing age-gap relationships. Similarly, Daddies demonstrates how dominance can be consensual and desired rather than merely tolerated—and how dominance, masculinity, and caregiving can be forged in mutually reinforcing ways.
Daddies demonstrates how centering queer perspectives can provide far-reaching lessons on building a more equitable society. Understandably, scholarly conversations on LGBTQIA+ lives often focus on the negatives of navigating a cisheterosexist society. Silva joins a growing chorus focusing also on the joys of queer life. Silva argues, for example, that older-younger pairings between adult men help show what a less ageist society can look like, perhaps even providing a blueprint for reversing the rise of age-based segregation in contemporary society. Silva also provides stimulating reflections on finding pleasure, consent, and autonomy amid power imbalance. Perhaps most powerfully, Silva’s findings demonstrate the power and positivity of caring masculinities, both for those extending care and those receiving it.
Daddies of a Different Kind is sure to be appreciated by both scholars and undergraduate and graduate students. It is a timely, readable, and welcome contribution to the sociology of gender, sexuality, masculinities, intimacy, inequality, the life course, and the family. But it is also more than that. Daddies of a Different Kind is an important demonstration of the power of centering queer perspectives, sitting with the complexities of power and difference, and making room for joy and positivity within sociology.