During one of the thousands of lockdown Zoom quizzes I did in the early months of 2020, my friends did a “snog, marry, avoid” round (I believe you call it “fuck, marry, kill” in America). The subjects of the round included exes, our friends and… our dads. When their faces popped up on the screen, we obligingly squirmed and made a “yuck!” noise — but, ultimately, everyone assigned each dad with their chosen label. Since that fateful day, one dad in particular has become unwitting fodder for corny, near-constant sex jokes. Whenever the spawn of this father mentions that she’s seeing her parents, the classic line, “Say hi to your dad for me,” is delivered with a wink. This got me thinking: What would happen if one of us actually did sleep with my friend’s dad?
This thought, alongside one redditor’s (now-deleted) call for advice — “26M picking up vibes from my friend’s mum (47F), seems interested. Is taking this further the worst idea ever?” — led me to try and find out what happened to people’s relationships after they fucked one of their friends’ parents. Unsurprisingly, given the plethora of, “Bro, don’t do it,” comments under the aforementioned post, it’s hard to find people who’ve gone through with it (fuck you, societal norms!!!), but it appears to be slightly easier to find those who nearly have, and those who’ve had it done to them.
When she was 20, Vanessa (a pseudonym) found out that her dad was sleeping with her best friend and former high-school classmate. Vanessa was aware that her father was a bit of a lothario, so when he told her that her step-mom had accused him of having “yet another affair” — this time with Vanessa’s friend — and had kicked him out, she believed it. “I felt betrayed by my friend mostly, because she was the one I went to when things at home were unbearable, and the person I complained to about my situation,” Vanessa tells me. “I didn’t feel betrayed by my dad because I never expected any different from him.” Nevertheless, Vanessa was angry at her father for destroying his marriage, particularly because he had young kids at the time.
“He kept denying it happened,” she continues. “He only admitted it about a year in. From what I’m aware of, it didn’t end when I found out — and it might still somewhat be going on from what I’ve heard. Maybe once or twice a year they hook up.” Vanessa tells me that the affair ruined her friendship with her friend, but adds that she did reach out to her “after about a year of silence,” believing they could patch things up. Her friend, however, wasn’t interested. “She kind of ghosted me, and that was it,” she says. They haven’t spoken in over six years.
Vanessa regards what happened with her father and her friend as pretty unique, and something that likely wouldn’t have happened if she’d had a more traditional father-daughter relationship with him. Still, Vanessa and her dad have “managed to maintain our friendly relationship, and as I get older and have my own family, it keeps getting better.”
Forty-five-year-old Derek (also a pseudonym) was on the other end of the affair — or, I should say, near-affair. When he was in his mid-20s, he found himself as the object of his friend’s mom’s affections (as a young mother, she was only 40 at the time). “It was never directly discussed or suggested,” he recalls, “but she clearly flirted with me when he and other friends weren’t around.” Derek cites one particularly notable day, when the pair were finally left alone and the sexual tension was palpable. A group were hanging out at Derek’s friend’s house — who’d temporarily moved back in with his mother — when the others rushed off to do something, but he stayed behind to “watch some TV.” “His mum came out and joined me,” says Derek, who — frustratingly — can’t remember the details, but assures me “it was obvious that it would have happened if I’d made any effort at all.” “I’m not the most socially intuitive guy, but I’m reasonably competent,” he says. “The whole situation with her was clearly flirtatious from her side.”
But unlike Vanessa’s dad, Derek could foresee what would happen if he did make a move. “It didn’t feel right,” he admits. “Both from a ‘sleeping-with-my-friend’s-mum’ perspective, and because it struck me that things wouldn’t end well when they inevitably ended. I trust my gut when it comes to things like that and it rarely fails me.”
Since that opportunity emerged, Derek has since learned that his friend’s mom was “at least borderline emotionally abusive” to her son, so, he says, “in retrospect, it was 100 percent the right decision.” As for the awkward conversation with his friend about his near-hookup with his mom — he never told him. “What’s the point?” he says. “All it would do is add another layer of anger/stress between them. I have no idea how it would have impacted our friendship had I slept with her — it would have either ruined it, or he’d have shrugged off my side of it completely.” For what it’s worth, they’re still “very good friends.”
When it comes to people who have done the dirty with their pals’ parents, it never seems to come without problems. One redditor told a story about finding his friend’s dad on Grindr — the son does knew that his dad was gay, but the redditor wasn’t particularly interested in explaining to his friend “how great (his) dad was in bed.” Another fucked his ex-girlfriend’s mom at a New Year’s Eve party, and his ex heard the “sexy times.” Remorselessly, he wrote: “Overall, 10/10 would do again.”
A different user recalled fucking his friend’s mom in the basement of her house, which he described as “one the top five craziest fucking things that I’ve ever experienced in my life.” But, he said, over the next three years he felt “really, really guilty over it,” and eventually had to confess to his friend what had happened. “I told him, really as gently as I could. We were in his car, and he looked at me like I was an absolute piece of shit, which I felt like. We got in a little fight, but only so much can happen in a car. Fast forward to today, and we talk now and then, but I know he’s never really forgiven me and I don’t blame him. I still feel like a fucking asshole for it, and if I could go back I wouldn’t have done it.”
I will never be able to look at my friend’s dad the same way again.
Brit Dawson
Brit Dawson is a London-based journalist who mostly writes about sex, women's rights and sex work. She is also the staff writer at Dazed.
