Mixed Messages and Bow Wow Babes

Saying my dad often behaved inappropriately is like saying rain is soggy. Inappropriate and my dad go together like coffee and cream.

Most dads with daughters don't walk around the house in their underwear. But my dad sure did. And still does.

Most dads don't brag about how much poontang they're getting. But my dad sure did. And still does.

Most dads don't make flamboyant statements about how high their IQ is and how long their penis is. But my dad sure did. And still does.

Living with my dad was a study in mixed messages.

My older sister and I were expected to be smart. We were expected to bring home good report cards. We were expected to go to college. And we were even held to a higher academic standard than our younger brother, because "little girls mature faster than little boys."

But back of all that expectation was my dad's constant assertion that every woman who succeeded in business was a dizzy broad who screwed her way into a position of power.

The zenith was when Detroit Mayor Coleman Young got caught with his pants down. A high-ranking employee from the Department of Public Works hit him with a paternity suit – and won. "How the hell does a thirty-something chickiepoo get to run the Department of Public Works?" my dad would grumble aloud at the TV, and then answer his own question.

Talk about mixed messages.

My dad's idea of sex education was to counsel me and my sister to remain virgins because "sex was a powerful, special thing" that we needed to be mature enough to handle.

But then again, one of his favorite phrases was, "Candy's dandy, but liquor's quicker," and we got to see the truth of that statement close up. My dad had casual encounter after casual encounter with some seriously ugly creatures that I nicknamed Bow Wow Babes.

My dad would show up, usually on a Friday or Saturday night, with some tipsy woman. He'd sit her at the kitchen table (along with us kids) and feed her some (usually burnt) dish, accompanied by a glass of his famous juice – generic Kool-Aid mixed with pulpy lemonade mixed with random spices mixed with sugar. Or, if he had some in the house, wine.

After a short, romantic dinner for five, my dad would take said Bow Wow Babe up to his room and close the door. We knew what that meant. We'd better not knock, and we'd better not disturb Daddy.

A half-hour or so later, the door would open and Daddy would whisk said Bow Wow Babe out of the house and into the Detroit night, and we'd never see that particular (toothless, ignorant, incoherent) one again. Often, he'd leave a used condom floating limply in the toilet.

Talk about mixed messages.

He'd urge us to be careful as we walked to school, because it wasn't uncommon for Detroit schoolgirls to get raped, and occasionally killed, by serial rapists who never seemed to get caught.

But his oft-repeated rape-prevention advice was to never "play games with men" by getting them all excited and then telling them no. He explained that it was physically painful for a man to try to stop once aroused, and if a women put herself in that position, she brought it all on herself.

Talk about mixed messages.

• Sex was special and sacred, but not so special and sacred that my father didn't have a different Bow Wow Babe every weekend (and sometimes more than one during the same weekend).
• I was supposed to take his advice and be a smart virgin, but if I wanted to get anywhere with my career I really needed to be a dizzy, manipulative broad who slept with the right men.
• And I needed to say yes to all men in all sexual circumstances or they'd be in physical pain and have no choice but to rape me.

Um ... ok, Daddy ... I think I got it.