Sex and the single dad are all the rage in Mills & Boon land
For a long time now, the prefix “dad” has been thrown around the dating scene with affectionate derision. There is the “dad bod”, which indicates a midriff gone comfortably to seed, and “dad dancing”, which evokes a middle-aged man astride the dance floor, enthusiastically missing the beat to hits from the Eighties.
Well, the sneering can stop. Dads have now powered into the realm of female fantasy: to be specific, single dads. Mills & Boon has revealed a surge in demand for romantic fiction about “hot single dads” Among the rippling torsos on the covers, there isn’t a traditional “dad bod” in sight.
The pulling power of the single dad, said a spokesman for the romantic fiction publisher, is “because they have a nurturing and caring element that is very appealing”. If true, this says something interesting about how women and men view sexual attraction. Women are apparently
drawn to men with children – provided they seem like good fathers – because fatherhood indicates a certain level of responsibility and maturity. When a man is initially attracted to a woman, however, I suspect her ‘responsibility’ isn’t uppermost in his mind.
A 2003 study at the University of Richmond found that having children by a previous relationship does indeed help men to attract new partners – but only if the men are involved with their children and don’t live with them: in other words, there is the perfect balance of distance and interaction. I can’t help feeling that – families being the messy, loving, demanding things they are – that’s a fantasy that should really stay in a book.