Daddy Lessons

by Steacy Easton

Cowboy erotica meets Kathy Acker in this smart, raunchy look at a queer sexual awakening

Steacy Easton grew up Mormon, queer, and Autistic in the West. This book traces the people and spaces that made them who they are: the Mormon church, an Anglican boys’ boarding school where they were sent to be ‘reformed’ and where they were abused by a teacher, and then, later on, rodeos and bathhouses and mall bathrooms. The world Easton describes is one in which desire is complicated, where men – ‘daddies’ – can be loving and they can be abusive, and there isn’t always a clear distinction. Easton explores the essential texts of their sexuality, from Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick to Neil LaBute, Kip Moore to Lorelei James, and delves into their own encounters as they came of age. These daddy lessons are blunt about the pleasures of disobedience, slippery and difficult, revelling in the funk of memory and desire.

"In dangerous times, Daddy Lessons dares to complicate the question of what children desire, including things that they probably shouldn’t, and that adults must not exploit or manipulate. Except they do. Steacy Easton's meditations follow how such desires and disasters secrete an aesthetic and a self, and how something vivacious can spring from that muck, something like this book itself, smutty and shining and garlanded in jonquils." – Carl Wilson, author of Let's Talk About A Journey to the End of Taste

"Steacy writes about the queer pleasure-seeking body in ways both fresh and eminently familiar." – Jordan Tannahill, author of The Listeners

" Daddy Lessons  is a cocky and tender reclamation of childhood and teenage wanting." – Vivek Shraya, author of I’m Afraid of Men and People Change

Genres: Memoir, LGBT, Nonfiction

160 pages, Paperback

Published October 24, 2023

Reviews

[Maddie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely love this book. The raw queerness in stride with the literary criticism element of this memoir work perfectly together. Steacy Easton discusses all my favorite erotic literary giants— Delany, Acker, Guibert, de Sade, Cooper, Greenwell, Story of O, Macho Sluts, Confessions of A Married Man….!!!! The list goes on and now I have some fun further reading material to look into, too!

THANK YOU SO MUCH to Coach House for my copy of this masterpiece! This is my final book for the trans rights readathon 2025. What a great grand finale 💗🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

[Michael Greaves · Rating 4 out of 5]

An honest and at times intriguingly perplexing read for someone that does not have the same experiences and identities as the author. Although heavy and saddening at times, I think now is no better time than to really explore conversations of sexuality, sexual expression, and identity when politically and socially we find ourselves at odds with the future of this countries value of LGTBQ human lives.

[Hailey Skinner · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was not virtuous, lovely, or of good report! It was smutty!

To be fair, the title & back cover warned me, but anytime a book mentions “Mormon,” I can’t resist reading it. It's my kryptonite! Curiosity takes over & I need to read about kids I might’ve grown up with had I been born in a different time/stake boundary lol

Steacy Easton writes about their childhood church experience in a way that felt so familiar—huge in an era of click-bait reality TV & silver screen factual slip-ups! There is nothing I love more than nodding my head at a shared experience—probably why I enjoyed BYU so much. Even now, distanced from the church, I'll never fully disconnect from the community it provides.

The parts that made me uncomfortable were Easton’s disturbing reaction to their adult abuser, as well as their explicit details of sexual fantasies & exploits. To me, it felt like a definite overshare. That said, I respect that this is their outlet, & I’m the one who invaded it as a reader only interested in one part of their story (Mormonism lol)

Some epic quotes, in between erotic overshares:

"The blandest meal, with the blandest men, and I've never felt more special."

"Mormons mythologize the West, both in a manifest destiny sense, and in the Joan Didion ennui sense,"

"another loss; that perfect ass in discount leisurewear walking away from me."

[Lottie from book club · Rating 5 out of 5]

tell em Steacy

[TA Inskeep · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very pornographic (as the author intends and makes clear), sometimes disturbing (I suspect the same), sometimes airborne. Never, ever dull. I feared lots of academic theory but there’s not too much. There’s lots of sex, both talk about and descriptions of. It’s heavy; take breaks. But read this vital, queer queer queer, gleefully queer book.

[Chels Patterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Daddy Lessons by Steacy Easton

Is feral!

Honestly. I have no notes.

It’s absolute perfection. We follow Easton as they explore “daddy” figures in their church, school, and life growing up queer in Alberta. And by Daddy we do mean the sexual term, exploring the merging of want and consent.

I loved the nonlinear text. We start off with “innocent” exploration, or so it seems until we learn of the abuse and sexual past of Easton’s early teens that have led to moments in psych wards, bathhouses, washrooms and rodeos.

We dive right into the reality of desire and wants of children, who are exploring their sexuality and learning, and those adults who abuse and use that innocent exploration for their own sexual pleasure. Easton perfectly illustrates the issues/situation/ legality of underage students fantasizing about their teacher’s being sexual with them, and what happens when the teacher makes some of those fantasies come true. Or seems to.

Although this book is mostly about abuse and traumatic situations, the writing is free from shame, or a mentality of victimhood. Rather, Easton, tells us what happened, what they thought of at the time, what they think now, what they wanted and what they now know they should have been protected/excluded from, what kind of fetization it may have led to. It’s remarkable and an easy read.

I must say the second half of the book has so many perfect lines and is full of a person knowing who they are. A great line was “you don’t pay a prostitute for sex, you pay them to leave.” Said to us as they recount how the niceness of his cowboy was really just transactional and not love. I can’t wait to read more of Easton’s works, and to explore if others have had similar experiences growing up queer and in the church. From Easton’s account it seems almost prolific, and given the number of inquiries I doubt they are wrong.

This book is for anyone who likes autobiographies, sexual explicit content, a dive into religion and queer culture.

This book comes with heavy trigger warning of sexual abuse/assult.

[Not Sarah Connor Writes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honest, thoughtful, and complicated, Easton's memoir is not one you want to miss!

Read the full review on my blog!

[Pamster · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, yes. This is a book for readers of City of Night and Macho Sluts and Trash and Chip Delany and Dennis Cooper and Brontez and of course Kathy Acker is in the very start of the description for good reason. Texts that bother. Dorothy Allison has talked about getting to the part of your writing when you have physical responses, a hot shamed face, and this is def that kind of writing --truly giving us the risky parts. Open and dirty and searching, this is really difficult stuff about how our selves and desires can be formed by pleasure and abuse, and how a touch or a dynamic can be both of those things, and your body can be left with a very complicated history to negotiate.

Also has wild Mormon culture YES including the underwear, awesome PJ Harvey love, and cowboys riding each other.

[joe]

This one has really crept up on me in a totally unexpected fashion. Perhaps this is just my misreading, but I didn’t expect such visceral accounts of past life experiences being so bombarded throughout the book. I felt that we may get some accounts of traumatic events and the like being laced and sprinkled throughout, not 14/15 rounds of straight knockout blows.

It’s a short text, and there’s only so much that one can put into so little a space. Steacy Easton clearly has a lot to say, however, and just “say” it they do not. The author is full throttle in making sure that their experiences are noted in a way that leaves a genuinely lasting impact. Split into 14 chapters and separated as lessons to ruminate over, Easton philosophically explains how people, experiences, culture, text and art have an impact on how you find yourself as a person. You perhaps never settle or stop finding yourself, and the fluidity of personal growth can find its partner in sexuality and desire.

We all grow up as completely absorbable sponges to our surroundings. What happens to us early on in life can have a sweeping impact on how we are as adults, and the feelings and thoughts that we carry with us for eternity can originate in the first life experiences that we can recall. Easton is queer and autistic, and having grown up in a Mormon environment, the chances of experiencing a smooth and frictionless childhood were next to zero. The intrinsic traits of Easton’s personality are at odds with the beliefs of those that are supposed to be close to them. If that is the case, what can a person – a child – do? Their pillars are erased. There is very little support that they can lean against. They must venture out and grow up early. They begin to search for a figure to take control and handle the steering of one’s ship. There is a vulnerability to this searching that people can, and unfortunately will, take advantage of. Abusiveness finds its home in these fissures of a person’s life. All of this happens to Steacy Easton, and they explain these scenarios in raw detail through this book.

Easton’s writing is natural. Never showy nor overly flamboyant. There is a numbness to the language that I feel can only be brought out when the author is being totally open and honest. While the numbness may feel cold at first, you quickly come to realise that it fits together with just how raw the situations are that are being explained.

As mentioned earlier, Easton roars their thoughts and experiences from pages 1 onwards. Everything being said feels to be coming from the gut. The need for this, the need within Easton to say what needs to be said, originates in some of the experiences that they were put through. Many of the personal accounts being spoken of involve being taken away to somewhere hidden. Being a secret for another. Being removed from the centre of things and only existing on the edges. It feels like Easton is making things public after a lifetime of being forced into quiet privacy; recapping over a muddled history in order to find the stepping stones that have led them to where they are today.

A short but visceral book that can hopefully help those on the outskirts of life. Finding space and validation in rebelling against the traditions that have only harmed you.

[Sonny Caterini · Rating 4 out of 5]

This type of book is MY SHIT.
I was speaking to a new friend yesterday and they began describing me as "weird". I was taken aback because I think of myself as quite normal. They were describing me as 'fitting in super well with my school' - nonbinary, shaved head, indie, queer, nose piercing, nerdy. I guess all of those things don't fit in with the status quo. But I started arguing back that I am actually very normal, actually I am the normalest, more normal than they are. I was dumping out all of these reasons why I am normal and I think it is because I don't feel like I fit in with the "weird" culture anymore.
The media I am consuming recently is so grossly normal, as in excessively. Grossly middle-of-the-road, non-controversial, feel-good, All-American. Stuff that could be playing in a speaker or TV on the background of 75% of American thanksgiving lunches, and no one would complain. It is making me so happy. I feel so free when I laugh with the stuff, and with everyone else who is experiencing the same fluffy silly stuff.
But then I forget that I am reading this book, which is insane. Grossly (double meaning) academic, sexual, explicit, sexy. This book is not normal at all and I don't personally know anyone who would like it. It was quite hard to read because of the heavy content and because it was so thought-provoking. I think it is the slowest I have read a book all year or at least it felt that way. I slowly read every page and my pace was shocking to me, but I couldn't bring myself to read it any faster. It would have been a disservice to myself because I related so heavily to the content.
The book works in conjunction with my Queer History of 1990s course which I am obsessed with and multiple pieces we are looking at/reading in the course were mentioned explicitly in this book. I also brought multiple quotes from this book into class which always makes me feel awesome. I also took nude self portraits last night for my class and although it doesn't have anything to do with this book, in a way it does? The book speaks so graphically about the sexual body that it made me feel much more comfortable in my skin and genitals.
I am feeling particularly struck by this quote about a historical queer priest
"I suspect that he was celibate, or he coded as celibate - but one can still be celibate and deeply, deeply queer."
More and more I am thinking that I need to be taking religious studies classes. Anyways...
i luv queers

[Zoe · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve never felt as much like a voyeur as I have while reading this memoir. It compels as much as it occasionally disturbs, and it spends its entirety in that overlapping area where honesty becomes awkward (not a criticism). I don’t think other memoirs can measure up to Easton owning how just because the book has ended doesn’t mean that everything’s wrapped up in a pretty bow of lessons learned; people are messed up, and they mess up and harm other people, even if it doesn’t always feel like harm at the time, and Easton tells their story with these experiences well.

[Alexis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book about a young queer person's life, and their desire for sex, and how they received and perceived sex. Some of the sexual events are consensual, and some are not. This is a book about cocks. This is a book about having sex with men. This is a book about bodies and acceptance.

Steacy has a strong voice and I'm interested to see what they write next.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

A view inside one Mormon’s experience of masculinity, gender, sex, religion & community. Essays on personal experiences, including physical & sexual abuse, which shaped the author’s early years, and views on how they should & have-been treated by other men of varying sexual orientations. Thought-provoking.

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tying together religion, desire, history and gender, Steacy provides a complex look at growing up queer in both an engaging and matter-of-fact way. Rooted in the prairies, and relatable beyond, Daddy Lessons is a quick read I'll revisit again and again.

[Sarah T · Rating 3 out of 5]

hmmmm

[mads · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded down~

[Gabrielle Salko · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of complex layers on different aspects of religion, sexuality and the combination of the two, I just found it hard to read at times.