'I had a sex dream about Louis from One Direction and it's because he's a dad.'

He leaned in to kiss me, and I didn’t know where to look. My eyes danced from his stubble-surrounded lips, to his heavily styled hair, to the tattooed biceps pressing in on me. His face was so close that I could feel his breath. I was about to kiss Louis from One Direction, and I felt a magnetic, undeniable sexual longing for him.

And then I woke up.

I was in my mid-30s, married with a toddler and a baby on the way, and I was having a sex dream about One Direction. What the hell was wrong with me?

So appalled and disturbed was I by this bizarre, teenybopper dream, that I had no choice but to investigate my attraction to Louis Tomlinson of the teen boy band, One Direction.

I scrutinized this dangerous crush with the unrelenting energy of a journalist (okay, blogger) who is totally freaked out that she is actually a gross pervert, rather than a mild-mannered mum from the suburbs.

The answer that I found was even more frightening than I could have imagined.

I had a crush on Louis because he is a dad.

***

That morning, I deliberately watched a One Direction music video, to see if it reignited any of those feelings within. Several minutes later, I was horrified to find that I’d done nothing but stare at Louis’ crotch. In my defence, he was the only one wearing maroon pants in that video. It wasn’t my fault! Or was it?

I looked up his age. He was 24. Only 10 years younger than me. I guess that’s…okay, and not entirely creep-worthy of me.

But still – why was I even considering a relationship with a pop star who was barely out of his teens, in the same fantastical, infatuated way that a schoolgirl would?

I sat back and pondered a crucial fact: I knew his name. How the hell had that happened? I listen to Bon Jovi in my spare time. I have the musical taste of an old fart, because I am an old fart. And yet, I had awoken that morning with this perfectly accurate sentence in my head; “I had a sex dream about Louis Tomlinson from One Direction”.

Then I remembered all of the news articles I’d seen online, of Louis fathering a child with former flame, Briana Jungworth. Their son, Freddie, was born earlier this year. After that news broke, Louis suddenly looked more like a man than any of the other One Direction boys, and I knew his name and clicked on all of the paparazzi photos of him pushing a pram. Even if his hair did look ridiculous.

***

This new attraction to celebrity dads has intrigued me. It didn’t just end with Louis, either. I recently rediscovered one of my favourite bands from my teen years – The Whitlams, who named themselves after the legendary former Australian Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam. My own schoolgirl crush was directed towards the lead singer of The Whitlams, Tim Freedman, and his romantic-yet-wry piano ditties.

I wanted to find out what the band was up to today, and during a fit of Googling, one thing caught my attention about Tim Freedman. It was not his anecdotes of his famous lovelorn hits, No Aphrodisiac and Melbourne, and not even the photos of him looking all rock’n’roll with messy hair and a leather jacket.

It was the news that he had a young daughter, and was in love with being a dad.

“She's a little joy. She just sings and dances and sleeps. So we got lucky,” he told The Sydney Morning Herald in 2008.

***

My changed taste in men is an unexpected reflection of how motherhood has changed me. Clearly, becoming a mother hasn’t rendered me non-sexual. Imean, sure, my vagina got totally ruined from a vaginal birth, but I’m not dead, right?

Jokes aside, motherhood has made me more responsible and mature, and in turn, I want to be with someone who has the same qualities. No longer am I attracted to unstable “bad boys” who can barely get it together to shower.

Believe it or not, my sex dream about Louis from One Direction was actually about another man entirely: my husband, Jeff, who is also the father of my children. Watching him actively love our daughter, and seeing his excitement about the impending birth of our son, has made me love him even more. His new-ish role as a dad has made me fall even harder for him– and I’m more attracted to him than ever.

There’s a perception that mums and dads are daggy and unattractive. Yes, we slop around sleepily in our trackies, and just in the past month I’ve smelt of vomit, urine, diarrhea or all of the above, as our family has grappled with the deadly combination of gastro and toilet training.

It’s the love that I have for my daughter that causes me to sometimes be harried and smelly, and I know that my husband is the same. And of course, there are the sweet-smelling times, too, which only makes my maternal love stronger.

The demonstrated ability to love and care for another, smaller being – the constant sacrifices made, and mistakes we try to forget, and the hugs and kisses – make for a damn sexy man indeed. Dads, you’ve got my attention.

Read more from Carla GS on her website.