Bathing with my 7 year old daughter

I'm a widowed single Father aged 37 with a 7 year old daughter. My wife and her Mother were killed in a car accident nearly 3 years ago, which was obviously devastating for both my little girl and me. I honestly believe that had it not been for my daughter, I would not still be here.

I had great support from family and friends in the first few months, in particular from my sister and my late wife's sister who both looked after my very young girl who was missing her Mummy and Grandma terribly. Things move on though, people have their own families, and in time it was down to me to look after her on my own apart from day care and then school.

It would not be too dramatic to say that we have always had a special relationship because of what we went through following the accident, and my little girl only wanted to be with me and became very "clingy" for want of another word. When I went into the garden she would follow, if I went into the bathroom she would follow, she even wanted to stay as I sat on the toilet - which I had to explain was not really the done thing! If I wasn't there for her 24-7 she would cry uncontrollably and then almost shut down emotionally till I returned - it really was quite distressing for me and I should have sought a bit of help back then, but I just pandered to her and hardly went anywhere without her; the odd trip to the supermarket while her auntie was here - I never went out with friends or women.

I HAD to bath her in those days, for safety and to help her clean herself - for any non-parents reading this, 3 year old kids are NOT very aware of their own personal hygeine needs! Something I remember my late wife saying when she bathed her was "Let's clean your front bum and your back bum" which she told me was what her own Mother used to say to her when she was little, so I said it;
A; So she knew we had to get those parts clean, and
B; To remind her a little of her Mum, and how she used to bath her.

Now clearly that had to be done at that time, due to her age, but as she got older, 4, 5 and 6 years old, she still wanted me to bath her, and specially to clean her private parts. Now she is just 7 (her birthday was in September) and still she wants me to bath her, and will now specifically ask "Now do my back bum", and "Now do my front bum". She really loves me to do it, and will say "Just a bit more, a bit more, OK!"

I'm starting to feel very uncomfortable now, and I've told her that she should do it herself now, but she won't have it, and gets very withdrawn and sad when I have insisted that she does it. I don't want her upset, so I renaged and started to do it for her again. I do feel that, for her, it's a kind of connection to the past when her Mummy used to do it, which she must remember, and she thinks that Dad has to do it now, because Mum's gone. I'm not offended by it, and in all honesty, I would leave it till she didn't ask any more, but I'm a bit worried that, if she should innocently say something about it to a friend, or worse still, a teacher or one of her aunties, I could be burned at the stake for something which I started because I had to, and which I have tried to stop, but I can't for fear of her going into another withdrawal episode. It's as if I've said I don't love her any more - that's the kind of reaction I get1

I'm starting to want a woman's company too - just someone to take out and talk to - and yes, I do miss sex terribly, but I can't imagine what my daughter would say and do, and even if she was OK about it, which I doubt, what if she wanted me to bath her and "do her bums - back and front" while any new partner was down? Or even if she just mentioned it?

There's another thing which has only recently started to happen. She came into the bathroom when I was in the bath. I usually bathe with the same bathwater as she's had, but with a bit more added. She got in and tried to touch my privates, to "do yours" as she put it, but I told her I had to do it. Again she reacted as if I'd said I was leaving home or something. She came in again 2 nights later, and tried again, and I told her No again, and then last night, when I allowed her wash it with soap and that was all there was to it. She just dried herself again and smiled at me and went into her bedroom. Before I read her her bedtime story I told her that "grown ups always clean themselves down there" but she just said "I like doing it for you", and again looked really hurt that I didn't seem to want her to do it.

How the heck am I going to sort this out? If I let it continue, it's "ICKY" to quote from the Friends episode, and if I try to stop it, she goes into hibernate mode and won't talk to me.

Okay, so I had something very similar happen to me once. We were riding in a car, heading home from somewhere. My dad was driving, his new wife sat beside her and my little sis (aged 3 at the time) and I were sitting in the back.
 Suddenly some screeching sound. Some truck switches lanes, pulls breaks right in front of us. We almost crash, stop about an inch before the truck. And then wham. The car behind us bumps into us with massive speed also pushing us into the truck. My little sister freaks the fuck out, turns green, and throws up all over the place. Doesn't cry. We get out of the car, try to calm her down. I let dad deal with the other drivers to ascertain who was at fault, whatnot. We wait till the police arrives on the scene. Standard boring procedures. My little sister seems like she's dead. No skin tone whatsoever, just some sickly death-like hue. Doesn't cry, doesn't try to look at things. Hell the only reason I knew she was still alive was because she was breathing and blinking. I was utterly freaked out. I didn't get along well with my "new mom", and my relationship with my dad was pretty stressed since deep down I could never forgive him for leaving my original mom. My little sister was all I had. She had nothing to do with them, and now I was scared shitless that she suffered some lifelong trauma or something.
 Fast forward a few days: she started talking again. And being lively and energetic and the way she was before the accident.
Needless to say I was overjoyed at this point. She was still hesitant to sit in the car for a few months more but that gradually faded away as well.
 By the time she was five she was basically growing up before my eyes. Not in a physical sense of course. I mean mentally. She no longer warned me about the monsters under the table if I didn't turn the lights on in the kitchen. I shouldn't watch for zombies in the garden. No more magic ponies or pretend talking on the phone either.  By the time she turned six whenever I was reading something she came and sat next to me or lay next to me on the bed asked what I was reading and asked me all sorts of questions. Since I was quite a bit older at first I expected her to be bored outright about some stuff that I was reading but much to my surprise she wasn't. One day I was studying maps for geography class and she was there with me for more than an hour asking questions. What's what, why, what kind of people live there. Seemed like she was actually curious. I got an overwhelming amount of attention from her.
 I never did the shit OP said. We never took baths together. Partially because I never really wanted to bathe her when she was young and partly because she became awfully regarding her body around me. Going to such lengths as covering herself from neck to toe in towels and darting across to her room when we were watching the tv with dad ever since she was 5. (on the other hand she came up to me a couple of times lifting her skirt saying "look what nice panties I got" and grinning at me triumphantly when she got a new pair or something - I was mildly freaked at first but brushed it aside. She was a kid she probably didn't understand that. Later on she stopped so I was relieved). Some time passed, she was about eight and a half. One night she came up to me and asked if I was in love with someone. I told her the truth. I had a girlfriend. We've been going steady for about two years-ish. I liked her a lot but I wouldn't call it love (basically I loved her the most because of how she looked and the sex, but this is a different matter). She then told me that there is a boy that she thinks she is in love with. I laughed to myself. I mean come on at age 6? I asked her why she thought that. She told me they used to play together a lot and last night she dreamt that they were taking their clothes off and going to sleep. I couldn't say anything to her at first. I mean come on, hearing something like this from your 6-7 yo little sister. What the heck should I tell her? I told her that in my opinion love is something a lot more special than that. That it is a bond that unites people, blahblah, romantic fairytale crap. Reality is not so pretty but hey, why should I ruin it for her? So we ended up talking about princes who would go face dragons and all sorts of perils for their beloved princesses. After that I got pretty tired, told her I wished to sleep. A bit of silence followed and told me that she doesn't love the boy after all. She walked out of the room in her little night gown but stopped at the door turned around smiled at me, and said
"well even if I was a princess I wouldn't want any prince or knight to come to my aid"
"And why not?" I asked.
"because I've got you and you're my personal knight" then she turned around and closed the door behind her.