Sexy Mama Take #4 - sexy mom self image
After I gave birth, I felt disfigured and damaged. I was. I had stitches and was injured there. I shook. Immediately I decided - this isn't happening. No one must know. I started doing Kegels obsessively. I worked hard at trying to keep my sexual self image after my son was born....but it felt like a lie. I was wearing black lace bras and ripped down the front wife beaters to show off my milk bar, but I was terrified of intercourse. I did heal and we did eventually resume our sexual life, however my self image had changed. I was trying to subvert the image of the sexless mother, but only on the surface. It took me a few years to come to terms with myself- my changed body, my relationship with my husband and son, with myself.
I'm of two minds about the Angelina Jolie/yummy mummy phenom: on one hand, I want to be one, of course I do. But on the other, I feel like I can never live up to that. It just creates another thing for women to feel bad about themselves...it doesn't provide us with a real view of sexuality and motherhood. The horniness of pregnancy, yes, but celebrities don't show us passing blood clots for weeks afterwards, stretch marks, nipples a mile long from breastfeeding, or the lovely but strange eroticism of loving a new human being that just came out of your body.
I'm pregnant now, and totally into my body: my breasts are full, I'm wearing tight clothes to show off the belly and boobs...and I'm aware this will be last time I'll feel like this. Full, all that extra blood, walking anticipation.
Labels: "Christen Clifford" "Maternal sexuality" sex, sex, Sexy Mama Blog
posted by Christen Clifford at 7:43 AM
1 Comments:
I just read your original essay. I appreciated some parts, relating to them. Others I didn't. I kept thinking, "that's not how it was for me, that's not true for all women, I had other issues that I haven't seen discussed anywhere." I'd like to write about them. But you know what, my mother may read my blog (she hasn't expressed interest yet) and I'm still too repressed to admit to my mother that I'm a sexual being (or she to me.) I also don't know if my husband would be cool with me discussing our intimacy out in the open with, well, anyone who wants to. I could write about it anonymously, but where to put it? The online forums I know of wouldn't allow such frank sex talk (aside from forums specifically devoted to sex talk, which wouldn't reach much of my intended audience.) Well, I know my way around the internet a bit, and I'll figure it out. But it occurred to me that this is why these things aren't being talked about. There's so much of a taboo about it -- I'd bet that the vast majority of women feel like I do. They're keeping it secret, thinking they're alone in what they feel. It's why what you've done is so important. What you've begun, perhaps. Maybe it will embolden other women to start talking.
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