The Mama Sex revolution
will not be televised.

Why is it, in a culture that now fashionably talks about bondage, sex toys and open relationships, that we still have such a strong cultural taboo when it comes to talking about the procreative sex that makes us mothers and the subsequent sex mother’s have? Why is it that "Mama Sex" is the black hole of our feminine education? Why does motherhood—even for our self-empowered generation ---have such a profound impact on our sense of sexual identity?

All of these questions point to one thing: Motherhood is on the brink of a sexual revolution. 

Not only was motherhood a mind, body and soul upheaval, but unexpectedly it was also a confrontation with a societal mirror on maternal sexuality that left me totally perplexed. Was I meant to now prove I’m still sexy in spite of being a mother or did “sexiness” somehow make me maternally inappropriate? I was already having a hard enough time adjusting to my new identity of mama. It felt oppressive to now also worry about my “yummy mummy” status.

As I negotiated "mama sex" on a personal level, and saw the enthusiasm in which the topic was met over mama coffees, drinks and dinners (in awe of the freedom fellow moms felt in sharing with me because of my unique professional background), I felt obliged to merge the first person experiences of modern motherhood with historic and cultural analysis, the root of my training as both an anthropologist and curator. True to my personality as an empathetic mom friend and a proud nerd, this book will very much be an interweaving of anthropological context with my own (as well as other mamas) lived experiences.

Like many of you, I kept asking myself why didn’t anyone tell me, prepare me, educate me on the million and one changes I would soon face in terms of my body, my sense of self, my partnership and my relationship to sex. And I wondered, how does even a "curator of sex" not have enough information, support, resources to tackle the complex web of physical, emotional, historical and social forces that converge in the battleground of motherhood and sexuality?

As a "millennial mother" I’ve come of age feeling as if I was constantly striving toward obtaining the total package of existence---professional success and personal satisfaction.  Before motherhood, I considered the prosperity of my sexuality and desire an interwoven assumption of adulthood. I could only intellectually understand how and why my relationship with sex would change. I smile at the naiveté of my former self.

Since my first child was born nine years ago, being a mother has become one of the prime tenets of my identity, primarily due to its status of forever putting another human being before myself. I have chosen and crafted a form of mothering that is inherently child-centric, one in which I hope my children will later describe as hands-on, participatory, dependable and selfless (and, yes, I will be annoyed if they don't). But I simultaneously fear like the Giving Tree, I might end up giving up so much of myself there wouldn't be "anything left" when my kids are ready to begin their path of independent adulthood. And that "anything left" applies in every direction: my career, my body, my personal goals, my friendships and my relationship with my partner.

While motherhood, for me, has been a magical experience in the good moments, it is also been the job I feel no matter what, I'm somehow still failing at in some capacity. My never ending to-do list often feels like death by a thousand paper cuts of things a mother is meant to remember (which some argue is a process that often begins at the start of heterosexual marriage, with the woman tasked to remember everything from family birthdays to running extra errands and managing the couple’s social calendar). It is the sensation that no matter how on my shit I am, something always falls through the cracks---as if the 1,000 other plates I do keep spinning are invisible to everyone in my family but me.

Academics and social scientists have put words to these aftershocks and reverberations of modern motherhood, with phrases like "mental load” and "emotional labor," which for most of us we will recognize in the soulfully exhausting feeling of having the existential weight of the world on our maternal shoulders. It’s not surprising that terms such as “postnatal depletion,” “second shift,” “motherwhelmed” are becoming key and defining phrases for a generation of mothers.

Many modern mothers feel they are judged not just for what they do, don’t do, don’t do “perfectly” but also for the million things they didn’t even know about---when it comes to our children, pleading ignorance of any of the many things that can negatively impact our children mentally, physically, emotionally, socially and spiritually is maternal suicide. The mental load can be so heavy it’s paralyzing.

As a mother I profoundly identify with this oppressive form of pressure and anxiety about my responsibilities in this role—which is important to note, a role I proactively chose, and felt since I was a little girl was my life’s calling.

Words like "anxiety" and "failing" were far from words of female empowerment that I want for myself or that I want to model for my children. Yet it is this ever-present feeling that, for me, as both a mother and anthropologist, defines modern motherhood --- and last I checked this feeling doesn't make most women in the mood for sex. 

 Modern mamas don't need 5 ways to spice it up in the bedroom; we need help disentangling and freeing ourselves from all of the reasons “mama sex” is so charged and complex a topic, as well as confronting why after so many movements of feminism and sex positivity, it is still such a cultural taboo. 

When celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Beyonce, two women who have made their careers on their own takes on sexual empowerment, are lambasted for these very same displays post motherhood, what does this mean for the rest of us? Too sexy, I’m a bad mom. Not sexy enough, I’m somehow failing as a woman --- that is, if your lens is the media. And beyond the media, another barometer of our culture’s relationship with sex, pornography, a similar archetype was being reinforced. Porn tells us a “MILF” is sexy. So sexy, MILF or a “Mother I’d Like to Fuck” is the subject typed into one in every four internet porn searches. But in the lived reality of so many women, why does MILF feel like an oxymoron?  More than just mixed signals, it’s identity cannibalism for so many of us.  

 With mamas made at different times in a woman’s life, and under a wide range of circumstances, motherhood is a negotiation of identity (and sexuality) at various age grades and life chapters. Considered too young, out come the “teen mom” jabs, considered too old, a punch in the face with the atrocious scientific category, geriatric, the slur of the fertility field. More than just how many times around the sun you’ve been on this planet, “mama sex” is also a complicated recipe between hormones, physiology, relationship status, length of relationship, sexual history, birth story, feeling about one’s body and holistically, sense of self. Throw in a dash of societal tension regarding women’s sexuality as a whole -- age and aging -- and it’s nothing short of identity vertigo---one that makes many of us feel lost and profoundly alone in the dark unknown woods of motherhood.

Separated from our “villages” and traditional avenues of support and maternal education, we are also a generation of mothers confronted with the most intense information deluge that humanity has ever experienced. While generations of mothering ideology is constantly pushed on us: thoughts on how to feed our babies, how to get them to sleep, how to positively parent (i.e. tricks on how to not mess up these neuro-plastic sponges) all reverberating in the pages of fervently read parenting books, mommy blogs and social media posts, the stories and resources to help us navigate becoming a mother (and our subsequent sexuality) are shockingly limited.

 Finding myself in the trenches of new motherhood, and with “sex” as my profession, it quickly became apparent how many of us were struggling, how many of us felt isolated and alone, and how poorly we were being supported by society.

It says a lot about the world we live in that the one golden ticket word that describes the whole complicated mess of becoming a mother- matrescence- an anthropological term to describe the physical, psychological and emotional changes (akin to adolescences) that marks the “birth of a mother,” is a word known by so few of us.

 While the term was first coined in 1973 by medical anthropologist Dana Raphael (she also brought the word “doula” into popular discourse), it was Reproductive Psychiatrist Alexandra Sacks whose 2017 New York Times Article “A Birth of a Mother” and her subsequent TED talk in 2018 that gave the word contemporary cultural momentum. It is said, “In a sense, a mother has to be born psychologically much as her baby is born physically. What a woman gives birth to in her mind is not a new human being, but a new identity.” A cultural light bulb moment for many of us “discovering” a single word that so aptly sums up the convergence of factors that shapes one of the most profound caterpillar to butterfly moments a human could ever experience.

 But matrescence, like its little sister adolescence, also encapsulates the tremendous growing pains that are inherent in this profound transition, many of which are compounded by societies complicated and tumultuous relationship with birth, postpartum, pelvic health and wellness, mental health and female sexuality. While I wish it wasn’t the case, where vaginas are involved, society’s true taboos and hang ups become impossible to ignore.

While motherhood has gained attention in academia since the 1970s—bringing us topics such as maternal theory and matricentric feminism, the field has also asked us to question the politics of childbirth, and the very foundations of Western maternal medicine. Here the historical degradation of female knowledge (hello, witchcraft accusations for birth attendants) and even the ethically compromised roots of gynecology as a discipline (Marion Sims, the father of gynecology conducted fistula surgeries on black female slaves without anesthesia)--- have become well-referenced red flags to many advocating for new approaches --- ones that aim to “decolonize birth” and reintegrate the power of the “sacred feminine.” Distilling much of this for the first time for the general public, the 2008 documentary, The Business of Being Born, was a cultural watershed moment for modern motherhood and a questioning if how we give birth is actually best for mother’s and babies or rather a legacy of outdated approaches, in many cases, with patriarchal and capitalist foundations.

 Particularly in a privileged country such as the United States, what could be accounting for such dismal rates of maternal mortality, rates even more exponentially tragic when compounded by race, ethnicity, and socio-economics? Although matrescence, once discovered, can feel like a cultural panacea, a sword raised to the sky to fight so many maternal health inequalities, it is also an important feminist touchstone that so few of us (and our practitioners) currently integrate this perspective into our perinatal care and support.  Maybe it’s time to rework a system that was so obviously failing so many?

While for the most part these are not the lessons taught in most prenatal classes, more and more individuals are self educating on issues such as the medicalization of birth (treating birth as an illness rather than natural process), birth trauma (experienced both physiologically resulting in postnatal pelvic health problems as well as psychologically, leaving women with a variant of PTSD), the gender health gap (a medical gulf created by gender bias that provides unequal treatment, diagnosis and care), and feminist birth (an approach rooted in a belief that it is a woman’s right to make empowered choices about her birth experience). Wrapped into the movement is a belief that mothers need and deserve a holistic mother centered approach toward birth as well as postpartum, where there is a shift in focus from “I had a baby” to “I became a mom.”

With this differentiation in hand, a movement of maternal advocates and activists, reproductive therapists, pelvic floor physical therapists, doulas, midwives, academics, and more, have helped move the “mama-centric” needle to a cultural tipping point for the every day woman—a tipping point that also wouldn’t have been possible without utilizing the power of storytelling (a form of political resistance we should never underestimate), in normalizing the voice of motherhood.

With our mama voices notoriously absent from history, until very recently our growing rallying cry often felt contained to the doorstep of the converted or trivialized in the ghettos of women's narratives (and just how many times have you heard "mommy” said in a disparaging way), used too often to discredit our concerns, complaints and assertions. As Sarah Knott describes in her book Mother: An Unconventional History, if mothers were even mentioned in the historic record they only appeared in “a single remark in a published diary; a stray sentence or two in a government sponsored interview; a handful of letters in a manuscript; a church record.” Thanks to the narrative democracy of the Internet, mothers no longer needed to accept their status as a historical footnote.  

But in the digital movement of motherhood storytelling, which blossomed in the early naughts, where we have been presented with a revolutionary opportunity to share our voice, we also face a generationally unique challenge of representation. A maternal generation, in many ways defined and characterized by our relationship to technology, we are the first cohort of mothers where this lens of observation is even possible ---and as I entered motherhood in 2011, I joined a world defined by ever-present self-documentation. In these virtual spaces, where we consciously and subconsciously contemplate what the world thinks about us, we are confronted with a loaded choice: are we going to show the world the very best filtered version of our motherhood, with prerequisite matching outfits and strategically places bows, or do we take the picture of us pooping with the kids sitting on our laps? Is our brand of motherhood going to be the projection of “perfection” or the caricature of the “hot mess”? As a generation of mothers who have normalized our lives being photographed and documented online, we simultaneously negotiate the version of “truth” we display---and of course that “truth” extends itself to our portrayal of our own sexuality.

While many laugh at the millennial obsession with social media this social experiment has aided in the formation of ideological communities of motherhood where shared narratives bind us, and remind us how “perfectly normal” and how hard all of it is in this adventure of motherhood. We also find our digital tribes of support unheard of in previous generations—where not surprisingly “mama sex” is a popular topic of conversation. Here our stories --- sad, funny, touching and sometimes fantastically gross --- that are at the core of mama life (and sexuality) can be shared.

From the scheduled sex when getting pregnant isn’t happening as fast as expected to the first sex right after baby to personally, the sex now as we try and figure out if our family will remain a party of four. It is the stories of the sex that negotiates changing desires (mind you, which can happen for both partners) or maybe the desire to try something new and experiment. From we-haven’t-had-sex-in-a-while sex to I’ve-really-missed-connecting-with-you sex and even single mom sexuality, it’s all a part of the evolving narrative of real life “mama sex,” a space that so desperately needs to be normalized --- for our collective benefit.

Any mother of young children knows how soulfully exhausted they are, how they would just kill to have a shower where they actually got to wash all parts of their body without a small invader rushing in, and how feeling your partner isn’t helping out is pretty much the same as gifting you a chastity belt. And while a mama might ideologically love the idea of physical intimacy, the thought of it can come in conflict with the fact many mamas feel over touched--which can also be understood as being touched without consent by little hands across years. (I don’t use the word consent lightly here, as for a generation of women who have been raised on bodily autonomy, while we love nothing more than the cuddles of our children, the additional touch of a partner can feel like an unsanctioned and aggressive system overload). And even when everything is at that relationship even keel, so many of us feel shame our post-partum bodies haven’t “bounced back” or maybe never matched society’s unrealistic expectations in the first place.

Whether it’s feeling less sexy or feeling less of a sex drive (wait your gyno didn’t tell you breastfeeding could lower your estrogen levels and also cause drops in libido as well as vaginal dryness?), these changes in sexual interest and desire, can make a lot of women feel disconnected from their pre-baby sense of self. And if sex is painful (this isn’t an acceptable postnatal outcome) or unpleasurable (I do think we need to call out that not every one was having mind blowing sex even before baby), who in their right mind would want to engage with it? The very same sexual avoidance would be completely expected and understandable if sex felt triggering and/or traumatic as well as if a mother feared another pregnancy—both for physiological or mental load reasons.

And while we like to put all the blame on mama shoulders, we must also address how a partners enculturated taboo about sexual mothers can also cramp our unashamed and unabashed sexual expression, experimentation, desire and rightful pleasure. “Mama Sex” has a goldilocks complex: too little sex is considered problematic (particularly if it is seen as “depriving a male partner”), too much sex (or sex acts deemed as not mainstream i.e. vanilla and heternormative) are judged as incompatible with the title of “Good mother” and “selfless” mothering.

What a massive and burdensome laundry list of physical, mental, emotional and social reasons sex has changed since motherhood, which combined with the toxic mixture of resentment, exhaustion, and stress, I argue has intensified in our generation... surprise, surprise … doesn’t make for a satisfactory mama sex life.

Dick In My Back

“Did we just have a quickie? Like a day time one?

With one child at the neighbours and a baby asleep in the cot it seemed like a perfect opportunity. I mean I've been turning him down for long enough I actually felt bad. Knowing it was only going to take a few minutes and I'll have a day of any food I want to eat, listen to any music I want and an early night. Sounds delightful right?!

 

Rewind back this morning I've had dad sex jokes thrown at me all morning. Packages dropped on my shoulder, dry humping my leg and asking if I want sausage to eat. I would hardly say it was romantic. I may have to admit it was quick and slightly obligated. I was definitely not prepared and thankful I was in my period undies (which have now become the daily undies) which have barely any elastic for quick removal. We picked who would be first to get up incase of 'Surprise I'm home' children turned up. Opting him because well let's face it my jeans take way to long to pull back up. 

True to the name "quickie" it was over before I knew it. A slight make up fix and hair fix and we're ready to go. 

The amount of times I have turned down this mans "charms" one would assume I was ungrateful. I think more tired and exhausted would describe it best. I'm not normally your day time quickie kinda person but today I thought the amount of effort he has put into every sexual advance it would just be plain mean of me.

 

Now I sit here in my pjs eating a block of chocolate watching a movie knowing I can go to bed without feeling bad...Totally worth it. Sometimes it's worth just going with it. Silver lining he's happy for the next few days and I'm going to bed without dick jabbed in my back.”

---- blogger Mel Watts of The Modern Mumma (2016)

 

Where a quickie once felt exciting for its erotic nature, in motherhood it can often become quick lets get this over with before the kids come in a la the Modern Mumma. Yes, time is at a premium in modern motherhood, and there is a certain satisfaction mothers feel about the tick of a list (an ever so little lightening of the mental load), but I also think many of us would like to look at sex as more than just another obligation fulfilled.

Dick jabs in the back empathy aside, nothing in this very relatable anecdote (so much so it went viral in 2016, even picked up by US Weekly) screams of the woman’s own erotic satisfaction. While this kind of blow-by-blow sexual sharing is an antithesis to the historically perceived fake smiles of 1950s complacent domesticity, in a climate of social media full disclosure as a symbol of empowerment, its also clear sexual frankness and sexual satisfaction are not synonymous. After half a century of efforts toward sex positivity and the support of female sexual pleasure, modern mothers deserve better than guilt driven, obligatory sex, as our dominant narrative --- a desire which has fueled a revolution.

 In many ways, the mama sex revolution is about calling out the metaphorical societal dick that’s being jammed into each of our backs.

** 

So with a sea of anthropological dots to connect, in 2017, I officially began writing about "mama sex," snatching moments here are there between the never-ending responsibilities of motherhood, a move overseas (we transplanted from New York to London) and other work projects/distractions that always seemed to take precedence. While I was often frustrated by what has felt like the longest literary gestation imaginable, only now can I see how that time benefited the holistic approach of this book.  As I ebbed from newborn, toddler and school age children evolving my relationship to motherhood, the topic of “mama sex” has also gone through an evolution where more and more people giving it the attention it deserves.  

Like most revolutions, the mama sex winds have been stirring and picking up momentum for some time, gaining strength in the last decade or so as women and mothers dominate and monetize the power of social media and blogging platforms where a growing trend toward brutal and refreshing honesty, and real life documentation emerged. Here in this groundswell of maternal narrative making, education and advocacy, where it is said, “Motherhood is the unfinished business of feminism,” the mama sex revolution has asked us to take one, critical step further than just being “mama-centric,” and has asked us to address how our society’s relationship with maternal identity, bodies, and sexuality--compounded by our contemporary culture of maternal burn-out--has created a "anti-aphrodisiac" tidal wave, completely unique to modern motherhood.

All these factors combined made me ponder the larger history of motherhood: If generations of mothers sincerely felt like motherhood was so UNRELENTING (yes, it’s an all caps kind of feeling), how and why has our species continued? Is motherhood some kind of cover up or sadistic pyramid scheme? Instead, I have to believe our foremothers weren’t in on some sinister inside joke --- perhaps they actually experienced motherhood differently, and by extension motherhood today is a whole new beast—one that is tremendously impacting modern mothers relationship with sex.

While it’s not to imply that motherhood in other times was a cake walk – we all know the experience of motherhood is profoundly shaped through economics, resources, security and freedoms--- what could it be, anthropologically speaking, that is making motherhood in this very moment in history unlike motherhood in any other time? And why is this version of motherhood having such a profound impact on women's happiness and mental health? And why is modern motherhood, despite feminist beliefs held by so many, so often in combatance with a woman's sense of self, sexuality identity and/or sexual satisfaction?

All of these questions boiled down to one assertion: We become mothers in the womb of society, and modern motherhood deserves better. In researching all the reasons so many are struggling with “mama sex,” it became painfully clear that too many mother’s are casualties of inadequate perinatal and postpartum support (both psychologically and physically) as well as the emotional exhaustion of living in the "motherwhelmed" culture of modern motherhood. To add even more complexity, we are also inheriting

a mountain of maternal sexual baggage (Madonna-whore, anyone?) that often feels to battle with our twenty-first century fight for equality (in the workplace, in our homes, and in our bedrooms) --- and many of us are tired of carrying the weight of internalizing it all.

Modern motherhood deserve an ideological “womb” that not only re-tweaks its attitude towards childbirth and postpartum care, fully integrates matrescence into discourse and practice, but also one that understands how our newly formed maternal identity can’t be disentangled from social, cultural and historical pressures and inputs (how our mothers and their mothers attitudes influence and impact us, just being one of many). And as roll models ourselves (yes, those little eyes are always on us), if we ignore the mama sex revolution, cast it to the side, continuing to put ourselves at the bottom of the list and fail to model positive demonstrations of love and intimacy, all we are doing is setting the stage for the next generation of mothers, the ones we nurture, to inherit our same albatross.

It is my deepest hope that if we confront and unpack all these combustible elements, this collision of social-cultural-historical factors triggers --- one no previous generation of mothers has seen the like of because we are unlike any previous generation of mothers --- the mama sex revolution could successfully fight against all of the many, many ways society is fucking with our sex lives, with the ultimate goal of (re)-claiming sexuality on our own and individual terms, as well as for the future generation of mamas ,who like us, deserve better.