S*x Life Balance and Motherhood
5 Years Into Life with Kids and Intimacy
“The cleavage between reason and passion is an ancient theme but no anachronism; it has endured because it speaks to the deep human experience of a divided mind.” (A General Theory of Love, 2000)
My oldest son just turned 5 and I’ve been reflecting on my life over the last 5 years of motherhood. We’ve been through so much! A global pandemic, moving a few times, starting preschool and preschool shutting down, birthing a second baby, losing my mind and stabilizing over and over again. Holy shit-balls wow! And you know what? I’m pretty much OK. I’m basically healthy and often happy within the stress of it all. Obviously I’m fucking exhausted.
Most impressively my husband and I still have great sex regularly. Yes you heard it here first! It’s true. We have 2 babies and we are back to making love 2-3 times a week. If you’re a parent and you’re thinking, “That’s impossible!” or, “Fuck you! You’re lying.” Please know, that I’m saying this to inspire, not to compare ourselves. If you’re not a parent and you’re thinking, “2-3 times a week? That’s easy!” I remember what that felt like too, and time is so different now juggling 2 little people’s needs. I understand why most parents just give up having sex altogether. But that is not for me! It is possible to keep the flame aglow.
Some of you may be familiar with my old project called: What’s the Difference Between Sex, Fucking, and Making Love? In this project I asked anyone who would talk to me this question and wrote down all the answers, as part of my Sexual Autobiography project from Human Sexuality class when I was 19. I did a deep dive into my own sexuality and how it evolved from birth. It was an amazing experience and I’m feeling like it would be fun to do this again with parents or maybe anyone in their 30’s, 40’s, or older.
I’ll start. Here’s what’s changed for me. I save sex for just the two of us now- my husband and myself- but I notice that from day to day we are always different. Our bodies are different, our minds are different, and our needs are different. We feel very safe together which means we are free to explore and learn new things. We’ve started watching Tantric Sex videos and reading sexy books together to inspire each other and to connect our minds.
So What’s the Difference Between Sex, Fucking, and Making Love now, as a 36 year old parent? My answer is that we go in and out of all 3 of these labels each time we come together. What is really different now is that sexuality is more about sustaining my relationship with my husband as well as my relationship with myself, with my own body, with my sense of embodied pleasure and freedom. I notice that if we go too many days or weeks without having sex we are grumpy, stressed and we don’t really like each other like this. Sex is about connection to self, to other, to the whole world; like fucking the entire universe.
I remember when I was 19 and living in San Francisco I asked my older writer-friend at the SF Zen Center (she was probably 35 at the time) this question, and she said something like: I’ll start with the one that seems the most fun to me, which right now is fucking. When we feel safe enough to get really into it, it’s like we are fucking the whole world, like everything is connected. At the time I probably smiled and nodded knowingly but I had no idea what she was talking about. Now I do.
Sex now, is about dropping in with my husband and with myself, so deeply that I lose myself. Sexuality now is about the pleasure of being alive and connected to all living beings and finding complete freedom in my mind and body. Orgasms are about exploding and being brave enough to die a little; An ego death. It’s interesting because often I notice there’s a moment of fear as I head towards an orgasm because if I really let myself go I get lost almost. Like everything goes black and bursts into flames, a million fireworks shooting through my body, and I have no control anymore over my face, the sounds I make or the movements of my body. My ego dies a little in the most beautiful way.
Also it’s ironic because we have way less time and freedom to find this place together, now with 2 little kids. Somehow this makes it even more important to carve out this time, even if it’s only 20 minutes. It’s about allowing the time we do have to be timeless, sacred, and not goal oriented. If we have orgasms, wonderful, but if we only have time to snuggle naked and take a cat-nap, that can be really beautiful and rejuvenating too. The lines of sexuality are less clear in a way now.
It’s funny that parents have so little time to have sex but also need it the most to keep the connection alive. It makes me wonder how many more parents and couples would stay together if they were having regular sex. I’m feeling like my husband and I have, at least for the time being, found a sexuality hack as parents and it looks like this: we make intimacy dates so we can carve out time together and look forward to reconnecting on a regular basis. It usually begins with getting naked, snuggling up and resting (sometimes after watching a video or reading something sexy). We invite exploration and being present with each other, with no pressure to end at a certain place.
Our sex life was not always like this. Before kids we slept naked and would ravish each other spontaneously with timeless passion, desperately like we needed to come together to survive. Was this just the biology of 2 young people before having kids or was it love? I’ll never really know. Probably it was a combination of both. In any case, we’ve been having sex now for nearly 10 years, 5 of which with babies, and a lot has changed. I’m grateful for both our pre-baby and post-babies experiences.
Now that we are 5 years in with babies, I feel very “in it” with figuring out this life together as a family and figuring out how to maintain some sense of self- the freedom passionate wild self that I love- while also being totally enmeshed in family life. For now I feel like our sex life is yummy and healthy. Now on to reinvigorating my career, being more available to our wider community, and making sure we have great childcare for both boys as our oldest looks towards kindergarten. There’s a lot cooking.
That’s about all the time I have to write for now. I’ll end with an invitation and a gift.
Invitation: What’s the difference between Sex, Fucking, and Making Love? You can answer in the comments below! Let go of judgment, of the inner critic and just share honestly. There’s no wrong answer. Maybe you answered my original survey when you were 19, and your answer has changed. Let’s learn and grow together and welcome sensuality and pleasure into this life.
Gift: One Woman’s Orgasm
“The atmosphere has to be warm, comfortable. No harsh sounds. Feeling of delicious warmth all over my skin, like covered with warm velvet. Then I begin to concentrate on increasingly pleasant sensations. I feel like I have something extremely warm and soft in my mouth. Sensations more and more strong and pleasurable in clitoral area begin radiating from there to all parts of me. My heart pounds like crazy. I only breathe when I have to. Every part of me seems to extend from my clitoris: head, throat, feet. Then it happens- deep, warm waves roll over and through me in a beautiful rhythm. I always think ‘this is the best ever.’ And then it stops. I’d like to get past the comparison so it would last forever.”
(For Yourself, one woman’s orgasm, 1975)