Even Sexperts Struggle with Intimacy in Motherhood

I have learned that our sexuality is...

It has so much more than just to do with sex.

It has to do with the culture that we're living in.

It has to do with how you're feeling as an individual.

It has to deal with how you're feeling about your partner.

It's not just like, "I'm in the mood.

I'm not in the mood.

I find you attractive.

I don't find you attractive."

When you've got kids, there are so many factors that go into whether or not you're in the mood.

Early on, you may be dealing with a birth injury.

You may be breastfeeding and feel touched out.

You may be exhausted and resentful for doing most of the child rearing, and later, as Sarah discovered, your reasons for not being in the mood may be more emotional than physical.

I have two kids.

I have a girl and a boy, uh, age 12 and 14.

You know, our household is full of all of the hormones of preteen teenagers, perimenopausal women, so there's a lot of intensity of feelings and opinions and emotions.

This is The Longest Shortest Time.

I'm Hillary Frank, and Sarah Forbes has a new book called Mama Sex.

It's partly a history of how modern culture has desexualized mothers, the irony being, of course, that sex is the way many mothers become mothers.

In the book, Sarah also investigates how moms feel about their own sexuality.

She did a survey of more than 300 moms and found that about half the participants don't feel a desire for sex.

Nearly 40% felt they had different sexual needs from their partners, and 25% wished they were having more sex.

If you've been struggling with intimacy after becoming a mom, I think you'll get a lot out of Sarah's book.

Also, we've got a whole series on sex and parenthood, which I'll link to in the show notes.

But the part of Mama Sex that captivated me the most was when Sarah described her own experience with sex and parenthood, going from someone who had a healthy sex life before kids to someone who had an unhealthy sex life after kids.