Better sex after kids

Sex can get better after kids.  Really.

I am well acquainted the million reasons why sex is harder to have after kids: time, exhaustion, and lack of interest, to name a few.  But I talk to many moms who say that once they  actually have sex, they feel more free to explore their sensuality then they did before kids and the quality of sex they have is better than it was before they had children.  Mind you, these are not moms of newborns, because if you are a mom of a baby who thinks sex is better than it was before you gave birth–please contact me, I’d LOVE to hear your story.  But many moms (including me) say that sex (once you get around to having it) is better after kids for many reasons.

You are less inhibited

Once you’ve pushed a large baby out of your vagina while your partner watched, or had your entrails moved aside to pull that precious one out of your womb, the hang-ups you had before becoming a mom tend to change.  Of course we still have our  idiosyncrosies, but many moms feel more at ease with their sexuality and their bodies after becoming moms.   Three moms on this blog recently shared their stories about learning how to orgasm, buying their first vibrator, and getting kinkier after having kids–all because they  felt free to try things they had been embarrassed to try before.  What sexual inhibitions have you lost since you had kids?

You’ve been together so long, you know just what buttons to push.

I’ve been having sex with my husband for 13 years.  Yes, sometimes it can feel like the same old, same old if we don’t put the time and effort into really warming up and feeling each other as a separate entities (being together so long, it can be easy to forget we are not the same person.)  But it’s amazing to know and expect that he will hit just the right spots and do just the right things–because at this point, he knows what turns me on and makes me orgasm as well as I do.  When I want more time or attention on a certain spot, it’s my job is to keep the focus there for as long as I need it to be.  While the downside of being with someone for a long time is that you know each other so well it can be tempting to rush through it and get to the orgasms quickly, the upside is you have become experts in the types of lovemaking you each want.

You’re not afraid to ask for what you want.  And to make sure you get it.

Many moms tell me that becoming moms not only loosened their inhibitions, but made them more proactive at figuring out what they like in the bedroom and at making sure they get it.  They are better at communicating their sexual needs, they tell their partner what they want and how they want it.  Here are some of the things moms tell me they want :

• Sharing fantasies
• Reading or watching something erotic before sex.
• Full body massages before foreplay.
• Just the right spot–the right amount of pressure–for the right amount of time.
• Kinky play: costumes, toys, role-playing, new locations, you name it.
• Dates
• Good lube!!

Sex with your partner can be titillating (especially with kids at home!)

Remember how sexy it felt to sneak around to mess around when you were younger?  Having kids at home offers ample opportunity for similar shenanigans.  There is nothing more tiring for most moms than trying to get in the mood to have sex after a long day.  Sneaking around during the day when you’re both home and finding creative ways to get it on with your honey adds an added layer of excitement and freshness to sex.  And when you’ve been with your partner for years–who couldn’t use more excitement and freshness?  These are some of the ways moms tell me they make time for illicit encounters with their partner.

• Nap time!  Every mom’s favorite hour of the day, perfect for masturbation and sex
• T.V. time–the kids are so zoned out you could do it behind the couch and they’d probably not notice.
• Sex in other parts of the house–bathrooms, closets, basements, garden sheds, laundry rooms–you name it, moms have done it.
• Quickies.  After the kids are in bed is when you have time for foreplay, but during the day the rush of getting it on quickly and surreptitiously can make for thrilling sex.
• Stealing hidden looks full of promise for clandestine nookie–or tantalizing glances that make you blush remembering your last illicit encounter.

Has your sex life gotten better since having kids?

Confessions of a secret romance enthusiast: Savvy husbands love smut.

This may be my most embarrassing secret.  Really.  It’s right at the top, along with the time I was traveling abroad and eating all sorts of street food when Montezuma suddenly took his revenge and I shat myself in the middle of the street had to waddle countless blocks back to my lodging like a constipated penguin, trailed by a line of stray dogs sniffing my butt while I cried myself silly and  tried to stop the floodgates from bursting (and I don’t mean the tears).

Now you know that too.

Anyway, my secret is this: I love romance novels.

Yes, I said it.  And those of you who know me and read this blog, now know this deep, humiliating fact about me. Or, if you have ever received armfuls of romance novels I “got” from someone else and wanted to pass them on since I “don’t read them,” now you know that that may or may not have been true.

A literary review of my smut evolution would go something like this.

       At the young age of thirteen, a tattered Kathleen E. Woodwiss pulled off the shelf at my church book sale introduced me to worlds of heaving bosoms, women masquerading as men, nighttime trysts under mistaken identities, and many, many mental meanderings where I imagined what a throbbing member might look like, or (gasp!) feel like, netting me more than one sharp reprimand in seventh-grade English for daydreaming.

       In high school and college I experimented with Nora Roberts, Georgette Heyer, and Lisa Kleypas who became my  gateways into the historical romance realms of silk, jewel-toned evening gowns that turn dowdy spinsters into ravishing beauties; witty butlers who double as secret agents; and moneyed, sardonic English gentlemen with perfectly creased cravats. And let’s not forget the Western romances where tightly buttoned East-coast ladies lose their hearts (and all those buttons!) to rugged, tanned, stallion-riding, bad-guy lassoing ranchers or Comanche warriors.

       Leading me to paranormal, fantasy, and vampire romance novels that have taken me from the dark forests of Washington state to the deep hot South where any imaginable mix of human, vampire, fairy, werewolf, and demon romance and sex happens, and even weird half-human babies with sharp teeth have predestined lovers.

I know I share this affliction with millions of other American women.  Romance would not top the best-seller lists without us.  But I say affliction only half-joking.

Why is it a cause of embarrassment?  Surely I’m not the only gal who shoves my smut in the bottom drawers of my bedroom dresser and prominently displays the high-brow literature I  intend to read at some point or another (or at least spent good money on in college) in my living room bookcases.  I know I’m smart: I have, and do read and enjoy smart books.  Reading romance does not make me stupid.  And a good romance novel is like none other for taking me away from it all.  For me, they’re mommy fairy tales.

I currently live in a very small, very real world of too little sleep, too much caffeine, chauffeuring children, poopy pants, tantrums,  unbrushed hair, dirty laundry, and a partner who–though I love him more than I did the day I married him–does not give me lingering, searing looks across crowded ballrooms that make my skin tingle, nor will he ever buy me a gorgeous thoroughbred for my morning jaunts in Hyde Park (with a smashing riding cape to match), and introduce me to the Queen.

But romance novels can.  Of course there are bad romance novels, some so bad even I can’t read them.  But why should I be ashamed of the good ones–the fun, quick reads that make me laugh, cry, and yes, get turned on?

Seriously.

My husband is not embarrassed in the least by my affliction.  My very smart husband knows that even when he thinks there isn’t a chance in hell that we’ll have sex, if he can get me to draw a hot bath with a glass of wine and relax into it with the latest Julia London, or Jennifer Weiner, his chances incrementally go up according to the number of chapters I’ve read before I come to bed.

And on those other nights–when I come to bed cranky and irritable–he’ll smile at me from his pillow with a sweetly hopeful look and ask, “Don’t you have any books you want to read tonight?”