The Naughty Mommy Column

Archived Columns

2008-09-30T12:42:00.000-07:00

These are partial archives of my Sex in the Suburbs column which ran on Literarymama.com. Enjoy!

The Naughty Mommy and Me

2005-12-19T21:40:00.000-08:00

More often than not, when I tell another mom I write a sex column for moms the first thing they say is: "Sex -- what's that?" or "Ours would have to be the 'No Sex' column." The second thing they usually say, especially if they've read a few of the columns, is, "Wow -- do you really let your husband read these?" or "What does your husband think of your column?"

As a matter of fact, I do let him read my columns, although he often opts out, especially if he notices I'm wearing a particularly nasty grin as I type away on the laptop. As for what he thinks of the column; well, let's ask him!

The Naughty Mommy: Hi, Love. Hey, before we get started, did you ever take the garbage out?

My Man: Um. Uh. Yes I did. But I admit that I saw a dead rat out there in the alley by the garbage can and I just left it there.

TNM: Wow. YOU are charming. OK, down to business. So what do you think of my columns -- do you even read them?

MM: I absolutely read some of them. In fact, early on I read them all, but now I don't because I want you to be free to write whatever you want without worrying about my feelings. But how do I feel? I'm incredibly proud. I tell all my friends and workmates about it, you know, and then I realize that they'll know how long it takes me to climax.

TNM: Good answer. Are you hitting on me?

MM: I'm proud of your writing, and I'm not saying that just to get some action, but I wouldn't turn it down either.

TNM: How does it feel when you show up as the Hero/Villain in my column?

MM: It's weird having your private life in print. I don't mind strangers reading it, but my daughter's preschool teacher, my auntie? About being seen as a hero or a villain, I really couldn't care less. Some reader sent an email seriously suggesting I get some counseling, which I got a big kick out of. And the fact is the trade-off is good. I've had more sex than ever since you started writing the column.

TNM: What should all the tired/frustrated/not-so-naughty-anymore naughty mommies out there know about their husbands?

MM: That nothing makes us feel less naughty than the thought we have to do a chore to get you to consent to have sex with us.

TNM: But how else can I get you to clean the bathroom?

MM: It's not that you don't have a right to be unhappy if one of us is doing more chores than the other, but back to the sex part, it's just like, "Jeez, don't YOU ever want to do it?"

TNM: For the record, Darling, sometimes I do. Just the other day I was watching an old Blues Clues rerun and I started fantasizing about me and that Steve getting it on. I think he must be a sexual dynamo underneath all those stripes. What about you? Any strange attractions? Who's on top of your MILF (Moms I'd Like to Fuck) list?

MM: Well, it's very confusing for me, because when we watch the O.C. (Thursday nights, 8:00pm, FOX)I'm attracted to Kirsten, the hot mom character, but at the same time I'm dying to get with Summer, the hot teenager. So . . . what does that say? I'm closer in age to the mom, so I should be attracted to her, but the age I was when I was last allowed to look at women was the teenager, so . . . . Then of course, nothing feels wrong about me and Julie Cooper. She's saucy!

TNM: I LOVE that you watch the O.C. with me. Even though it's pretty pathetic as far as hot dates go, it works for me. Speaking of fantasy, what’s your favorite post-baby fantasy? What was your favorite pre-baby one?

MM: Pre-baby: doing you from behind while a lovely stripper fondled your nipples. Post-baby: me fondling your nipples.

TNM: You love the nipples. How was that for you when I was nursing?

MM: Well, I can't really complain. I have painfully sensitive nipples myself. I have to wear undershirts out of necessity. So I guess I should have some empathy. But dammit! Those used to be mine. Now it's like a de-militarized zone there.

TNM: So then what's your favorite part of my body, post-baby, if the boobies are still touch and go?

MM: My favorite part, then and now, has always been the outside of your thigh one inch up from the knee.

TNM: What's one way you know FOR SURE you will get some action?

MM: If I cry.

TNM: You are SO right! I love it when you cry. It's sexy.

MM: Yeah. Sure. But I can't just pimp out my emotions like that.

TNM: Oh, but you should. Hey, what do you miss most about our sex life post-kid?

MM: Those furious, fast-as-we-can fucks in an alley after closing time. They only lasted two minutes and our clothes never came off, but the threat of being caught made it all so hot. Which sounds a lot like our current sex life, except the alley and the hot part.

TNM: So, my love, are we really spillproof?

MM: I've always felt, for as long as I can remember . . . hmm . . . that we were built to last. That we had one of those special loves. It doesn't mean that I can't be an asshole, or that you're not psycho, but by the end of the night we’re going to go to bed saying I love you.

TNM: Well, keep talking like that and we'll be going to bed saying something else altogether, you naughty boy. That's even better than you crying. Now fetch me some wine.

The Naughty Mommy is a full time "domestic engineer" who enjoys a wonderful and mostly tame life with her husband and semi-feral three year old daughter. Email her at naughtymommy@comcast.net.

Freedom, Baby: Part 2

2005-12-19T21:32:00.000-08:00

By The Naughty Mommy

-- Lisa Loeb

"Go! Go! Go!" my husband commands, pushing me out the door. "You're going to be late!" I am in a fuddle about what to wear to the soccer game he has pushed me into -- friends of friends who play casually each Sunday.

"Why am I even going?" I pout, nervous about this new solo adventure, about being one of two women playing with a group of men I have never met. "I haven't played in like a hundred years. Forget it."

"You're going," he says, walking me to the car, "because you love soccer."

Correction. I loved soccer, once, a long time ago. Back before I discovered boys and make up and the thrill of sneaking cigarettes in dark alleys. Back before I threw myself into one night stands and other people and true love. Back before I learned to care more about others than myself, and certainly back before Mother-Love polished off what little me was left, seducing me with gray contentment, leaving me awkward and clunky in my old self, my own desires and wants buried under a steely mother bliss. Clink clank, clink clank, my heart, my heart for you.

Now, I can feel destiny tugging at my heels; muted colors, khaki clothing, a life for others. I am a step away from Monochrome Mother; I am but a small SUV away from becoming -- insert horror movie scream here -- A Soccer Mom.

The soccer moms of the kids I grew up with were masters of sideline gossip, always perfectly coifed and absolutely committed to over-involvement in their children's lives. They shuttled their children to ballet and piano and birthday parties seemingly without question, didn't work outside the home and had no apparent hobbies, desires, personality, or teams of their own. They looked perfect, acted perfect, and appeared perfectly happy slicing oranges, fighting stains, and hosting elaborate ice-cream parties. Later, of course, I would hear of their depressions, their divorces, the affairs, the now-open closets. But at the time, I envied, then hated, their apparent satisfaction. I wanted my own mom to give in to domestic motherhood as easily, to join the ranks of beige overcoats clucking on the sidelines. I wanted her to choose that life, not follow her own. I desperately wanted her to be what I am now running from. A stiff. Empty. Zombie Mama.

***

I am sprinting to beat a 22-year-old Argentian boy to the ball. We get there at the same time and crash into each other, our heat and breath and sweat co-mingling as we fall, arms and legs into each other.

"Sorry! Sorry!" he shouts, jumping up and offering me his hand. I take it -- it is electric. His youth, his energy, his thinly veiled attraction to me are arythmic. I freeze and for a moment envision our life together; freedom in the Argentinian heat, no kids, no husband, no details. We roll in warm rain, our skin like fire, consuming. He is dark, untamed, relentless. We spend hours sipping Mate and reading poetry. He sings a song in my ear, I inhale his youth, get lost, forget.

I snap back to reality, pull myself up, and get back in the game. I am ridiculously out of shape. My legs are shaky, my muscles exhausted. I tell myself to slow down, take it easy, go home, but I know I won't. Here, on the soccer field, my body remembers movement, sensation, the clarity of adrenaline. Here, I am free; I have a pulse; I'm alive. They can't make me go back, I think, and I drift for a minute into a flash of memory. My mom in brown corduroy overalls, the faint smell of pot, a guitar. She is singing to me a Betty Carter folk song, the lyrics now bearing weight I could never understand before: "Freight train freight train goin' so fast/freight train freight train goin' so fast/please don't tell what train I'm on/and they won't know where I've gone."

It suddenly strikes me as another irony of motherhood that we arrive here via that essential and inalienable human right, Freedom of Choice. Because to me, Mother-Love is the anti-freedom, the anti-choice. I can't grow out of it, break up with it, get over it. It is tireless and amnesic; it makes me forget I have I ever desired anything else, ever dreamed different kinds of dreams.

***

I get home to find a clean, quiet house. While my daughter naps, my husband draws me a bath and sits at the edge of the tub as I show off my new scrapes, my new good mood. He feigns jealousy as I tell him about the young Argentinian, the unexpected body-bumping bonuses of co-ed soccer. Suddenly, I'm wistful. I tell him about a crowded bus ride I once took, in stop and go San Francisco traffic. How I fell forward into the man in front of me, innocently at first, then stayed there, pressed against this stranger, feeling his heat, his desire, his confusion. How two stops later, we were even closer, my hips rubbing against his, my face in his chest, more bumping, more stopping, more going.

"What happened to that girl?" I ask, watching my husband undress and slip into the tub with me, his body showing the effects of all this talk, this steam, my nakedness. "Where did she get off to?"

"I think," he says, kissing the bruise beginning to show on my upper thigh while moving generously, slowly, up, "that she's still . . . right . . . here . . ."

With all the excitement my husband comes quickly, pulling out just in time -- a dangerous game I won't play anymore. Just like that, I have decided there are some things that are easier for me to do with one kid, easier to do if I don't find myself pregnant again just yet. Things I had forgotten once mattered to me, things like soccer, and sex, and having a life.

***

When I show up to my OB–GYN's office, she is out delivering a baby. I opt to stick with my appointment by using the on-call doctor and take it as a good sign when she introduces herself as -- no joke --Dr. Freely.

While Dr. Freely preps me, I lie back on the exam table and study the butterfly mobile hanging from the ceiling. I cramp as she inserts a copper IUD into my uterus. This is a (now mostly) safe, non-chemical form of birth control that can last up to ten years. The butterflies blur with a sharp, searing pain, and I realize I am crying. I cry for all the sterile ceilings I have stared up at in my life: my first trip to Planned Parenthood, an abortion when I was 19, the birth of my daughter. I cry because I will most likely never be pregnant by accident again, maybe never even pregnant again. I cry because I can feel history in the making. I can feel the power this choice holds, the weight of this gift, the choices I have now that my own mother and grandmother did not.

I hug Dr. Freely on the way out, pick up my daughter from preschool, and float unsettled and giddy through the day much as I did when I first discovered I was pregnant; my little secret inside me, my life, my dreams.

***

That night, I dream the boys from soccer have invited me to join them as travelling gypsies in far away places. In my dream, I am thrilled, vibrant, flirtateous. It is not until I am actually at the airport that it hits me -- in the same shocking dream way you realize you have shown up to school naked -- that I could never go. That I have a daughter, a husband, a life.

I wake up and pull my daughter close, my husband loops an arm around us both. Sometimes, I'm learning, you don't have to run to be free. Sometimes it's all right here.

The Naughty Mommy is a full time "domestic engineer" who enjoys a wonderful and mostly tame life with her husband and semi-feral daughter. Email her at naughtymommy@comcast.net.

Freedom, Baby: Part 1

2005-12-19T21:31:00.000-08:00

By The Naughty Mommy

"Maintaining your own identity is not only essential to your mental health, it's vital to the health of your relationships. Without a strong sense of self, you won't neccesarily feel entitled to your own desires."

-- From Sexy Mamas, Keeping Your Sex Life Alive While Raising Kids, by Cathy Winks and Anne Semans

It is ironic that after employing extremely passive and dare I say, idiotic, birth-control methods for the first half of my sexual life, I am now in a situation where it would be entirely appropriate to get pregnant -- and I have become a birth-control fascist. Snuggled in bed, my husband's foot accidentally grazes mine -- but I am prepared: "No cover, no lover," I state, pulling the sheet to cover any skin irresponsibly exposed. Bewildered, he takes the time to remind me that our daughter is sleeping between us, that he has to wake up painfully early, and that, despite my overwhelming charm, he is simply not in the mood. "Still," I say, scooting to safety on my side of the bed, "you can never be too safe."

It's not that I don't like babies; I do. Perdiodically I even check my doorstep to see if one has shown up. None has -- yet -- but I stay vaguely hopeful, especially during those times of the month I'm ovulating or have discovered yet another perfect/so cute/totally-to-die-for name. But the truth is, most days I want another baby about as much as I want sex: I'm sure I would like it if it happened, but frankly, it seems like a lot work.

It's not just the prospect of reaquainting myself with unrelenting morning (Ha! Try 24-hour!) sickness or another horribly stressful ("Non-Stress Test?" Ha!) pregnancy. It's not those early days of poop, puke, and deprivation that turn me off, or the sketchy division of labor (both kinds!) or the fact that with a single three-year-old I am beginning to recognize my husband again, beginning to enjoy a vocabulary that includes words like: "Quiet-time" "Play-date" and "Sleep-over." No. What really gets me about babies is the oppressive nature of fresh Mother-Love. The way it burrows itself into every part of me, the way it sneaks up so sweetly; a life sentence with no time off for good (or more importantly, bad) behavior, no sick days, no easy outs. Mother-Love is the stickiest, grabbiest, most dangerously satisfying kind of love. It's the kind of love that can make even the most devoted mommy fantasize about getting in her stationwagon and going and going and never coming back, just to make sure she could. Just to make sure she was still herself.

* * *

With three years of this parenting gig under my belt, I feel like I am cheating. I am, after all, a stay-at-home mom of a kid who is not even at home three mornings a week. I watch the moms at swim lessons and preschool with a combination of horror and envy as they lug around their sleeping seconds, desperate to distribute energy and attention with motherly fairness. Part of me wants to be in that club; to know I can, to earn my wings, to get that prestigious two-kid street credibility. With time to breathe, I feel like a fake. With time for me, I feel guilty. As intoxicating as my fledgling freedom is, I can't help but envy the way other moms seem so wonderfully busy and full of purpose. The way they never seem to run out of laundry or kids to chase, the way they never get a chance to sit across from their husband and wonder what to talk about, the way they never have to sit alone in a moderately clean house and wonder what the hell they are doing with their lives.

* * *

"So, what do you do?" the cute bartender asks me. I am out. At night. With friends. Childless! I am utterly befuddled. Three years of Mother-Love stupor renders me useless and empty in this foreign enviornment. "I'm a homemaker," I stutter, the ancient word sticking to my tongue. For a minute he is confused. In this industrial artsy crowd he actually thinks I make homes. Build homes. But a moment later he gets it, and a moment after that we're both relieved when he gets called away to escort some drunk guy out.

* * *

My daughter is a know-it-all. On the way to preschool she lectures me on what she's learned about caterpillars, butterflies, cocoons. "She's so independent," her teacher says, as my daughter pushes me out the door. I have a sudden urge to grab my daughter and tell her how I know a thing or two about butterflies, too. I want to make her remember the hours we spent, no, the days we spent walking at the Berkeley Marina, knee high in weeds and wild flowers. How she would shriek in delight from her backpack at the Monarchs circling us. How I would point to them, and say, "Butterfly," and she would clap and grin and wrap her arms around my neck where I could kiss the dimples on her chubby hands.

I want to tell her about the night her dad tried to take me out, to loosen me up, to reconnect on one of our first post-baby dates; how he leaned over to kiss me, how I turned instead to the plastic butterfly taped to the cash register and said out loud, to no one in particular, "Butterfly." I know a thing or two about butterflies. And cocoons.

Instead, I blow her a kiss and head off, unsure how to spend my free time. Across the street, I walk into a children's consignment store to browse. I pick out size three pants but they look enormous. I hang them back up and touch the baby clothes on my out; the onesies, the footsies, the tiny little sundresses with tiny matching hats.

I get home with two hours left still before it's time to pick her up. I write a little. I read a little. I take a long, leisurely shower; I shave, I exfoliate. I step out light-headed, the heat and freedom conspiring. I call downstairs, where my husband works from home, and ask him if he can take his lunch yet. "I'll be up in a minute," he shouts, but I have other plans. I walk naked into his office, unbutton his pants and sit on his lap. "I want to make you happy," I say, climbing him. In a moment of weakness I let him inside me, condom-free. A freebie, for old time's sake.

After a minute he pulls back out and begins kissing me. "But what can I do for you?" he asks, eyebrows arched, playful, committed. "What do you want?"

And this is the question. What do I want. What do I want? What -- do -- I -- want?

The romance is instantly gone. What I want right now is for him to stop asking. To stop being so damn sweet and generous, to stop staring at me, stop trying to find me, stop trying to please me when I don't even know who "me" is anymore.

"Will you just fuck me already, please?" I say, and throw him a condom from the closet. What I want, really, is to be left alone.

It works. For the moment I am free; I watch as my husband turns and walks out of the room, hurt. "You know," he says, stepping over the unused condom and setting a mine of his own on the way out, "you really ought to get a life."

* * *

Will The Naughty Mommy get a life? Give in to baby lust? Find out in Freedom, Baby: Part 2 coming December 5th.

The Naughty Mommy is a full time "domestic engineer" who enjoys a wonderful and mostly tame life with her husband and semi-feral two-and-a-half-year-old daughter. Email her at naughtymommy@comcast.net.

Mama Tried

2005-12-19T21:30:00.000-08:00

By The Naughty Mommy

Mama tried to raise me better
But her pleading I denied
And that leaves only me to blame
'Cause Mama tried
--Merle Haggard

I have a strange affliction when it comes to talking to my daughter about sex. Yes -- she is only two and half, so our current sex talk is limited to things like locker room discoveries, birth stories, and, most recently, an awkwardly established set of rules that include things like, "sand is for digging, not putting down your underwear," and "toothbrushes are for teeth, not vaginas," -- but it is here, exactly, that I falter. Every time I say the word "vagina," I find a strange cascading lilt to my voice, one carried with a halting and falsely positive pitch normally reserved for questionably fun terms like: "babysitter" or "long car ride."

I don't know where this lilt comes from. I certainly didn't grow up with it. My mom, determined to raise a sex-positive young girl, said "vagina" not with a lilt, but with the ferocity of a two-year-old snatching back a stolen toy. She taught me the word "clitoris" the same time she taught me "belly button," "toes," and "elbow." Even today she shines when she tells the story of how, at just barely two years old, in the middle of mass, I cried out: "Mommy, these overalls are pinching my clitoris!"

She claims to have been embarrassed, but deep down I think she must have thought my tiny voice, stating so clearly my tiny needs, must have been a kind of miracle. I can only imagine the sex education she got growing up in an Irish-Catholic family with five boys, a stern -- if loving -- sick mother, and an alcoholic father. I imagine the nuns who raised her, so quick to write off her intelligence, her passions, her self, were also quick to tell her what they thought she needed to know: Stop Sinning. Get Married. Make Babies. Be Quiet.

And so, emblazed with the newly won freedoms of the time, my mother devoted herself to inoculating me against the shame, timidity, and expectations she had grown up with. She enrolled me in assertiveness training and loaned sex education books to my fifth-grade teachers. he hung out with lesbians, before HBO made them cool. She was straightforward and passionate when she talked about sex, her words matching the grainy black and white intensity of the photos in Our Bodies, Our Selves, which sat openly on the bookshelf of her quiet new apartment.

When I was 15, she took me out to brunch for a "woman-to-woman" talk. She knew I had a boyfriend and that things were getting serious. She talked to me about taking care of myself. About being sober. About using two types of birth control. About getting on the pill, when I was ready. And then, over tea and croissants and country cheese, she grabbed my hand, pulled me close, and said, "Honey, I want to buy you a vibrator."

And yet here I am, lilting. Unsure. Panicked that the way I say "vagina" now will set into motion my daughter's entire sexual future. Panicked that I will try and try to do the right thing, to say the right thing, to be the right kind of mother, and yet, somehow, I won't. I am terrified my daughter will make the same mistakes I did.

The fact is, by the time we had that sex talk, I had already done IT, was doing IT. My first time was when I was still 14 and my boyfriend and I had been going out for four months, practically four years in high school time. The night it happened I was not sober, not on the pill, not assertive. I didn't tell him what I liked, or didn't like. I didn't tell him anything, really, except for a slurred, "OK," when he started unbuttoning my pants. Instead I laid there stiffly and watched the ceiling fan spin in the dark while he took care of things. And when I woke up in the middle of the night and found my young boyfriend rooting around under the sheets, checking out my wiring, poking around in the dark to see how things worked, I just laid there, pretending to be asleep, and let him look. It's one of my fondest memories of him; it was sweet, in a way.

I don't know why I didn't say anything. Or why I didn't say anything the time I got in too deep with The Football Player, or let The Cheater spit on me, or wore the stupid clothes The Controller bought for me. I don't know why I let myself spin from one bad boy to another, giving and giving and giving and never expecting anything better for myself. I don't know why I could never take the empowerment my mother tried so hard to give me.

Growing up, I wanted nothing more than to learn about sex from a tattered old library copy of Judy Blume's Forever like everyone else. I wanted my mom to be like other moms: at home, happy, appropriate. I hated that her vocabulary included words like "erotic," "sensual," "passion." I wanted only for her to be passionate about the life she had, the one I could see her shedding a little bit more of each day like the dried snakeskin and skeleton leaves that decorated the fresh subtle paint on her walls; the life she was growing out of, the same way I outgrew my favorite red shoes and my imaginary friend and horses. I wanted so desperately for that old life to be enough for her, because that life was the one I knew. That life was the one we were in together, not just on weekends or Wednesday nights.

Maybe that's why I never turned out to be much of a taker. Because I saw taking from the sidelines, the back door, the view of someone left behind. And as a child, I didn't know that mothering wasn't just a phase one could outgrow, move past, leave behind. Back then, when she was out there taking, I was at home secretly wondering, as even the most loved children do, if maybe I was the one she was trying to escape, if I was the one holding her back.

***

I'm in the locker room of the YMCA with my daughter, watching her shower after swimming lessons. She looks absurd in the two piece suit she's wearing, its teen-age cut underscoring her huge milk belly. I imagine, for a minute, the day she asks me to buy her a thong. She shoves me off as I finger her hair and I leave her in the shower while I run to pee. As I'm walking away, she cups her hand (the wrong way) to her mouth and shouts across the room, "MA, YOU GOIN' POOP OR PEE?" I cringe as the naked old ladies around us laugh, and I quietly mouth back, "Pee." I close the stall, then grin as I hear her yell again: "FROM YOUR VAGINA?"

As much as I'm embarrassed, I'm proud. My little girl is carrying the family torch. She is sharp, outspoken, shameless. She will make her own mistakes, but she also knows I'm there to shout to, to cry on, to help put the pieces all back together. Fired up in my own way by her young confidence, I yell back, liltlessly: "Yep, my vagina."

***

After my last Naughty Mommy column my mom sends me an e-mail with the words, "Proud of You" in the subject heading. She has become my biggest fan, my best supporter, my confidant. How could she not be proud? I'm writing a sex column, for God's sake! But I think it's more than that. I think she's proud I've finally found my own voice, even if it is still shaky at times. I think she's proud of the way I've built my life, proud of the way I've taken on motherhood and proud, I think, that I'm trying to do it differently.

I open up the e-mail; she is gushing: "My daughter is writing like such a slut . . ." she says. "I'm so proud!"

The Naughty Mommy is a full time "domestic engineer" who enjoys a wonderful and mostly tame life with her husband and semi-feral two-year-old daughter. Email her at naughtymommy@comcast.net.

Fault Lines

2005-12-19T21:29:00.000-08:00

By The Naughty Mommy

"Never discount the extent to which exhaustion might erode the desire to have sex, and don't expect to have sex if you aren't doing your fair share of the childcare and housework. While you've probably never considered vacuuming and taking the garbage out to be romantic acts, good luck getting laid without doing these sort of things once the new baby arrives."

-- From The Guide to Getting It On! America's Coolest and Most Informative Book About Sex, By Paul Joannides

"We would be remiss if we left this chapter without pointing out the simple truth that sex is communication"

-- From Sexy Mamas: Keeping Your Sex Life Alive While Raising Kids, By Cathy Winks and Anne Semans

***

I am married to a man who has taken more women's studies classes than I have. A man whose youthful band had a hit song titled, "Menses Man." He is the one who will teach our daughter the history of feminism. He is the one who will take her to see the WNBA. And he is the one who has no idea where the Tupperware goes.

Here's the thing. Co-Parenting, that ridiculously named concept that mothers and fathers carry the same workload, is a myth. It is a lovely, righteous ideal. I want it to be real as much as my daughter wants unicorns and mermaids to be real. But it's not. So I tell myself what I tell her when she cries because she'll never get to see a real fairy-tale creature: "Well, you can see it in your heart, and in your imagination."

***

Thirty hours into having a baby, a truth of motherhood hit me like a Mac truck. Lying there, sliced open, breasts hard and unruly as barnacled rocks, I woke up seconds before our newborn daughter cried to eat. Unable to sit up and reach her out of her bassinet, I called to my husband, snoring in the chair across the room. He woke up delirious, exhausted. "I've hit a wall," he cried, "I can't do it. I just can't do it."

Can't do it? I thought. Hit a wall?

"Can't do it" has no place in motherhood. It is a non-thought. Even 30 hours into the gig I knew that. I said nothing, and he brought me the baby. I remember wondering how our marriage would ever survive. I remember wondering how any marriage survives having kids.

***

Two of the magazines I stole from my doctor's office have articles for the modern mom. "Sleep vs. Sex: You Don't Have to Choose," promises one. "Having It All -- Sleep AND Sex" teases the other. It occurs to me that lack of sleep isn't really the problem. Pre-baby my husband and I were often sleepless, but we always managed a groggy roll in the morning. Even now I pass on precious sleep hours just to stay up and sit alone in the dark. Exhaustion alone doesn't destroy my libido; not liking my husband does.

Truth: I have withheld sex because I was angry. I have pretended to be asleep. I have wondered when it would be over so I could check my e-mail or clean the house. I have seen his erect penis as a tiny drill sergeant, demanding, demanding: "Hup -- Two -- Three -- Four -- I -- Am -- Just -- Another -- Chore . . ."

I have muttered under my breath, "Grow the fuck up."

***

He calls 6:00pm "The Bitching Hour." I am a monster. Messy people undo the only things I have accomplished all day. I do them, again, bitter. I hate the dishwasher, hate the laundry, hate playing unicorn. "You're tracking mud," I grunt. I am not passive-aggressive, I am aggressive-aggressive. "You just don't understand," I snarl.

"OK," he says, playing his card. "Let's switch. My turn to stay home."

I hiss and pour myself a glass of wine.

***

The moms on TV are superheroes. They are vessels of goodness guiding their angelic infants with serenity and fine direction. They are masterful cleaners and multi-taskers who look lovely and respectable in gentle business suits. They are well-shaped and well kept-up. Responsible adults, caring not only for their darling children, but for their endlessly incompetent and sex-starved husbands, as well.

***

We are on vacation in Hawaii. There is maid service. There is no laundry because we don't wear clothes. There is fish to cook on a grill someone else will have to scrape and clean.

Day 1: I try to nap while my husband takes our daughter to the pool but instead I worry he will let her drown.

Day 2: No one goes to work. I get up early with our daughter and we look for dolphins while my husband sleeps.

Day 3: We are getting used to this. I notice, as they head to the pool together, how brown my husband is, how his skin matches the caramel skin of our daughter. I nap.

Day 4: She wants only him, only his attention. It's amazing. He has become the default parent nearly overnight. I think about being jealous, but choose to lie on the cool marble floor of the bathroom instead.

Day 5: I sit poolside reading and watching the two of them play mermaid for hours in the pool. Later, he carries her up to the room and puts her down for a nap. There is nothing to do, nothing to get done. My husband and I lie on the cool marble floor together, our sun kissed skin generating an altogether different kind of heat. "You are my Queen," he whispers, and I shiver. For the first time in a long while, my heart and my imagination are open. Here, anything can happen; magic is alive, and so, for a while, am I.

I love this man; I reach to show him.

The Naughty Mommy is a full time "domestic engineer" who enjoys a wonderful and mostly tame life with her husband and semi-feral two-and-a-half-year-old daughter. Email her at naughtymommy@comcast.net.

Becoming Mine

2005-12-19T21:28:00.001-08:00

By The Naughty Mommy

wean: wen tr.v.
1. to withhold mother's milk from (the young of a mammal) and substitute other nourishment.
2. to detach (a person) from that to which he is accustomed or devoted.
-- American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language

When my daughter was a little over a year old, she made her first real joke; she grabbed my boob in her chubby paws, grinned hugely and announced, "Mine!"

I might have found this funny and cute, if she hadn't been up all night, leisurely grazing on breast milk. Or if I hadn't just spent an hour of precious nap time arguing with my sad and neglected husband about our sex life (or our lack thereof), or even if I hadn't, just minutes before, yelled uncharacteristically at my sad and neglected dog to "GET THE [BLEEP] AWAY FROM ME," just because she laid her head on my lap for a long overdue petting session.

The problem is, in my daughter's first devil-inspired try at humor she got it right. Contrary to what my husband might hope for, my breasts do belong to her. And that's just the beginning. My heart, my attention, my devotion, my very most important reason for living now all also belong to her. It is her scent I inhale at night. It is her skin I polish with kisses. It is her body I know better than my husband's now, better than my own.

At the time she made that joke I was well beyond "touched out," that catch-phrase parenting books and magazines love to use as an explanation of new mothers' lack of libido. Yes, I was tired of being touched and pulled and scratched and stretched. And yes, there were times I wanted to fling her off of me like some parasitic bug. But most of the time I just wanted the world and all other living creatures to leave the two of us alone so I could hold my daughter and count her toes and stare at her like she was my high school sweetheart.

I remember the first time we left her. I knew it was time, I could sense my husband drifting away, tired of begging after the scraps of intimacy or connection I could muster up to throw his way. But the whole time we were out I thought only of her. I smiled and held his hand and plotted with him to be naughty if she was asleep when we got home. But even after two drinks and a stroll through the adult section of the local video store I was about as hot as day-old bath water. I wanted to want to be naughty, but really, all I wanted to do was rush home and kiss my baby.

As a life-long intimacy junkie, mothering an infant was the ultimate fix. I'd float around in my own clock-less world, bathed in a Madonna and Child afterglow, satisfied in a deeper way than even the best sex can produce as a by-product. I swam in a world of maternal preoccupation that left me needing sex about as much as that famous phrase about a woman needing a man like a fish needs a bicycle. Forget being "touched out" -- I was touched just enough, thanks.

At two-and-a-half, my daughter is weaning herself. She pulls away when I reach for her. She squirms when I kiss her. She berates me, using the same tone I use on the dog: "Get OUTTA here, Mama!"

We spend the days not like lovers, but changelings. We are some sort of horrific half beast with two heads, each trying to wrest control from the other. I am in intimacy withdrawal; I'm shaky, hormonal, and weepy. While she sleeps I steal deep whiffs of her once-baby breath, still laced with the sweetness of my milk. But I can't deny it. She is becoming her own person, her own body, her own heart. I am becoming, too; restless, unsettled, charged. My previously off-limits breasts begin to take on new life; my nipples tingle with long-lost sensation. I've had naughty dreams two nights in row, I've touched myself.

Her eyes mirror what I feel, fear and intoxication. Independence looms over every interaction, a lure, a shadow; the terror and thrill of freedom. I turn my back on it, but I know it's there, undeniable, firm, always knocking. She is not mine and I am not hers. We are our own.

My husband and I have instituted "Date Night." Tonight, we're going to see live music, something we once enjoyed together, a lifetime ago. It's still hard for me to leave her. While the babysitter gets settled, I panic and quickly scribble my last will and testament; I'm leaving explicit directions for the care of our daughter should we die in freak accident.

We get drinks before the show, and, determined to rid myself of all kid thoughts, I pound two shots. It works. At the show we hold hands and weave through baby-faced adults so we can get up close to the baby-faced band. They are all beautiful and full of themselves and music and each other. I inhale the heat and energy from the crowd, sucking it down like an airborne drug. My husband is pushed into me from behind, and I don't push him back. He wraps his arms around my chest and yells something into my ear, but his words hit my neck instead. I shiver.

"What?" I yell back at him, the music pulsing through me like long lost hormones and desires.

"Mine," he teases huskily, his lips on my ear, his hand discreetly grabbing my breast.

For the first time in a long time it makes me hot, instead of not. And for the first time in a long time, I know I am my own to give.

I giggle and tease him back. "No way," I say, turning my lips to his as we move together to the music, "Mine."

The Naughty Mommy is a full time "domestic engineer" who enjoys a wonderful and mostly tame life with her husband and semi-feral two year old daughter. Email her at naughtymommy@comcast.net.

Spillproof Love

2005-12-19T21:28:00.000-08:00

by the Naughty Mommy

There's something about the word "wife" that just doesn't inspire naughtiness. Instead it conjures up images of station wagons and oversized, flesh colored undergarments. And when "wife" becomes "mother," forgettaboutit. In the realm of domesticity, hotness seems to disappear. Married life becomes a one way ticket to Dullsville.

Don't get me wrong. I love not worrying about STD's, or heartbreak or heartbreaking. I love having my best friend there to share the thrill of growing a person, to catch me, to push me, to inspire me, to support me. I love spending Saturday afternoons together at swimming lessons, and Saturday nights at the video store, I really do. I even love the lazy familiarity of married sex, on those rare occasions when opportunity and libido converge on quiet Sunday afternoons.

But as much as I love this domestic bliss, it's about as hot as dirty underwear. And it's certainly not the naughtiness we started with.

Ten years ago, I picked up a guy from my local bar and took him home for a one night stand. Four years after that, he asked me to marry him, in the back seat of an old Cadillac. Classy? Not really. Naughty? Just enough.

We celebrated our engagement by taking off to Las Vegas. We were beautiful, young and unstoppable. By the end of the night we were at Club Paradise, and I was getting free lap dances from the strippers. I'll never forget the way my future husband looked at me that night; absolutely, positively, sure.

I rarely see that look anymore. What I see now are looks of expectations, of familiarity, of comfortable scrutiny. I see him differently now, too. Instead of a partner, I sometimes see him more as a giant, hairy, oversized toddler than a man; waddling with want, incapable of completing the smallest task without direction, and always hungry with need.

Ten years into things, I'm getting hungry too. I like the way my daughter's young swim instructor stands too close, without knowing it. I like his baby face skinny body that smells like chlorine, and nothing else. I like how he gets nervous when I sit with the kids at the edge of the pool. I like how he shivers. I want to make someone shiver. I want to be with someone who makes me feel hot, and wanted and unstoppable and un-wife-like. I want my boyfriend back, not a husband. I want an affair...with the sure boy I fell in love with so long ago.

***

Tonight we're celebrating our five year wedding anniversary. My dad has agreed to take our daughter for the evening. He has strict instructions not to bring her back until after 10:00pm. It's not quite the fantasy I had hoped for. I had hoped we would be in Vegas. I had hoped for a weekend of naughtiness, of drive through vow renewals, of drunk, dark fantasies. But domestic devotion wins again. At 2 ½, our daughter is no more ready to be left than she was as a newborn. And I'm not quite ready to traumatize her for the sake of naughtiness. Yet.

Earlier in the day I consoled myself with a trip to Victoria's Secret, the self proclaimed naughty headquarters of the world. While my daughter flirted with the saleswomen, most of whom looked like children themselves, I confessed my plans to surprise my husband with a burst of anniversary sexiness. They all thought it was a such a cute idea, at least until I discreetly asked, (after seeing the price of panties that are just going to come off) "got any crotchless?"

You would think I asked where their inflatable sheep section was or something. Their disapproving looks made me feel like a cheap whore of a mother. I tried to make up for it by buying too much and having my daughter say something cute and charming as we left, as if that would prove I was still a good mom.

***

I drop the baby off at my dad's, and get home with time to shower. I muster up the energy to even shave my armpits, which are well beyond European chic at this point. I put on my new black bra and garter, minus panties, and feel vindicated. It looks better panti-less anyway. Screw those nubile youngies with their tunnel vision, their mother whore complexes. Why shouldn't I have my cake and jump out of it too?

I think about the look on my husband's face, as he takes off my skirt. It makes the swim instructor seems like a child. A fop. I laugh at the thought.

We eat meat and chocolate under a canopy in our yard. There are no veggies. There is no fight about how many bites to have. We drink champagne, talk, tell stories, remember. I see him him eyeing the shirt I've unbuttoned more than usual. We check the clock.

Downstairs we play. I try to make our own little Vegas by stripping for him, but trip clumsily in my heels over toys that never got put away. I giggle, and head upstairs for more wine. As I brush past my husband, he spins me and kisses me hard. "You're my wife," he whispers. "My wife."

I melt under the weight of those words. He pulls me down, right there, on the stairs I carry laundry up, in the house we've made a home. My dual roles are suddenly irresistibly hot. I tackle him, knocking over his abandoned glass of wine. For a moment, we freeze. I fight off the urge to gather my force of cleansers, and opt instead, for him.

"It's ok," I whisper, as he takes me, "it's spillproof."

The Naughty Mommy is a full time "domestic engineer" who enjoys a wonderful and mostly tame life with her husband and semi-feral two year old daughter. Email her at naughtymommy@comcast.net

Let's Talk About Sex

2005-12-19T21:24:00.000-08:00

by The Naughty Mommy

"Our society doesn't provide many role models for caring parents who are also sexual beings. We sometimes separate the two roles entirely, as though being a good mom or dad precludes you from giving great head or loving the feel of your partner's naked body next to your own."

-- From The Guide to Getting It On! America's Coolest
and Most Informative Book About Sex, by Paul Joannides

Why am I writing a sex column when I haven't had sex for over two weeks now?

Exactly.

REASON # 1: MY MARRIAGE
With a tiny, two-and-a-half foot despot ruling our lives, my husband and I may as well be brother and sister, best friends at this point. I call him "Poppy" now. I used to call him "Lover."

He hasn't had the same problems transitioning our love-life into parenthood. His appetite is intact. I could be covered in mush, insane, snappy, bitchy, bloated, stinky, funky, and he's still ready to go. I swear he even hit on me in the delivery room. Something about my robe.

So, I'm using him as my mentor. I'm trying to be more sexy. Not like lose ten pounds sexy, or wear rashy underwear sexy, or put on makeup I'll rub off at naptime sexy.

I'm just trying to think sex. Breathe sex. Have sex. Write sex. And it's working, sometimes. I even thought for two seconds about getting our very own stripper pole, until I was hit with the logistics of it: where would we put it? What would tell our daughter? She already has a trapeze. And the clincher: what if we ever host a PTA meeting?

I read books with titles like: The Passionate Marriage and 101 Nights of Passion. I read articles that offer, "Six Tips To Have You Saying YES to Sex," and, "Ten Ways to End Charity Sex." I am convinced that a woman's most important sex organ is her brain, and that housecleaning counts as foreplay. I am writing a sex column. That's right. Give me some material, baby.

This weekend is it. We won't go to three weeks. We can't.

REASON # 2: THINGS NO ONE TOLD ME
I had a pretty extensive sex education, starting with my parents, ending with a lot of personal mistakes. But when it came to sex as a mom, even the glossy mags with their cure-all sex cures couldn't prepare me for what was to come. Some highlights:

Did you know that nursing can cause vaginal dryness in women, even when they're sexually aroused? It's true. I know. But not because I read it in any of my What to Expect books. No seasoned mother ever gave me a bottle of PROBE or LIQUID PLATINUM in my baby shower basket. It was something I learned the hard way (bad pun!), along with things like understanding it's normal to feel sexually aroused while nursing, and that it's normal to want to make out with your ten-day-old baby because you just love her so damn much.

No one ever told me I might end up forgetting about sex altogether. Or worse,
that when I did think of it, it was just another chore to cross off my list. Another thing to get done, along with dishes and dog-walking and diapers.

No one told me it would take a werewolf-like transition to get in the mood. Shower. Expensive products. Thoughts. Erase all smell of baby, all sight of baby, all sounds of baby.

No one told me to avoid doing it in front of mirrors that first year. Certainly no one told me not to try on my pre-baby lingerie before sex. Or not to walk by a stack of dirty dishes to get to the bedroom. And no one told me to just say up front, "If you touch my boobs, all bets are off."

Finally, the real shocker. No one told me how great post-baby sex can be. No one told me how deep the bond of parenthood is, how waiting, and waiting and waiting and wanting makes it even sweeter, how fun and naughty sneaking off during naptime can be. No one ever said, "Three words, honey: 'quality, not quantity'."

So there you have it. My reasons for writing a sex column. I want to become a thinkaboutsex-aholic. I want my lover back, not a brother. I want to give this confused virgin-mother society a little push in the direction of sexy. And I want all those naughty, sexy, tired, uptight, dry, stretched, sewn, poked, pulled, milked, saggy, hot, hairy, awesomely unstoppable mamas out there to know they're not alone.

The Naughty Mommy is a full time "domestic engineer" who enjoys a wonderful and mostly tame life with her husband and semi-feral two year old daughter. Email her at naughtymommy@comcast.net.