The Mom Who F*cks: Reclaiming Your Sex Life After Baby

Can you be a mom and a sexual being?
Our culture loves moms—as long as they’re selfless, sleepless, and silent about their desire. But what happens when a mother wants to reclaim her seductress energy?

In this raw and radically honest episode, I’m joined by licensed therapist Emma Shandy Anway to take a wrecking ball to the Madonna/Whore complex and everything it’s done to women’s sex lives.

We talk about:

• Why birth trauma and invisible labor silently sabotage libido
• The myth of “bouncing back”—and why it shouldn’t mean bouncing away from sex
• What partners get wrong about postpartum intimacy (and how to show up right)
• How moms can start feeling sexy again—even if their body feels like a stranger
• And how reclaiming pleasure can actually make you a better parent

Whether you’re a mom, a partner, or just sick of purity politics hijacking pleasure, this episode is your permission slip to get turned on—and stay that way.

Because sexy isn’t something you lose after motherhood. It’s something you fight to reclaim.

You can find my spicy site here. https://talksexwithannette.com/talk-sex-with-me/

My spicy OF handle is @talksexwithannette
My free spicy handle is @annettetalkssex

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introducing the Madonna-Whore Complex
• 4:13 Birth Trauma and Sexual Pain
• 9:18 Hormonal Shifts and Physical Changes
• 18:04 Obligation Sex and Relationship Impacts
• 23:48 Reclaiming Pleasure and Identity
• 32:16 Practical Tools for Getting Desire Back
• 48:54 The Partner's Role and Final Toolkit

Transcript

Speaker 2: 1:03

Do the sex pleasure and desire Around here. Nothing's off limits. These are the kinds of conversations we save for our boldest group chats, our most trusted friends and, of course, the women's locker room. Think raw, honest and sometimes unapologetically raunchy. If you've been here from the beginning, thank you, and if you're new, welcome to my podcast. Where desire meets disruption and pleasure becomes power. Now let's talk about sex Cheers.

Speaker 2: 1:38

Today's Talk Sex with Annette topic is Madonna meet whore From diapers to desire. How moms get their sex drive back. Motherhood doesn't always kill sex drive, but the way we talk about it, that just might. You're supposed to be a walking milk bar, a glowing domestic goddess and somehow, if you're lucky, still a turned on woman. But between leaking nipples, pelvic floor flashbacks and a culture that treats sexy moms like scandals, most women are left feeling more invisible than irresistible. This episode is about reclaiming your seductress energy and burning down the myth that good moms aren't allowed to be hot and have fun, kinky, adventurous sex.

Speaker 2: 2:27

I'm joined by Emma Shandy Anway, a licensed marriage and family therapist based in Washington and California, who works at the healing edge of perinatal mental health and sexuality. She's not just a therapist, she's a longboarding potluck, hosting motherhood redefining badass who's helping moms everywhere get their bodies and their pleasure back. But before we dive in and I introduce you to her, I want to remind you all I am over on OnlyFans where I am sharing my intimacy, coaching, how-tos, demonstrations and audio-guided self pleasure meditations and so much more to help you get your pleasure journey and sex life back on track. So you can find me there or sub stack under the handle at talk sex with Annette. Also, you can scroll down to the notes section below and find me wherever you want to find me in the links below. But for now let's dive in and, emma, will you take a moment to tell my listeners a little bit more about you?

Speaker 1: 3:29

Let's dive in and, emma, will you take a moment to tell my listeners a little bit more about you.

Speaker 1: 3:35

Yeah, thank you, annette. I'm so happy to be here and grateful for you hosting this space. It's so needed. Like Annette said, I'm a marriage and family therapist. I'm based in person in Northern California, but I'm also licensed in Washington, so I hold some virtual sessions as well, and I'm really passionate about working with women, especially women who identify as mothers, tap into their erotic selves. We live in a culture and a time where that is continuously being shut down and judged and othered, and so to find a way to do this embodied work is incredibly liberating.

Speaker 2: 4:07

I am so excited to have you here as a mother of three. This is an important conversation and folks, of course you're going to want to stay to the end, whether you are a mother or you are a partner of someone who's a mother who's hoping to help her get her libido back. This is going to be an important conversation for you and by the end of this podcast, you are going to get a little care package, if you will, like the one that she hopefully got when she was headed home from the birth center or the hospital to help her start her journey back to her body, her pleasure and her sexiness. So I'm ready. Are you ready to dive in and talk about motherhood?

Speaker 2: 4:50

So, ready, let's do it. Cheers, cheers. I'm ready for this conversation, having gone through this myself as a mom of three, so I want to know your thoughts on why does our culture treat postpartum women like sacred vessels until they want sex again and suddenly they're selfish, slutty or too much?

Speaker 1: 5:13

Yeah, it's a great question and I think you know, in a way, that kind of starts as soon as you have the baby. When you think about those follow-up visits, instead of it being about the mom, it's about the baby, right? The mom gets one checkup six weeks postpartum and that's it. And then we're told okay, you can have sex now, and that's literally it. So basically, after you, if you biologically have a child, after you have this child from the get-go, you are basically being told you don't matter as much.

Speaker 1: 5:44

I mean, okay, your body is used to keep this baby alive, right? We've got the whole biological aspect of that. And then we have the whole concept of the mental load that comes in right. So motherhood also means now I am shouldering these expectations of the patriarchy to do this, to do all of this, to carry this, even if I'm working full time, right. And so if a woman dares to break out of that and dares to say actually, like my breasts are allowed to be sexualized and are allowed to feed my child, it's going against this both kind of subconscious and honestly overt cultural norm of you. Better just be quiet, you better keep your role as the kind of giver right. God forbid you have any sort of erotic identity outside of this role of the selfless mother.

Speaker 2: 6:34

When I started this podcast, one of the first things said to me about being a mom speaking about sex was what will your kids think?

Speaker 1: 6:52

your kids think Totally, it's bonkers. It's so interesting we have. We have this concept that moms can't be a certain thing right, like I, I like to longboard right, and one thing my friends and I always joke about is the amount of cat calls and like disbelief that I get from people like whoa cool mom, whoa this, where it's like at first it's funny but then you kind of go down this rabbit hole of like this is not okay, right, you're saying this because it is so shocking to you to see a mother do something outside of your box of normative motherhood.

Speaker 2: 7:22

To see a mother be a woman and a hot woman, right, yeah, woman and a hot woman right. I want to go back to the trauma for women at birth. Can the trauma of birth live in a woman's body and silently sabotage her sex life long after the stitches, if she has gotten any? Not all the skits I did, though have healed has gotten any.

Speaker 1: 7:50

Not all of us get some. I did, though, have healed A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Birth trauma is incredibly common and so wildly unaddressed, and it lingers for years. So, even if you, technically, are healed, what birth trauma does is it communicates to your brain that your body is not a safe place, right? Whether you lost a child, whether you had a pelvic floor prolapse, right? Whether you had some sort of traumatic C-section, all of a sudden this is not a safe space anymore, right? And when we are in a chronic state of anxiety, even if it's not obvious, the thing that drops is our libido, right? Even if it's not obvious, the thing that drops is our libido, right. So am I going to want to be sexy and engage in something if I'm not feeling safe in this vessel? Absolutely not.

Speaker 2: 8:36

Well, and can we talk about some of the things that your body actually does when it doesn't feel safe? From like a sensation standpoint, from a ability to get turned on standpoint, to an orgasm standpoint?

Speaker 1: 8:53

Absolutely so. When you think about what allows us to have an orgasm, right, physiologically, there's an increase in blood flow, right. When we're stressed, what happens is we constrict, right, we have a short of breath, right, our heart goes pumping really fast, we kind of cut off from areas of our body, so it makes it a lot harder to have an enjoyable orgasm. Some women, too right, have something called vaginismus, which is where your vaginal muscles if this is like a pelvic floor bowl they contract. And what happens is when something enters the vagina, it contracts. And what does that do? Ouch causes pain. And then what do we do in response? We tighten up even more, which causes more pain. So it's just kind of this endless cycle of pain, anxiety, pain, anxiety. And what is that all doing, taking us as far away from feeling like a sexual person as possible?

Speaker 2: 9:49

After you've had birth, if you experienced pain pushing out the child, or even if you had an epidural, let's say, and were numb down there, but afterwards, look, it wears off, folks right and stuff is not the same down there for a while. But if you've experienced that pain down there after birth, it would reason it would seem to reason that you'd be hesitant to want to have someone touching, and much less going to pound town down there 100%, 100%.

Speaker 1: 10:27

It's like a don't touch me. This is off limits. You know, some people are so traumatized by what's happened they can't even look at themselves, right? So if you ask like, have you taken a hand mirror to look? No, no, no, right. So if I can't even do that, how on earth am I going to be able to have a partner do that?

Speaker 2: 10:45

It's pretty shocking. I did look afterwards, have a partner do that. It's pretty shocking.

Speaker 1: 10:54

I did look afterwards and it's pretty shocking right afterwards and that can be traumatizing, right yeah yeah, so yeah, and we don't normalize that right, because, like, of course it's going to be shocking because your body literally performed a physical trauma, right, that's not a bad thing, where you just have to find a way to re-relate to it right, to kind of normalize like, yeah, this looks different. It's not always going to look this different, but right now it makes sense that it does and that's okay.

Speaker 2: 11:20

So can we go ahead and acknowledge something that you never hear people say, which is giving birth is traumatic to women. It's trauma Giving birth is trauma folks, Whether you are doing it vaginally or a child is being cut out of your body, we really act like it's just this everyday thing that happens, and so I think there's this silence around this, and especially for mothers after birth, because we're supposed to say it's beautiful. Yes, we're supposed to say it's beautiful.

Speaker 1: 11:48

Yes, we're supposed to say not only it was beautiful and I loved every second, but then also be able to get up the next day and cook everyone dinner. Right, like there's just like top job, okay, right.

Speaker 2: 12:00

Right, and then can you speak to the trauma after giving birth. So, for example, a lot of women when they try to breastfeed it can be excruciatingly painful and it is someone else living off your body, but just sort of the trauma you're still experiencing after pushing a child out, absolutely so you I mean you named that one breastfeeding.

Speaker 1: 12:24

More often than not in my office, I'll hear I didn't think this would happen, right, we have this expectation that something like breastfeeding is just going to come quote, unquote, naturally, most likely, it's not, most likely, it's going to take work and maybe your baby won't latch. And so not only is that so painful, right, your nipples are getting calloused, oh right, as they adjust, it's also the mental loss of. I thought I would be able to do this, right. And that's a really good example, again, of a woman feeling like my body is failing me. My body is not safe, it's not able to do what I need it to do.

Speaker 1: 12:59

Other things that we see, right pelvic floor prolapse, brutal. Right, something that does not get enough airtime and can take years to heal, with PT People recovering from C-section scars. A lot of times there's pain with epidural that can linger for decades if you're not getting it treated right. So things can go on and on. And then you add on by the way, we're probably not sleeping more than three hours a night, right. And so what does our body do? It goes into that hypervigilance. We're usually pretty like anxious, which makes it even harder to heal on a whole.

Speaker 2: 13:34

And let's point out that anxiousness and stress and fatigue are not libido builders. Not quite. I mean not a not at all.

Speaker 1: 13:48

No, they are literally. We're going to blow this up.

Speaker 2: 13:52

A few weeks to a month or two after giving birth, there's becomes this expectation from your husband, you know, for sex to relieve his needs on top of taking care of the baby's needs. So can you talk a little bit about that, how the partner plays into the crushing of the woman's sexual self.

Speaker 1: 14:19

Using your example, there's kind of this two-parter right. There is this feeling of my partner has no idea what's actually happening to me, because if they did, they would not be asking. So that instantly is isolating right. That instantly causes the sense of I am alone in this, you don't understand me. And then there's the other part of it, which is the sense of now I have this obligation to do this for my partner. Okay, obligatory to sex, take it off the table, right, worst, never Right. But as postpartum women, that's almost default, right. I can't tell you how often I hear people being like oh, I'll just get it over with and he'll stop bugging me, I'll just do this. So we just put sex into this camp of something I have to do. That I'm not enjoying right, that I'm only doing because I don't want to be bugged about it.

Speaker 2: 15:11

And I want to speak to that because this year this has come up already in several of my episodes with experts. When you grit your teeth through sex with someone, it's like adding another trauma to your body.

Speaker 2: 15:27

It's you know, one expert said it's like a small T in trauma. There's the big T's, the S-A and rape, but these small T's happen. I don't like to rank trauma. Trauma is trauma, and by gritting your teeth and letting someone inside of your body and going to pound town when you don't want to be there, you're then compiling trauma.

Speaker 1: 15:49

Exactly, exactly Right. And what we know about trauma is it's the nervous system firing off and you cannot get out of that stress cycle right. Like I'm literally stuck, I don't have an option. And then you add in this piece of you're not going to desire sex if the sex that you're having sucks. And so if I continue to just have obligatory, maybe painful, sex, my brain is now going to start having an association with sex. As this thing is terrible, I need to avoid it at all costs.

Speaker 2: 16:18

Right, and then you're stuck there until you fix it. And I would argue that.

Speaker 2: 16:22

I think a lot of couples never fix it and so you are forever stuck in that obligatory, painful, unwanted sex place and that's you look at your partner and that's what you associate them with. So the final physical piece I want to focus on so right now, the approach to losing that libido because of the physical aspects, that's what I'm focusing on, but there's more to it than that. But the final physical aspect is then there's, of course, this massive hormonal fluctuation and hormones control libido, right. So can you talk? A little bit about how the hormonal fluctuation after childbirth affects libido.

Speaker 1: 17:07

Absolutely so. There are very few things in life that cause such an insane drop in hormones, like giving birth. It's almost like we're here and then we go off this cliff and it's just this like, well, like you, are absolutely flooded, and what tends to happen just on the physiological side when our estrogen drops is our vaginal walls thin out a little bit, right, so we kind of get some vaginal dryness, and so what can happen with that is pain. That's not necessarily the muscle spasming, but that's almost like if you can kind of think of like sandpapery feeling. Right, that's not going to be forever, but it's, as your hormones are kind of re-regulating. You're having this physiological response, so you're not necessarily wanting that. Another physical response to that is also night sweats, right. So waking up in the middle of the night, heart pounding, you're just totally drenched, right. All of these experiences are just not adding up to making you feel like an embodied person, let alone a sexy embodied person, right?

Speaker 2: 18:11

We should definitely touch on if, when this happens, it can also result in women experiencing postpartum depression. But it doesn't stop there. I not only had that experience, I had what is loosely called sort of a experience with postpartum. I don't like the word psychosis, but it was fair. It was beyond postpartum depression because my experience with that shift, with my last birth hormonal shift afterwards, was literally it felt like I was falling off a ledge, like that feeling, and I couldn't stop, like nothing could stop me, and it's really hard to want to have sex when you feel that.

Speaker 1: 18:53

Yeah, absolutely, you literally feel like you are dying right, like it is hell. I appreciate you sharing that and that like it's. It's not an easy place at all and it's really normalizing right To hear people like you kind of go hey, I've been there too.

Speaker 2: 19:17

Right and women in that place needs help and a lot of help, and it's not easy to find the help. But so if you are someone listening to this and you're feeling that at all like you're going insane and you can't handle anything like, get some help. If you're a partner and you're seeing that in your partner wife, mother get them some help and drop the sex topic. But so now we've covered the physical right.

Speaker 2: 19:39

But I also want to talk about on top of it, even once our bodies kind of come back to us or are starting to I want to focus on. Then we've got the social and cultural. So you know, society praises women for bouncing back physically. Waist size boob size getting the pre-pregnancy body back, which is a lie.

Speaker 1: 20:03

That's a lie.

Speaker 2: 20:04

But when women start to bounce back and want sex again and want to feel sexy again and want to you know strut it like they did prior to having babies. There's this shame. There's this like you're going to do that after you have kids. You know when a mom and a mom wants to go out and hit the club one night with her girls, well, the baby stays with dad or whatever it is. Can you talk about how that then affects the ability for a woman to get her sexy back.

Speaker 1: 20:38

Yeah, so it's so shaming, right, it's so like oh right, you're a bad mom. That's the underlying message there, and being a bad mom I would say 95% of women is everything we're trying to avoid, right? That's where you see the whole thing of mom guilt and perfectionism and whatever. So if I'm getting both, like obvious and maybe a little bit more covert messaging, that I'm a bad mom because I wear lipstick or because I'm going out on a date on a school night unless I have kind of done my work, self-empower, zip up, find my sturdy self, I'm gonna be like oh my God, I am a bad mom. Okay, okay, I won't, right, I'm gonna make myself small again. And so we do that. We make ourselves small, we cut ourselves off, we keep putting our heads down and doing the thing, and then you're just kind of on the hamster wheel, right, you're not really living your life in a way. That's emboldened and embodied, right.

Speaker 2: 21:36

Which is typically what attracted our partners to us beforehand, and now we're no longer able to reclaim those parts of ourselves without being told that we're doing something wrong. Right, it's, it's, it is literally the Madonna horror complex right.

Speaker 1: 21:59

Totally, totally. There's no in between.

Speaker 2: 22:01

Right, which of course we know is is not true, but so we've talked about um.

Speaker 1: 22:21

But so we've, talked about.

Speaker 2: 22:21

There are physical factors that play into the loss of not only the libido but the want to be sexy or even the mental ability to think about having sex. We've talked about the societal shame. It's shame. We're talking about shame. There's shame when it comes to women and sex after having kids, like 100%. And then, of course, there's the mental load and the workload that you have with having a partner now a child and just trying to survive. It's crushing, totally crushing Right. Trying to survive, it's crushing, totally crushing Right. Are there any other factors that I have missed in you or we've missed in this conversation that play into what stands in the way of women getting their libido back after birth?

Speaker 1: 23:02

Yeah, I would say.

Speaker 1: 23:03

The last thing I'd throw in is just this concept of matrescence that's becoming a little bit more popularized and it's a term that kind of captures the absolute cellular identity level change that a woman goes through after having a child, and so it's like almost this like I don't know who I am anymore, right, I've completely lost who I am.

Speaker 1: 23:25

Who I was is no longer there because now I'm in this new role. And so the good news is we're kind of normalizing. It makes sense to feel lost, it makes sense to kind of have lost your identity and all of that things, and we're getting people the help they need to kind of reground themselves right, embolden, find that new identity. But if you're kind of in the midst of this, almost just like kind of existential, I don't know who I am, I don't know how to do this Again, this idea of my erotic self is just going to be far, far in the background, right, because I'm just having the system change in my face first that I'm trying to get a handle on before I can even conceptualize, right, being a sexy human again.

Speaker 2: 24:08

Can you repeat what the term is?

Speaker 1: 24:11

for that. Yeah, yeah, it's matrescence M-A-T-R-E-S-C-E-N-E, I think.

Speaker 2: 24:18

I hadn't heard of it, but that makes sense.

Speaker 1: 24:22

Yeah, it's really, it's really beautiful If you look it up. There's a lot of kind of great articles and podcasts that are starting to throw it out there, which I think is really normalizing for a lot of women.

Speaker 2: 24:33

And it's true.

Speaker 2: 24:34

just like we don't get our pre pregnancy body back, you don't guys you don't you don't my rib cage expanded, but my feet never came back to the science like the things you don't think are gonna happen and and, but similarly, your persona changes, not only because now you have a child to take care of, but just, we evolve with every experience. We have, yep, every and. And you are experiencing this insane thing. Right, you grew a body in your body and again gave birth. There's the trauma aspect of it. There's the sci-fi, slash, horror movie aspect of it. There's a beautiful love story that takes place. But then it is true, I guess I hadn't thought about that how long it took me to like regroup and figure out who I was going to be and who I was and who.

Speaker 1: 25:36

I wanted to be Absolutely yeah.

Speaker 2: 25:40

Yeah, so now you've given birth and your libido seems to be nowhere around. Your partner is clearly frustrated with the lack of intimacy you don't know what the future is supposed to and their partners, hopefully, who are helping, hopefully, to start to become more of an embodied, sexy sexual person again.

Speaker 1: 26:19

Yeah, yeah, gladly. The first thing right off the bat that I want to say and emphasize is if you are having any pain with sex or any pelvic pain at all, you deserve help. Painful sex is not good sex, and I think a lot of times we don't even know about resources like pelvic floor physical therapy. So right off the bat, before we get into anything else, that is a thing I really want to hone in on. I also just think, even if you're feeling fine, going to pelvic floor PT just for a few sessions, so you feel a sense of understanding about what your body is now, can be really, really helpful. So that's my first like that's our baseline, okay. Next thing is I really think this is the opportunity where we get to blow up our sex lives for the better, right.

Speaker 1: 27:05

So in American culture, most of us did not grow up getting a good or accurate sex education right. Either sex wasn't talked about, so it was very shame-based, or we learned about it through religion or porn, and none of those are accurate right. So, pre-kids, maybe you're having good sex, maybe some of it is great, but if we're just going off of that blueprint, we don't know how to communicate, we're not really focusing on pleasure, right, it may just be kind of a quickie to penis, vagina intercourse and then that's it. Okay, okay, now post kids, we can't do that anymore. Okay, because if sex is not so pleasurable that you're like, yep, I will stay up till 8 PM to do this, you're not going to do it.

Speaker 1: 27:48

So the first thing I always tell people, whether you are solo or in a partnership, is to define sex as a place for pleasure and connection. So if we are almost to kind of think about it as an umbrella pleasure and connection you get to fill in under that umbrella everything you can put intercourse, but that doesn't have to be the only thing. It can be a naked shower, it can be. Well, you brush my hair for me, right? It can be. Let's just lie down next to each other and masturbate together, right? Pleasure and connection okay, none of that is obligatory and none of that is in the sense of I am serving my partner's need, right, okay, so that is my baseline and this is something people are always like. What, what if we don't orgasm? That is okay, right, because the point of sex is not to orgasm. The point of sex is to experience pleasure and have a sense of connection both to yourself and to your partner or your partners.

Speaker 2: 29:18

I want you to repeat the part about. I want you to repeat the part about who the connection is supposed to be to Partner and yourself.

Speaker 1: 29:32

So in your body, does this feel good? To me, yes, great. No, stop doing it. Okay, again, that disconnect is so tempting.

Speaker 2: 29:45

Oh, just get it over with you deserve more than that, and I think when you start having and I know this because I'm going to be honest with you, I really didn't start having fully embodied sex until my 40s sad story, but don't worry, I'm making up for it, folks um, when you start experiencing that, it's just a whole different experience.

Speaker 1: 30:06

You want a lot of it. There you go. Right, you want it. That's the kicker.

Speaker 2: 30:13

A lot, a lot of it. I love. I love that you pointed that out. I also love that you're bringing up taking the obligatory sort of sex P and V sex off the table. Absolutely. Post having children. That can feel like a lot of work, especially if your vagina has experienced any pain.

Speaker 1: 30:51

Totally, and the reality is, is more women do not orgasm from PV intercourse than not right. Most women tend to orgasm from literal stimulation and unless you're using a vibrator or being really mindful about that with PV intercourse, it's not a guarantee. Right Tends to be more male-centric.

Speaker 2: 31:15

Right, and you know you can always leave the invitation on the table to like, if you get in the mood, while we're, let's say, mutually masturbating and you're like I want to hop on that, you are welcome to. Right Totally, Invitation that they can turn down is is, I think, a turn on right.

Speaker 1: 31:38

Like you're not pushing for it.

Speaker 2: 31:39

But and when you don't feel obligated to do something, oftentimes you get more curious about it or you get that FOMO right.

Speaker 1: 31:49

A hundred percent, yeah. And the other thing that you just demonstrated, and that is communication. Right, like, crank up the communication, you can hop on right, oh, I do like this, do more of this. No, I don't like this, you know. Can hop on right, oh, I do like this, do more of this. No, I don't like this. You know, a lot of people, I think, maybe feel almost self-conscious talking during sex. We talk more, the sex gets better and sexier. Right, it's pretty straightforward.

Speaker 2: 32:14

I think one of the things that I've learned and that has shocked me the most is how many people are not comfortable talking to their life partners about sex.

Speaker 1: 32:24

like cannot have those conversations, yeah absolutely Right, but I would say more common than not.

Speaker 2: 32:32

Right. So what is a good starting point? Let's say, let's just start with the women who are listening to this and they're just like I don't feel sexy anymore. And maybe in their mind because I know a lot of new moms or moms who even, like, have made it through like six months to a year of not having to have that much sex they're just like I, just I'm kind of done with it, I don't want to do it. What can we say to them? First of all, why should they work on their libido? What's in it for them? Like, if they're just like, I'm fine, I'm fine like not doing this anymore. What's in it for them? Why should they work on it? And then, how do we start that path?

Speaker 1: 33:13

Yeah, sexual health is health, okay. So we are taking care of our sexual health, we are taking care of our health in general. You deserve to feel pleasure. You deserve to feel pleasure, you deserve to feel embodied, you deserve to feel safe in your body. There's so many benefits right, both physically and psychologically, to having a healthy sex life. And I am not just speaking about a healthy sex life with a partner, right, healthy sex life with a partner. Direct correlation to higher levels of relational satisfaction overall. Right, healthy sex life with a partner. Direct correlation to higher levels of relational satisfaction overall. Right. Again, that broad umbrella of health. So, yes, would you live without sex? Sure, right. But I like to think Esther Perel has this great definition of eros, erotic, as your life force, your vitality, right? So if we don't have that, it's almost like we're a little bit dimmer. You know, when we're able to tap into a really authentic, full sexual self, that Eros comes back.

Speaker 2: 34:15

I love hearing other women say this. I've been like shouting it from the mountaintops it is vital to your life force and it changes who you are. I like that. You also pointed out that sexual relationship, but I'm telling you I have right now about 75% of my sex life is with myself and I am like my best lover. I give myself the most incredible orgasms before care and after care.

Speaker 1: 34:44

Beautiful.

Speaker 2: 34:46

And it's great, but I want to have you also speak to what can be the health drawbacks or the potential physical issues that can arise when you don't have any sex life at all. Or pleasure sexual pleasure yes, there are other kinds of pleasure, but I want to talk about the complete lack of sexual pleasure. What's the detriment to the health?

Speaker 1: 35:15

Totally so. If we're speaking relationally, right, it's going to decrease relational satisfaction. There is going to be a decrease in intimacy. I don't just mean sexual intimacy, I mean that connectiveness and that closeness, right. So if I'm in a partnership and we have no sex life or sex life, that's not a good sex life. There's going to it's like more of a chasm form, right, we get lonely, we can feel depressed, kind of a snowball effect, you know. You know there's this great line.

Speaker 1: 35:47

One of my favorite movies is it's complicated. It's a Nancy Meyers movie where Meryl Streep's like chatting with her girlfriends about how long it's been since she's had sex and one of them's like I've heard, your vagina just closes up. That's not going to happen, okay. So like there's stuff out there that's like if you don't do this, this will happen. That won't happen. But there are psychological side effects, right. So, speaking more to the solo side of things, if I'm not partnered and I'm also not masturbating or exploring any of that, it's like you become a little bit disembodied, right? So again, you know, we're speaking broadly here If I'm not allowing myself to feel pleasure, it's I'm a little bit more of a husk of a person. It's not life-threatening, right Again. Nothing very severe is going to happen, but it's kind of like you know. It's almost like your light gets dimmer, just to kind of keep up with that metaphor.

Speaker 2: 36:44

I would like to point out that as you age, especially as you get into perimenopause, when you don't have any internal stimulation, you can experience vaginal atrophy. So that is another good reason to continue to have sex with yourself, because that stimulation creates salary growth and helps keep those tissues like moist and like pump, just like we want our faces to be. So, but yeah, mental health, emotional health, it can take a toll on those.

Speaker 2: 37:16

So all right, we've given you the motivation. So all right, we've given you the motivation to work on this part of your life. Now let's give them some tools. So the starting point right now, you're just like oh, intimacy, sex, yeah, what are some things that they can start doing right now to start feeling more in the mood or to start getting that libido, that sexual energy, to return to their body?

Speaker 1: 37:47

Yeah, yeah, I love this question. So it starts with you, not with your partner, okay. And it starts even from a desexualized place. You want to make sure you are doing things to help you feel like your human self, okay. So again, this idea of Eros life force if I'm just working, feeding the kids, feeding my baby, la, la, la, la, la, right, it's not going to cut it. So I need to make sure, once or twice a week, I'm doing something for me. I'm going to my yoga class just because I am going to be at work late, because I'm going to go get my favorite cappuccino, right, we are stepping into pleasure again as a sensation.

Speaker 1: 38:27

Okay, that is the first step. The second step, right, is to get a little bit more sexualized. I think postpartum is such a great time if you don't already to find a vibrator that really works for you, right, if you had any sort of kind of internal trauma, just kind of an exterior vibrator that does clitoral stimulation is really helpful. So maybe there's an evening, your partner's gone, or you can just go take a tub alone and you try your new vibrator and you just let your body experience some pleasure. I know I'm kind of a broken record here, but this is just for you, and what this is going to do is let your brain see that your body is still capable of experiencing pleasure. Right, you may have gone through this huge change and yet here you are right, keeping up your life force, still allowing yourself to feel good.

Speaker 2: 40:22

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1: 40:23

Then, right after we've kind of started playing around with this, if you are in a partnership, communicating with your partner, hey, I do want to figure this out, but to be honest, I don't even know where to start. I don't want to go back to the way things were. I also don't want to have sex just to feel like I have to. So can we work together to figure this out? This is a great time to start couples therapy If you are feeling really out of your league.

Speaker 1: 40:50

There's a lot of great books. I always I wish it was like required reading for every human. But Come as you Are by Emily Nagowski, prolific book all about female anatomy, female pleasure, and if you want to say, would you like to read this with me and maybe we can start here? Right, my body feels different, I don't feel like my sexual self and I want to figure this out together. That's such a beautiful connecting invitation that doesn't make your partner feel like you're shutting them away, but it's also holding the boundary of we're not just going to do this terrible sex because you have a need.

Speaker 2: 41:26

Right, right. Setting up those boundaries is important, but also for the partner. Okay, so the woman doing her part is set aside. Masturbation time I love masturbation time.

Speaker 1: 41:41

It's like my favorite time of the day, it's such my favorite time of the day, such good healthcare.

Speaker 2: 41:47

I really learned how to how to get myself off. And once I really learned I don't know if you know this, but in 2022, I had 365 orgasms well more than that one every day for a year Amazing, every day for a year, so I learned. I learned a lot. So much time and and yeah, I started having orgasms at a level I didn't even know was humanly possible. So I get excited about masturbation time, but I think that it's important, right Like to, to have that container of self love and knowledge too.

Speaker 1: 42:22

Right, like I understand my body.

Speaker 2: 42:24

I'm rubbing my boots. So you relearn your body because you're touching it and you're exploring it in its new form, right. So prioritize that. I think that's fantastic advice. Now for the partner. Let's talk about the partner because, dear partners, I know you want to get laid. I know six months is a long time, I get it. But what can they do to start approaching sex differently, in a way that is going to make it seem more pleasurable for her, but also, in the end, it's going to be better for them?

Speaker 1: 43:00

her, but also in the end.

Speaker 2: 43:01

It's going to be better for them.

Speaker 1: 43:03

Totally, totally so. One of my old supervisors used to always say you have a hand for a reason, go take a shower, right, like, if I am just like I need you to, you know, get me off. No, you can do that yourself. Okay, that is not the point here. So, partners of mamas, I want you to hear that, right? Yes, sex is pleasurable, but it's also about connecting, and if you are looking at your partner and she is tired and she is doing chores and you are horny, that is not the time to ask for sex. Right, you can go masturbate and then come back and have this conversation.

Speaker 1: 43:39

This is something I am obviously very passionate about, but it is such a good opportunity, especially for men, to lean into other ways of receiving love. A lot of men are socialized in this country to only equate physical touch with love because there was no emotional intelligence, kind of emotional security taught as a child, taught as a child. And so for a male partner I'm speaking just if there's a hetero relationship to start to understand that my wife not having sex with me does not mean she doesn't love me is a huge thing, okay. So men, rely on masturbation. Understand that your wife rejecting you does not mean she doesn't love you and then lean in with curiosity, lean into that bid, for I'd like to figure this out together and start to again going back to that idea of pleasure and connection, start to get creative, right.

Speaker 1: 44:32

The other thing I want to quickly add is take the pressure off. So if your partner says I'd like to cuddle naked, great, let that be it, okay. Unless you and your partner have explicitly said and then we're going to have intercourse. Don't put that on them, because I have a lot of people I know a lot of my clients will say something like I don't even want to cuddle because there's going to be this expectation, right. So that's where this overt communication comes in, unless it is said don't silently, assume is super key.

Speaker 2: 45:03

It's a great time to also leave an open invitation. You can say I just want you to know that anytime I ask you to cuddle with me or take a shower with me or whatever, lay naked and watch a movie with me, there's no expectation for sex. However, if you feel the spark, please know there's an open invitation to initiate. You know I won't initiate because I don't want you to feel pressure. I just want that physical intimacy. But just know, here it is. If you want it, let me know. Otherwise we're going to just enjoy that and I think that that would feel so amazing to have someone just set that up for you 100%.

Speaker 1: 45:47

That's beautiful caretaking.

Speaker 2: 45:49

Yeah, and another thing you brought up just like we said, the women should start prioritizing some self-pleasure and masturbation time.

Speaker 2: 45:58

This is a great opportunity for men to do the same, and there are great toys out there that you can oh my god so many you want to up it, up it, and you could then, like both of you could, talk to each other and say, hey, we're gonna have our separate masturbation time, and if you're ever curious and want to come in and check it out, I'll show you my toys, if you show me yours.

Speaker 1: 46:23

Totally. Yeah, I love it. Right, we get to be playful, playful.

Speaker 2: 46:28

Yeah, I love the idea of creating a playground for adults who otherwise are in the pits of working and raising.

Speaker 1: 46:37

A hundred percent. A hundred percent.

Speaker 2: 46:40

Anything else Before we wrap this up, can you put together just a little package for my listeners right now, A go bag if you will, of tools that they can start using tonight to get their groove back or support their partner getting her group?

Speaker 1: 46:58

back Totally. Yeah, I love that, the little toolkit package. So just to the mamas I would say remember, you deserve pleasure. Starting with that, I deserve pleasure, my body deserves pleasure, right? Okay, what does that mean for me? Can you do one thing tonight that is pleasurable and it doesn't have to be sexual? Maybe it is right. Maybe you do go home and masturbate that's lovely, maybe it's? I'm going to make myself a beautiful chocolate chip cookie and not share it with anybody, right? Like I really want you to lean into the idea that you deserve pleasure, because it's true. Okay, that is your assignment for tonight.

Speaker 1: 47:39

Partners of mothers, your little toolkit is to remember the season of life is not forever. But while you are in, to use your word, annette the pits, your job is to be a teammate. Okay, we are not pressuring our partner, we are leaning in with curiosity and if there is something that is feeling lacking, we are going about it, knowing that their partner is there for us, right? And knowing that we do have this invitation, us right, and knowing that we do have this invitation to redefine our whole sex life in a way that actually makes it better than it ever was before.

Speaker 2: 48:10

Yeah, absolutely, that little silver lining is out there, because I'm telling you right now I have three kids and my sex life is banging. Yeah, 100% Right, so wonderful. Can you tell my listeners where they can find you, if they're in the area that you're in, to reach out for help or just to find out more about your expertise?

Speaker 1: 48:33

Totally so. I have an office in Midtown, sacramento where I'm seeing clients and then I can see people virtually, like I said, throughout the states of California and Washington. If you are somebody that just more enjoys playful therapeutic Instagram stuff, you can find me at any board psych. Just a reminder Instagram is not therapy, but it is a fun place to learn. And even if you're not interested in therapy, if you just want some more resources, on my website I have books, podcasts. I recommend you can find that at esacounselingcom. That is one thing I'll quickly add on. Like just empowering yourself to learn more. Reading books, listening to podcasts. Understanding you're not alone, understanding what you're going through, is incredibly empowering too.

Speaker 2: 49:21

Yeah, you are not alone folks. Most importantly because I know it can. Postpartum can be a really dark time for everybody involved.

Speaker 1: 49:30

It's so hard. You're not alone, and you are doing a beautiful job.

Speaker 2: 49:35

Yeah, thank you so much for joining me and listeners.

Speaker 2: 49:39

If you are watching this on my YouTube channel at Talk SexexWithAnnette, and you have any questions or comments, you know you can scroll down, leave a comment or a question in the comment section. You can always reach out to me at Annette, at TalkSexWithAnnette, or you can scroll down and there's a speak pipe link below and you can send me a voice message. If there's a question I can't answer, I will reach out to Emma. I will get you the answers, however I can, so shoot them my way. Thank you again for joining me and to my listeners, I'll see you in the locker room. Cheers.