In previous writing, I stated my new hope for my vagina after childbirth because of the song “WAP.” Cardi B, a mother, raps about her wet ass pussy and how people want it, ostensibly after she birthed a child. The song inspires hope for me that my vagina will still be “good” after I become a mom. My hope for my overall sexiness after becoming a mother is less bolstered. Cardi B is a MILF (Mom I’d Like to Fuck), as are Kim Kardashian West, Fergie, Chrissy Teigen, Kylie Jenner, Ciara and other famous women who continue to display their sexuality after having children. MILFs access their post-baby sexuality by removing connections to their motherhood, primarily by “snapping back” physically, having the means to hire extra support/childcare, and more or less having the ability to return to life before motherhood after childbirth if they so choose. Society allows these mothers to be sexual in the public view because they are far from the average mother.
The average mother, non-MILFs, are evidently not people who are sexually desirable to the general public. These people may or may not have been considered attractive before having children, but now they are stripped of their sexuality through motherhood and expected to be, as Cardi B put it, nuns. And it is important to be viewed as sexually desirable sexual beings. It can be harmful to not be seen as a sex object.
Cahill, in their 2011 work Overcoming Objectification, problematizes the concept of objectification as always harmful, arguing that recognizing the embodiment of another (the object of the physical body) and its sexual capabilities is not inherently negative. Instead, the harm occurs when a person is seen only for what the viewer wants to see or recognize in them. Cahill (2011) terms this concept derivatization, and it is distinctly different in inherent harms from the general concept of objectification.
Sexual objectification is seeing a person as having a capable or desirable body (object) for sexual activity. Not being seen as a sex object in the public eye is necessarily erasing the sexual aspect of that person’s being, making them less than their whole self (Cahill, 2011). For example, if I ask a partner, “am I sexy?” and they say, “you have a great personality,” I would be disappointed. I would respond, “sure, but I’m asking if I am sexy,” and if they said, “that doesn’t matter to me. What’s important is that I love who you are,” I’d be like, “but my body is part of who I am, and I want you to find me sexually attractive because I am a sexual being.” It’s just like how in an earlier article I expressed that even though my boyfriend thinks all bodies are beautiful and wonderful, I want him to really want to fuck my body specifically. Humans can be sexual beings who want to be sexually desirable, so being excluded from sexual objectification, as mothers often are, can be detrimental to their sense of self in the public arena (Cahill, 2011).
If only MILFs can be sexy or sexual mothers, all other moms are considered asexual. But non-MILF mothers definitely do still have sex. Nelson (2015) describes the concept of a sodomitical mother as a woman with access to “nonnormative, nonprocreative sexuality, to sexuality in excess of the dutifully instrumental” “even as a mother” (p. 69). Basically, sodomitical mothers are moms who have sex purely for pleasure, particularly forms of sex that cannot result in pregnancy.
The fact that we need a labeled concept for moms who have nonnormative, nonprocreative sex indicates just how much society de-sexualizes mothers. I certainly want to be a sodomitical mother. I, like Cardi, do not want motherhood to override, dilute or otherwise interfere with my robust sexuality. Certainly my body, sex drive and other factors will change over time, but I don’t want to trade in my ability to be sexy or kinky to have a child.
Ideally I’d like to be a sodomitical MILF, a mother who not only enjoys sexuality in excess of procreation but is also desirable in the eyes of society. Given the normative aspects of MILFs I described earlier, however, my desire to be included in this group is problematic for at least two reasons. First, my desire is rooted in my privilege of being a generally classically attractive ciswoman who wants to return to this state after childbirth. Second, mothers (and all people) without flat stomachs, with not-perky or outright saggy breasts, with bleeding nipples, with tired eyes and mystery substances on their sweats should be able to be sexual beings. Wanting to be sexually objectified (considered sexually capable and desirable) is not my problem; wanting to fit normative standards to be sexually objectified instead of fighting against the social rules of desirability is my problem, or at least one of many.
We should not limit sexiness to an ageist, ableist, fatphobic, classist, pre-childbirth prototype that people must force themselves into even after experiencing pregnancy and/or motherhood. We must accept and celebrate that people can enjoy sex differently at different points of their lives. Mothers should not have to earn their sexuality by separating themselves from their motherhood. I want to live in a society where it is not so shocking to hear a mother rap about her wet ass pussy. Is that too much to ask?
