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| A 3rd-trimester pregnant woman. Image source. |
[content note: talking about my sex life]
Since the topic for this month's Carnival of Aces is "Children and Childhood", I want to talk a bit about when I was pregnant, and how my experiences related to sex and pregnancy were totally different than what I read in the pregnancy books.
So I read some books about pregnancy and about how having a baby changes your relationship with your partner. Good information, but wow these books were so extremely heteronormative and cisnormative. And the parts about sex... as an asexual, I was just baffled, reading what these books had to say about sex.
They talked as if everyone's sex life was fine before getting pregnant. Like everything is easy and makes sense. And pregnancy/ having a newborn is what throws a wrench into it and makes sex suddenly confusing and difficult. They gave some advice about how you will now need to learn to communicate with your partner about sex.
And I'm just like... what? How...? So, I know that in general, people get pregnant after being in a long-term sexual relationship. How are people having a long-term sexual relationship without doing the work of figuring out what they want from sex and how to communicate that to their partner? How on earth is that something that wouldn't have already happened? Like it's a new thing prompted by the pregnancy-related changes. How?
Like how are you able to have sex enough to get pregnant, without having those kinds of "communicating about sex" skills? I don't think I could have. I think if I hadn't done that work, I would have had to just quit having sex, because it was so unworkable at the beginning.
Here's the way it happened for me: The very first time I had sex, it made no sense. And over the course of several years, I did the hard work of learning about my body and how my body works, and built up habits of communicating clearly to my partner (Hendrix, who is now my husband) about what we want or don't want.
It got better, gradually, because I did the work to make it better. I approached it like a science project and I did the research. I had goals. I had all that.
And now here I am reading this book that's like "ah sex is a lot more difficult now because you have to know your body and communicate with your partner" and I'm like, what? Why would you not already be doing that? Those are the things I had to learn at the very beginning of my sex life. Are people really getting pregnant by having sex that doesn't include having extensive discussions about sex beforehand? It doesn't make sense!
Actually, when I was pregnant, my approach to sex got better. I no longer felt that I had an obligation to have sex with my husband, and so when we had sex, it was because I actually wanted to. Before this, I constantly felt the weight of years of religious teaching about "the wife has a duty to have sex with her husband, otherwise he'll be so unhappy and maybe even cheat- like OF COURSE he shouldn't cheat, OF COURSE that is his responsibility and we are not blaming the wife, but COME ON what did you expect." (They also told me that feminism was about hating men- but actually, it was feminists who told me that men are capable of being better than that, of being decent human beings even if you're not having sex with them.)
So back then, one of my main motivations for having sex was to get rid of the guilt which said "I'm not a good enough wife because I'm not having sex with him enough." But when I was pregnant, I felt like I didn't have to do that any more. I felt so sick all the time, and it was for the purpose of making our baby, and so I felt like no one could claim that I wasn't doing enough. Like, finally I had a "good enough reason" to say no to sex and not feel guilty about it. (To clarify: My husband had never tried to tell me I wasn't allowed to say no to sex; it was all those Christian marriage books I read growing up. I am glad my husband is not a Christian.)
And another interesting thing: So I wanted to know if it was okay to have sex during pregnancy, or does it pose any risk to the baby. I googled it, and basically the answer is that in some cases where you have a high-risk pregnancy, you shouldn't have sex, but in a normal pregnancy you totally can.
So there was my answer- but suddenly I realized, wait... When people ask the question, "Is it okay to have sex while pregnant?" what do they mean by "sex"? Do they mean the vaginal penetration part, or the orgasm part? (When someone with a uterus has an orgasm, the uterus contracts.) Both of those seem like they could maybe be a risk to the baby- but in my mind, when I asked the question, I was only referring to vaginal penetration. In my mind, me having an orgasm is not part of the definition of "sex". Yes I do use a sex toy to get an orgasm at the same time that my husband and I are having sex... I do that every time, actually... but I still seem to be conceptualizing it as a different thing. Like "sex" is "penis-in-vagina until the man has an orgasm", and anything else you do is sort of an add-on. Is that a little messed-up?
(This is a whole nother topic, but: This [not viewing female orgasm as a key part of the definition of sex] is one example of why I don't like when people say "sex can be anything you want! There's no 'should'" and don't give any guidelines for what's normal/reasonable/fair. They say you don't have to follow society's standards or other people's opinions- all that matters is that you and your partner agree on it, and it's all good. Yes, I understand why people give this advice, and how it can be very good and healthy for someone who is confident and knows their body and knows what they want. But for a naive little girl like I was... the idea that the only tool I have is my own consent and my own ability to negotiate for what I want, and I don't have any societal expectations backing me up... you end up consenting to things without realizing that there are better options. That you deserve better and that you can and should demand better.)
Anyway, I googled all these things, and basically if it's a low-risk pregnancy, it's fine to do vaginal penetration, fine to have orgasms, fine to do anal sex, etc, pretty much everything is okay, EXCEPT if it's painful, that's a sign you should stop because maybe it means something is wrong, and that might be a risk to the baby.
Yeah, all that "Christian marriage teaching" about how "men need sex" and "if it's painful, TOO BAD, that's not a good enough excuse"... Now for the first time I was considering the idea that my pain mattered, that it's an important signal to pay attention to, rather than something to just endure through because I have to do my "wifely duty."
Basically, it was really good and healthy for me to have a period of time where I wasn't living under the burden of "I need to have sex even if I don't want to, because men need it." Where I could say no and that would be that. (My husband has never pressured me when I said no, but before I was pregnant, I always felt really guilty whenever I said no. But then when I was pregnant, I could say no without guilt.) Where I began to contemplate the idea that painful sex was just unacceptable- I had the right to just completely not accept it. Wow.
And then after my baby was born, there was nothing difficult about sex at all any more. I gave birth vaginally, and now I no longer have any trouble with vaginal penetration. The difference is so big, in fact, that I have concluded that I actually really had vaginismus before, and giving birth vaginally cured it. Now our sex life is so much better.
So I read these books, about pregnancy and babies and how that affects your sex life, and my experience is totally the opposite. Apparently for most people, sex gets more difficult? Like, yes, a big factor in that is that you have a baby who is always there and always needs something, so there's no time for sex, which is also a problem for us. But overall, it's so much easier now. I did the hard work way way back then- learning about my body and learning how to communicate- which apparently some people run into only after they've had a baby??? And then when I was pregnant I no longer had the societal pressure of being "required" to have sex with my husband, and then when I gave birth it cured my vaginismus... so yeah, wow. Much better now.
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Related:
He Just Loves Me (a post about Sex, Pregnancy, and My "Wifely Duty")
How Pregnancy and Childbirth Changed My Asexuality (or, actually, A Post About Vaginismus)
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This post is part of the December 2021 Carnival of Aces. The topic for this month is "Children and Childhood."
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