Dear Mommyish: Pregnant Women Are Not Sexy
With my first son, I was 26 years old and pregnant at the same time as 40 year-old Bethanny Fankel. I remember being sprawled out on my couch 50 pounds heavier and unable to wear my wedding ring, while I watched Bethanny Frankel sprawl out naked on her white designer bed for sexy pregnancy photos. Her legs were free of dimples and her skin void of stretch marks. I sobbed, and my husband banned Bethanny Ever After from our home.
Sexy pregnancy is an oxymoron. No one is sexy when they are pregnant. Even Bethanny was not sexy when she was pregnant. She was cute, glowing, and even beautiful, but definitely not arousing. I am sure that all men would rather have sex with their non-pregnant wives versus their pregnant wives. Nonetheless, Facebook is filled with many of my friends posing nude with a sheet covering their private parts while they are fully pregnant. Is nothing sacred? We can sexualize almost anything and anyone in our 21st day and age, but nothing is going to make a pregnant woman sexy.
From a purely biological and psychological perspective, a pregnant woman is off-limits, spoken for, and out of commission. The biological drive for a male is to plant his seed in order to reproduce, so once his wife or girlfriend is pregnant, he has succeeded. From a purely biological perspective, he’s done with his duty and should move on. However our enlightened human social rules of monogamy require that he continue to remain faithful to his pregnant lady. He doesn’t have to think she is super sexy though.
Husbands and boyfriends tell their pregnant ladies that they are sexy because they are good men who care about our feelings. But you have to know that it is not true. We are sexier when we are in our normal form. We are only showing for about 6 4 months, so why can’t we handle the fact that we just aren’t sexy for that short amount of time? Instead we must pose for provocative pictures to reclaim our sex appeal? I think this comes down to an identity crisis.
When women make the decision to become mothers, our identity shifts many times in order to accommodate that decision. Our identity shifts from the sexy wife or girlfriend that became pregnant to a pregnant lady””a mother in every sense of the definition, but not quite in practice yet. It’s a type of female limbo””the purgatory between the Madonna and the Whore. Everyone knows you had sex, but you aren’t quite sexy. The pregnant woman is a glowing beam of maternal energy, but the baby is not out yet. This limbo identity is tough to deal with. Am I a woman or a vessel or in my case, and ocean-liner? If I’m still a woman, I must be sexy and appealing? In comes the unnecessary sexy pregnancy pics. The attempt to make sense of your changing femininity, but a big fail.
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(Image: Tumblr)
