'I'm insecure about my looks... after birthin' two babies'
A reader question about finding a friend with benefits as a single mom. Also: a postpartum Rihanna longs for perky 'titties.'
Today, the return of my occasional advice column. If you’re new here and wondering why anyone would ask for my advice: a bit about me.
Have a question? Hit reply or click here to ask anonymously. I’ll happily tackle questions around any of the topics I circle around in this newsletter: sex, gender, feminism, pop culture, motherhood, desire, writing, The Rock—you name it.
I’m a separated, soon-to-be-divorced mom, and while I'm not interested in a relationship, I'd really like to find a Friend With Benefits. But where? How? The online dating site I tried (Hinge) seems full of men seeking life partners. Plus, I'm insecure about my looks (especially after birthin' two babies). I feel like I don't even know where to start!
The practical advice here is easy: You might have a better time with an app like Feeld, which prioritizes explicit discussions around all sorts of desires, including for casual relationships, and which Emily Witt called a “hookup app for the emotionally mature.” What a concept! I cannot vouch for how well it actually pans out in practice.
Less practically, I don’t have advice so much as an observation. There is a postpartum narrative of bodily loss and longing that often takes hold. Just this week, I came across a Rihanna quote about her post-baby body: “I want my titties pinned back to my shoulders, right where they used to be.”
That kind of yearning for a lost denomination of sexual currency is totally understandable—especially for a celebrity whose career is tied to it—but it’s easy to overstate its value.
When my titties were “pinned back to my shoulders,” I was having the worst sex of my life. I had that particular marker of youthful hotness but not the embodied experience of it. I was focused on how I was seen and not on how I felt. This is often how it goes for women. During that period when you’re told you’re at your best, you feel your worst.
We are not only fed false ideas about what makes for satisfying sex, but also about other people’s desire. The determinants of pleasure, attraction, and sexual chemistry are nuanced, idiosyncratic, and so very complex. You don’t hear that much, because it doesn’t make for a good clickbait headline and it doesn’t sell any products.
It tosses you into the deep-end of human vulnerability instead of the false sense of control that comes with self-optimization.
Marriage and motherhood are awfully good at illuminating the false narratives that women are sold and, as a soon-to-be divorced mom, I am sure you have discovered your fair share of those. That kind of wisdom is hard-earned, but it can also feel fleeting and ephemeral, thanks to constant messaging to the contrary.
You have a clear vision of what you want, and you’re continuing to search for it, despite encountering a bunch of men on a dating site who want something different. To me, that alone suggests an embodied experience of desire, which is a kind of “sexy” that is internally defined.
None of this is to discount your insecurity. It is real, it is not your fault, and it is not another imperfection to be fixed. I wonder if you can allow it to coexist alongside the clarity of your desires, the lessons you’ve learned up until now, and all the unknowns around what you might yet discover. I mean to say, Hmm. What if…? And you fill in the rest.
Just want to say that the best sex of my life was in my late 40s/early 50s. Hands down, no comparison.
Yes to all this! Well, I'll take Tracy's word on the app, but for overall sexiness as we get older, it's a slam dunk. We know what we want, what we don't and are less afraid anymore to say so. Good luck!