Mom, you might want to give this one a skip… Erica Jong does not speak for us. She doesn’t speak for many of the families I know, and those parents that she does speak of may want to distance themselves from her vitriolic rhetoric. That said, this post is not a critique (per se) of her “Is Sex Passé” article. What I hope it will be is a wake-up call to our generation. Erica Jong was reflecting a secretly but widely held belief that many of my peers either struggle against, or become oppressed by; that sex after marriage, and more specifically sex after kids, is bound to be less steamy, less intense, less fulfilling, and less adventurous. I, fortunately, am the antithesis of what Erica is depicting in her article. For me sex after children has been more… of everything good. But even I am dogged by the persistant awareness that that is not normal; that we are lucky. In the last week—and thanks to Erica’s article—I have been seeing that amazing, passionate, wild, earth-shattering, post-child sex is not only normal but apparently common. Many of my peers have come out publicly against Erica’s sentiments, sharing intimate glances into their own experiences. What this has shown me is that while I may well be fortunate to be in a monogamous, post-child, firey-hot relationship, I am not lucky. Luck, as with most things, doesn’t have anything to do with this. What makes my sex life awesome is what seems to be working for many of my friends and peers; deep knowledge of our partners; trust and openness (which are a breeding ground for experimentation); and love. Yup I said it, love.
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