7 thoughts on “Very long post…”

  1. Mary Anne Mohanraj

    Oops — I made an edit and it went away, to be approved by the moderator. Hopefully will be fixed very soon. Argh.

  2. I think you’re very brave to say what you’ve said. You are who you are and your daughter will respect and love you for it. We all wish our mothers were different in some or the other way but deep down we love them anyway.

    I appreciate the honesty in your posts that mommyhood is not all perfect and wonderful. It can be very difficult at times and admitting it, even more difficult. There are many instances when I wish my mom would tell me the “not so wonderful” things rather than let me find them out on my own. I know it’s her way of protecting me but still. When Kavi is an adult and if she were to read these posts, I know she’d appreciate the honesty… and maybe she’d be tickled to get a glimpse into her mom was when she was a baby. (How I wish I could travel back in time to meet my mother when both she and I was younger.)

    -A
    P.S. Which other mommy blogs do you read?

  3. Mary Anne Mohanraj

    Right now, mostly just Chicago moms’ blog, although also some other academic/parenting blogs that I come across here and there, like “Bitch Ph.D.” Nothing too consistent. I got compulsive and read through all of “A Little Pregnant” because it was just funny and well-written, even though the main topic is infertility, which thankfully I have not (yet) had to deal with myself.

  4. I have a lot of mixed feelings about this issue. On the one hand, honesty = good. On the other hand, better for my job that I haven’t been in ways I couldn’t have anticipated 20 years ago.

    One thought: it’s all about context. There are things I did in college that I’m not exactly ashamed of – but I think the sex-for-sex-sake comes close. It was about boredom, self-esteem, rebellion. I mean, it wasn’t exactly bad sex, but people got hurt, more the guys than me. In my head is all the context, the close friendships, the hurt, the learning, the babies that were produced (though not by me) and not always aborted.

    It’s hard not to worry about your story, the lack of context. It’s hard not to be angry at women “like you” who create an expectation of unencumbered sex from friendly-females by men on those of us who value sex differently.

  5. Mary Anne Mohanraj

    Anon, I find this fascinating. I agree that context helps tremendously in making sense of it all and the context I think would come with reading more of my stuff (and in my writing more about these topics). For me, having lots of sex in college and post-college (with lots of people, serious and casual and in between) is something I don’t regret at all. Oh, there were one or two jerks in there who, in retrospect, didn’t deserve the chance to have sex with me (or, frankly, with anyone else, imho). But for the most part, I’m really happy when I look back at the richness of sexual experience and all the sweetness, affection, and excitement that came with that. Much as I’m satisfied and love my very settled love life these days, there are definitely aspects of those days that I miss!

    That said, I think women ‘like me’ may actually not be the ones you should worry about. From the guys I’ve talked to, it seems that women who feel this way are rare enough in our culture that we’re startling to the guys — so I doubt we’re creating any general expectations in their minds. What seems much more common, sadly, are the many women who often don’t particularly want sex (casual or otherwise), but *do it anyway* because they think it’s expected. Usually they make it clear somewhere along the line that they didn’t actually choose to do this because they wanted to, but they did it because they thought the guy wanted it — and often, that they expect something (fancy dinner, presents, wedding ring) in return.

    And really, they just wreck it for everyone, for me at least as much as for you. They taint the whole experience, they make nice guys hesitant about whether women really want what they say they want, they make not-so-nice guys pushy, because they believe they just have to overcome some initial resistance — it’s all so icky. 🙁

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