My goal is to research motherhood for my PhD – proposal pending – but sex (the topic, not the activity) keeps getting in the way. I’m Jeannette and I’m back for a new season of The Sex Beat, a newsletter documenting my research on sex. To make room for my new research interests, I’ve added a few sections to the newsletter but more about that at the end of today's piece! As always, if you no longer want to get this newsletter, unsubscribe here.
In a conversation about pregnancy, a friend mentioned the very specific pleasure of “sex in the second trimester” and I had to pause for a second. When’s the last time I heard about sex in relation to pregnancy? I found myself thinking.
Off the top of my head, from mainstream media, I can think of two examples in film ie. Knocked Up (2007) and The Change-Up (2011).
In Knocked Up, Alison Scott (played by Katherine Heigl) finds out she’s pregnant after a misunderstanding during a one-night stand with Ben Stone (Seth Rogen). They decide to pursue a relationship and at some point during the movie, attempt to have pregnant sex. During this particular scene, Alison tries to convince Ben to get into it, but Ben continuously expresses his discomfort.
We see something similar in The Change-Up, which is about two best friends – Mitch Planko (Ryan Reynolds) and Dave Lockwood (Jason Bateman) – who switch bodies after peeing into a fountain while drunk. While Dave is married man with three children, Mitch is single and has weekly casual sex with a woman called Tatiana.
When Tatiana comes over the week after the body switch, Dave (in Mitch’s body) is shocked to discover that she is heavily pregnant. Naked and horny, Tatiana begs Dave for sex, but he is visibly disturbed and eventually gets her to leave.
Both movies are comedies and in both, the scenes are displayed for shock and comedic value. The only other media that has representations of pregnant women having sex is pornography, where it is a trope that’s considered kinky.
What’s surprising to me is that even though Ben Stoner from Knocked Up runs a celebrity porn website and Dave Lockwood is a father, both men reacted so negatively to sex with a pregnant woman.
The men’s reactions are a cue for how the audience is supposed to feel and react. So what I wonder is this: Are the men in the scenes (and by extension the film’s audience) disturbed because the women are pregnant? Or are they disturbed because she is playing a more active role?
MILFs and cougars
MILF is an acronym that stands for “Mother I’d Like to Fuck”. Although it’s not specified, this “mother” is typically an older woman. The phrase implies that she is desired but does not desire. She is a passive object, rather than an active subject.
When she does reveal her desire, she is referred to as “cougar”.
Sure, there are other distinctions eg. a cougar does not necessarily have children. But the key difference still remains – when a woman with children displays her sexual agency, she is no longer called mother.
Why does this separation take place?
We could look at the Madonna-whore complex / dichotomy – a polarised view of women as either chaste and respectable or promiscuous and desirable.
The “problem” with both the cougar and the MILF is that they do not fall neatly into either category. The MILF is supposedly chaste and respectable, yet she is desired sexually. The cougar is promiscuous and in media representations, typically commands a certain level of respect because she is rich or is in some other position of authority.
However, let’s go back to looking at the mother figure and the idea that she becomes unsettling when she expresses her sexuality.
Is it really the patriarchy again?
Some researchers found that this dichotomy – the idea that sexual desire and respect for women are incompatible – correlates with “patriarchy-reinforcing beliefs” (Bareket et al., 2018). These beliefs usually relate to gender inequality, objectification of women and a restriction of female sexuality.
But if I think about the kind of sexual content on social media that I’ve explored over the past year, that same complex doesn’t seem to be happening in Malay culture. Even though it is patriarchal as well.
I’ve written about the janda before and the idea of sexual mothers brings her back to mind again.
While representations of sexual mothers in Western media seem to imply that she is a bad mother, the sexual nature of a Malay mother does not seem to call her ability to be a good mother into question.
Take the Indonesian song Mama Muda (Young Mother) for example.
Yasmine Alena - Mama Muda - Full Bass [OFFICIAL]
The song is about a young mother with two children who is “sexy menggoda” (sexy and tempting), and is looking for a husband. So not only is she a mother who is fully aware of her sexual nature; she is also out on the prowl.
She’s not a MILF, not just an object for consumption. Although she says she is waiting to be proposed to (dipinang), she is actively involved in the seduction as well.
The male response?
RapX - Cari Mama Muda (Official Music Video)
He says that he’s looking for a young mother who is sexy. So yes, he sees her in a sexual light. But he isn’t just looking for sexual pleasure. He also wants to spend the rest of his future being loyal to her, “living with her in happiness and sorrow” (hidup bersama dalam suka dan duka).
So my question is this:
Does the dichotomy exist because of patriarchy? Or because of representation, which is both influenced by and feeds into our interpretation of the world?
References:
Bareket, O., Kahalon, R., Shnabel, N., & Glick, P. (2018). The Madonna-Whore Dichotomy: Men Who Perceive Women’s Nurturance and Sexuality as Mutually Exclusive Endorse Patriarchy and Show Lower Relationship Satisfaction. Sex Roles, 79(9–10), 519–532. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-018-0895-7
A new season of The Sex Beat
In my last piece (all the way back in November!), I asked myself several questions about The Sex Beat. About whether the topics I’m researching are still relevant. I guess this is a bit of an answer.
I want to write this newsletter regularly. Because 1) I enjoy it and 2) it helps me process what I’ve been reading and exploring. In spite of my venturing into other topics, my interests keep bringing me back to questions that relate to sex and/or gender.
I would like to make this a weekly newsletter, with some weeks having more in-depth articles than others. Though I feel most of it will still only be able to scratch the surface.
There’s just too much to uncover. And although research has been done in this region, I feel a lot of it is not nuanced enough or still applies a very Western hegemonic lens to local phenomena.
I’ve also added two new sections – Bibliographies and Rabbitholes – that will be updated less regularly. Bibliographies will contain reviews of and notes on journal articles, book chapters, and other readings / resources. Rabbitholes will contain general thoughts on life as a postgraduate student / researcher, as well as other semi-related curiosities.
Although I enjoy it, doing slow research in solitude isn’t easy. And if you’re like me ie. not suited to formal work or school environments, postgraduate life is even more difficult. I’d like to meet fellow sufferers to commiserate with.
Are you in academia? Do you feel me? Please tell me I’m not alone in feeling this way.