61 Frames Per Second by John Constantine Today in Hooksexup's videogame blog: Little Big Planet reveals itself to be truly and wholly insane. We go crazy with it.
The Remote Island by Bryan Christian 90210 braves new levels of incomprehensibility while we skip the debate to get drunk. Tuesday is saved! Plus: Hef's harem loses a bunny and SNL continues to ruffle feathers.
Scanner by Emily Farris Today on Hooksexup's culture blog: We put our politics where our boobs are.
PERSONAL ESSAYS
posted 9/22/1999
Pregnancy came upon me as somewhat of a surprise a happy surprise, but a surprise nonetheless. Fortunately I was spared the swollen legs, the relentless nausea and the uncontrollable mood swings. I am blessed to come from a long line of women who, instead of bemoaning the physical state that is pregnancy, revel in the glory of forty weeks without a period, in the milky clear skin and breasts that grow to monumental proportions.
Part of my happiness wasn't just a manifestation of my ardor to procreate it was a true biological condition. Pregnancy, I read, increases both vaginal lubrication and blood flow to the clitoris, and I was all for it.
However, I had heard that most women find the physical sensitivity to be a detriment. "Any contact at all and I was in agony," said one of my friends; "I wouldn't let my husband near me," said another. Agony? Not for me. Ecstasy? Oh yes. Each caress, each squeeze, each unintentional brush ran down to my clitoris and back up again, flooding the portion of my brain reserved for rapture. I have never been one to shy away from sex, and married sex had been the best sex of all. But I never expected the sex that is pregnant sex the desire that woke me in the middle of the night caused by nothing more than a sheet rubbing across my shoulder or his sleepily errant hand against my belly.
How sorry I felt for those women who could not bear to be touched during their pregnancies. I also wondered how many women had been scared away from pregnant sex, having been told in advance that it would be agonizing.
My husband Kenny had also been warned that while I was pregnant our sex life would be greatly diminished, if not over completely. My sexuality surge was an unexpected reward. My calmness, too, soothed Kenny. Thanks to my sisters and a handful of girlfriends who all shared tales of their own pregnant exploits, I wasn't panicked about any aspect of pregnancy. They told me not to fight it, and I watched them relish their breasts, their bellies, the fact that their entire bodies seemed to scream, Sex! Besides, I knew it would take a lot more than sex to burst our babe's little bubble; our child was in there and well protected. Women had been doing this for a long time and not once had I heard of miscarriage by penetration.
Better still, for the first time in our relationship, we weren't worried about contraception. In our five years together, only once had we deviated from our automatic routine and look where it got us! But now we were free no more grasping in the dark for condoms, no more foams or creams to muddle our scents; we reveled in the spontaneity temporarily afforded us.
Neither Kenny nor I could keep our hands off me! He has always adored my body, but he outdid himself when I was pregnant. At the opposite end of a crowded grocery store aisle he would catch me rubbing my belly and his face would tell me he yearned to do the same. Other times he would sneak up behind me, wrap his arms as far around me as they would go, rub my belly and whisper that we needed to go. And soon. His love of the female shape had been honed during his art school days but these curves were unlike any he had studied. They were more, and more than that, they were real and there for the touching. My current shape, my oozing hormones and my obvious self-love were almost too much for him to take.
In bed at night he spooned around me, cradling my belly. Throughout the night my breasts served as his pillow and in the morning he greeted me with hands on my widened hips, my hearty thighs. When he wasn't touching me his eyes took in all that was now me and each glance activated my abundant and ready hormones.
My body itself seemed to grow with his appreciation of it or was it the reverse? Seemingly overnight my rack went from a very average C cup to a size I had not even known existed, an H, while my nipples darkened and grew accordingly. I knew I probably couldn't keep them, so I flaunted my new tits at every opportunity. I offered them up before my husband as a gift from nature and myself. I would stand or kneel above him, telling him just what I could do to him with these new glands of mine. At times they seemed strange and foreign, yet there was no mistaking their connection to the rest of me.
And as my breasts rounded, so too did the rest of my body. My hips curved out as if drawn by a ten-year-old. My belly swelled and its hardness invited touch; complete strangers couldn't resist rubbing the newly amplified me. Even my bones stretched out a bit, each necessary part expanding to accommodate the growing life inside me. The body I saw was a delight to behold, and never did we behold it so much. Kenny dripped ice cubes over my multitudinous curves, watching and wondering which way the water would fall.
All day long I fondled my belly, consciously sometimes, absentmindedly at others, but always quite conspicuously. It loomed in front of me how could I ignore it? And why would I want to? It was so tight and attached and, did I mention, firm? I'd never had a body so hard. Wherever I was in the grocery store, the library, at the bus stop I kneaded, massaged and stroked in a slow and circular motion, worshiping my belly. The rhythm made it feel almost sexual. Never before would I have considered such public displays of self-affection, but pregnancy somehow allowed it. It wasn't like I was rubbing myself, I reasoned, I was cradling my child and, judging by the nods and smiles, people liked that. It was accepted, almost expected. Especially by other women, women I suspected had been there before.
In the last growing, glowing months my entire torso was spherical. In the heat of a Texas summer, all my movements were slurred. Our imaginations were forced to work overtime to come up with feasible positions for sex. No longer could I be under him unless on my hands and knees like a sway-backed horse, my belly resting below. Nor could I be on top of him unless I sat straight up and gripped some overhead support. We came up with positions which were neither up nor down, not standing or sitting, neither top nor bottom I don't think we could duplicate them now, even with diagrams. Sometimes a maneuver from the baby would prod us into a different tangle altogether, making us laugh that perhaps this was how dimples and cleft chins were formed. And all the while, and I'm not exactly sure why, the song went through my head, "Buffalo girls coming 'round the outside, 'round the outside, 'round the outside . . . "
While we could hardly wait for our baby to arrive, we also knew that it would make us three, which was good, but it wasn't two. And so we lived those last months in a state of honeymoon bliss, my pregnancy a kind of countdown to an unexplored life: one in which another being would share my breasts, my affections, my very waking hours. And one in which, perhaps, there would be no sex for a while: though I had sailed through my pregnancy in a state of lusty bliss, it was hard not to believe that sex after giving birth would hurt like hell.
Finally our due date came, but the baby wasn't quite ready. In the days (and then weeks) that followed, our doctor prescribed a glass of red wine and regular sex. Sitting on the couch together one evening, it dawned on us that this was how we got here in the first place.
And then there was breast milk.
wouldn't let my husband near me," said another. Agony? Not for me. Ecstasy? Oh yes. Each caress, each squeeze, each unintentional brush ran down to my clitoris and back up again, flooding the portion of my brain reserved for rapture. I have never been one to shy away from sex, and married sex had been the best sex of all. But I never expected the sex that is pregnant sex the desire that woke me in the middle of the night caused by nothing more than a sheet rubbing across my shoulder or his sleepily errant hand against my belly.
entire bodies seemed to scream, Sex! Besides, I knew it would take a lot more than sex to burst our babe's little bubble; our child was in there and well protected. Women had been doing this for a long time and not once had I heard of miscarriage by penetration.
to him with these new glands of mine. At times they seemed strange and foreign, yet there was no mistaking their connection to the rest of me.
and smiles, people liked that. It was accepted, almost expected. Especially by other women, women I suspected had been there before.
