A New Mother Recovers Her Sensual Self

by Elizabeth Uppman

“No, he’s been very understanding,” I said miserably.

“You know,” Anne said, “this weird thing happened when I was still married to Jeffrey.” She described arriving home late one evening, casually flipping on the TV, and being shocked to see full-on porn. “We kept saying, ‘Can you believe that they’re showing that right on TV?’ But let me tell you, after watching it for awhile, woo-hoo.”

“You mean, it worked?”

“You betcha, baby.”

This was stunning news. Anne’s first marriage had broken up precisely because she and Jeffrey weren’t compatible in the bedroom. Yet here was proof that even the most irreparable kind of sexual problem might, at times, be overcome—even if just for one night. Still—porn? I squirmed in my seat. “I don’t know, Anne,” I said, looking at the ceiling. She didn’t reply, and I realized almost instantly how small-minded it was to reject a possible solution merely because I didn’t think of myself as a pornography kind of girl. “Where do you get that stuff, anyway?”