Mommy Bloggers Talk About Lust

Last week, my friend, Rebecca Mullen of Altared Spaces introduced me to a wonderful group of Mommy bloggers originating from a blog called Momalom. Right now Momalom is doing this "Five for Ten" campaign for bloggers. The idea is to spend five minutes for ten days reading and commenting on each others' blogs. Momalom provides the topics:

• May 10 & 11 -- Courage
• May 12 & 13 -- Happiness
• May 14 & 15 -- Memory
• May 16 & 17 -- Lust
• May 18 & 19 -- Yes

I haven't been participating until now. Leave it to me to jump in on a lust day! I was curious to know what exactly Mommy bloggers would write about lust. The topic is rather ... personal! As I know quite well from reactions about my book, there is an unspoken boundary between what is appropriate and what is TMI when it comes to openly sharing.

The more I read of the Mommy blogs, the more humbled I am. These women are so articulate... so poetic. Take a look at what Ali'n'Son wrote in Let's Talk About...

She starts with:

If you are a child from the 90s, you know where I’m going with this. Sex.
Yes, sex. *blush*

So, if you are one of my parents, in-laws or other family member you might want to just pass on by.

She says of lust: "A beautiful, soft, sensual word, often turned dirty, negative and well, just plain icky." And then she goes on to write the beautiful, soft sensual, poem, which you will just have to go over to her site to check out.

I know those mixed feeling about sex and lust... How can something be so beautiful, yet still have the power to make us feel ashamed or embarrassed? Why do we have to warn off family members from reading about our sensuality? We are mothers, we are professionals, we are (in some cases) geeks!, but we still are sensual human beings who long to be touched and loved and to return those feelings. Why is it so taboo to talk about that?

I, myself, have raised my eyebrows at sexual things that I've seen written in blogs. And even though I loved the HBO series, "Sex and the City," I felt that some of the Samantha-scenes went too far. What are the boundaries? Some people may not be comfortable with discussing the topic of sexual lust at all, especially not online. Why does it make us squirm? What makes something "Too Much Information"?

I was talking to my neighbor yesterday about how much is on TV these days that used to be taboo. On the Dick Van Dyke show, Laura and Rob had to have separate beds... These days you not only see married people in bed, but it's pretty common place to see all kinds of sexual adventures in mainstream media. It starts to make me wonder if I'm so old-fashioned to only want sex with love. Lust is wonderful, but when the other parts of love are missing... commitment, companionship, communication... well, it's kind of hard for me to get a very high reading on my internal lust-meter. And then I worry... Am I getting too old? Am I not "modern" enough? Am I too much of a prude?

Lust is a wonderful feeling. But for me, it's a relatively small part of the package. What I'm looking for is love. Without that, I can't seem to lust....

That is, unless I have a couple of good, strong margaritas! Then, nevermind.