The Sex Life of Parents

As a teenager I worked very briefly in the tomato department of a fruit-and-veg packing plant. I had to stand at a conveyor belt for eight hours a day placing tomatoes – eight tomatoes at a time – into an infinity of plastic punnets. Tomato, tomato, tomato. Punnet, punnet, punnet. Before taking this job I’d counted myself among the tomato’s greatest fans. I loved everything about those round, red sods: their soup, which was warm and comforting, like a cuddle at a lower-tier relative’s funeral; how the tangy wetness of a single sliced tomato could bring a whole bag of finger-waggin’ sass to a boring old cheddar sandwich (imagine a tomato saying ‘Hmmm mmmm’, ‘you go girl’ and ‘ah don’t THINK so’); how easily a tomato could be transformed into a portable ballistic weapon with a single bite.

After two-and-a-half days of non-stop tomato-packing it’s fair to say that my love for them was waning. As tomatoes dropped through my fingers by the thousand-load they came to assume the consistency and snack-appeal of cricket balls, possessing the sass not of an enormous black woman in the audience of Ricky Lake, but of a recently-deceased Alan Titchmarsh. Tomato, tomato, tomato. Punnet, punnet, punnet. Tomatoes. I was bloody sick of them. Immune to their charms. They were just things now, lifeless, inanimate things, devoid of all joy and use and substance. I never wanted to sink my teeth into one of those round mother-fuckers ever again.

That’s pretty much how witnessing the births of my children made me feel about vaginas.

At least for a while. The forswearance was temporary, dear reader. Once the stitches had healed, and the missus had reclaimed her inclination, and my NAM-style fanny flashbacks had ceased – ‘The head… the head was sticking out, and, and it was blue, man… it was covered in blood and …bent out of shape and… oh CHRIST… (swigs another quart of bourbon)’ – things went back to normal. Attitudinally at least.

Unfortunately, the temporary reframing of my perspective on vaginas was merely the opening salvo in a much wider war upon my sex life; a war that was being waged against me by – in a weird, round-about-way – my own sex life from the past. My enemy: the physical manifestation of fifty per cent of my own sainted DNA.

Having sex with kids Having sex when you’ve got kids

Your baby’s first words to the world, unspoken and unspeakable, consist of a simple resolution never to let you have sex again. ‘Em, hello – you’ve got me? Why would you want to do this again? PUT THOSE THINGS AWAY!’, their wails seem to say. Babies are nature’s most exquisitely evolved biological padlocks and chastity belts. Your new kid on the block is a cock-block; a hex on your sex. How much wood would a rude dad chuck if a rude dad’s son hucked puke? I’m not even sure what that last sentence actually means, but I do know, with clarity and certainty, that y’all ‘aint getting any sex – at least not until after the divorce.

Until then you’ll roam the earth a foggy-eyed sexless husk, splitting your time between cooing and cursing, pooing and nursing. Inclined to be amorous, but too tired to follow through, or else perfectly well-placed physically but too mentally frazzled to get into the swing of things.

Or, worst of all, the planets of your desire will align, and you’ll be in the midst of blissful sexual abandon when a baby’s cry will cut through the air and wilt your willy away to nothing. They know, they just seem to KNOW when you’re at it, those tiny bastards, wherever you are in the house, and whichever stage of the process you’re at, and they’ll move heaven and earth to put a stop to your shenanigans.

Our kids have always seemed unknowingly to favour their mother on such occasions, and many, many times my chivalry has been punished; having selflessly provided pleasure through non-penetrative means I’ve been denied an orgasm of my own by the sounding of a baby’s cock-blocking klaxon, halting us pre-coital, and sending her to soothe the baby back to sleep, and me into the bathroom for a consolatory wank.

So having sex when you’ve got kids is hard. Unless, of course, you happen to be one of those couples who’re to be found in the pub within seven days of the birth, telling people you’re on a well-deserved break from the stress and exhaustion of parenthood, and noisily proclaiming to all who’ll listen that having a baby needn’t affect your social commitments or change your life. Not change your life? It’s a baby, not a slight fucking limp, you vomit-smeared scrotums. Anyway, if you’re one of those couples then you’re probably free to make the beast with two backs as often as your built-in babysitting network will allow, in which case this article isn’t for you, and you should stop reading it immediately. May I suggest you go fuck yourselves? You’ve clearly got the time.

Aural sex: ‘Come ear!’

Every sexual encounter between you and your partner has as its template the fervent spontaneity of the first eighteen months or so of your relationship; the heady, come-to-beddy days where any time, occasion or flat surface (vertical or horizontal) would do; when your hands felt grafted to the skin of the other. It’s the memory of these days that makes the meticulous scheduling of sexual activity seem so off-puttingly antiseptic, despite the absolute necessity of such planning when you’ve got kids in the house. It makes what’s supposed to be five minutes a good solid hour of passion feel about as sexy as a hospital appointment.

Because of this new reality it pays always to be on the lookout for ways to return a little verve and spontaneity to the process. Just last week my partner used her skills of time and resource management, and sexual intuition to exploit a rare opportunity. Both of our kids were asleep before 8pm, and neither of us appeared to be ill or over-tired, so off she slinked upstairs to the bathroom to slip into something a little more comfortable.

Unfortunately, I had no idea this surprise was in the offing – and she in turn had no idea that I was bursting on a shite. As she stood naked in the bathroom, seconds away from togging herself up in a titillating outfit, the sound of my fist banging on the door relayed this information to her swiftly and efficiently. ‘Get out!’ I implored her. ‘Get out quick, I’m literally about to shite myself!’

The door whooshed open. ‘That’s killed it,’ she said, as she brushed past me to go change into some lounge-pants.

Another hard-core sesh as a parent

Despite the existence of a multitude of niche German movies lurking in deeply unhygienic corners of the internet, there are few greater passion killers than an unexpected jobby. So we decided we’d take a rain-check on the cha-cha-cha and snuggle up on the couch and watch TV instead. But still. The gauntlet had been thrown down, and the promise of sex had set my ridey-sense tingling. I made some overtures, seductively wiggling my eyebrows and shuffling up the couch towards her crotch like some brain-starved zombie.

‘Why don’t I do something for you?’ I asked.

She didn’t say ‘no’. She said something much worse. She said: ‘You burst in on me before I had a proper chance to wash myself, and I’m not going back up to that bathroom to inhale the smell of your boufing shite, so I guess we’ll just have to keep watching TV.’

I’m sure I’ve heard that line in a porno somewhere. Wounded and thwarted, I bided my time. We took stock and tried again. I shuffled closer and we went in for a kiss. Our lips softly butted, but as soon as they’d touched she yanked her face away from mine with a violence normally reserved for cases of whiplash in a car-crash. A grimace of displeasure warped her features. This isn’t a particularly encouraging sexual signal, unless you happen to be some sort of sadistic deviant, or have been married for twenty years (the two are by no means mutually exclusive).

‘What is it now?’ I asked.

‘Your ear,’ she said, shuddering. ‘It stinks.’

She was right. I had an infection in my left ear. But like the smell of a man’s own farts, I’d grown used to it, and had little idea it was so repulsive. So I couldn’t fault her disgust, but even still I sulked, my pride wounded, the thin and tenuous bubble of my sexual confidence well and truly popped.

‘Don’t sulk. I’m not rejecting you, I’m rejecting your ear.’

‘Yeah, whatever,’ I said, even sulkier still.

Don’t listen to what these women’s magazines tell you. Sulking is HOT. It really works up a soak.

She tried to be conciliatory. ‘Maybe… maybe if we have to kiss, you could come at me from one side only, keep the bad ear away.’

I shrugged. She sank deep into thought. Seconds later, there was a light-bulb moment, followed by a big grin. She stroked my shoulder, eager to share her epiphany.

‘Or why not just do me from behind?’

I gave a dismissive wave. ‘Nah, it’s finished. I’m vile. I’m a vile and disgusting creature. I stink and I’m horrible.’ I don’t know why I was so gloomy about it; that realisation had never stopped me before.

We watched TV in silence for a few moments.

‘Maybe…’ she began, the words tip-toeing carefully out of her mouth, ‘Maybe if you put your hearing aid in, it’ll plug the smell!’

I shook my head. ‘Maybe I could just f*** you with a walking stick?! Jesus, now I feel disgusting AND old. Brilliant.’

At this point she laughed. I did, too. How bloody ridiculous.

‘Is this what our sex life is going to be like now?’ she asked.

‘No,’ I said. ‘It’ll probably get much worse.’ A third child is very much in the offing for the not-too-distant future, so our offing days are probably numbered.

‘What do you want to do?’ she asked. I smiled.

In defiance of the Gods of Domesticity and Sexual Scheduling, I did her from behind.

And then I ate a tomato.

Why love is more important than sex

I swaggered around the homestead one weekend morning, naked except for a dressing gown, which billowed around my bare arse like a Roman’s cloak – but a Roman’s cloak that was soft and cosy and really rather effeminate, if I’m being honest. I’m a morning person, much to the consternation and occasional fury of my partner, who either isn’t a morning person or simply isn’t a ‘me’ person. I like to greet the day with a series of nonsense songs, daft-dances and urgent finger-clicks, whilst she likes to greet the day by violently murdering me.

Despite my glee I had woken up with a bit of a jumpy tummy, which probably has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that I have the same diet as a bin inside a McDonalds’ restaurant. My stomach issued a rumble here, a grumble there, a Mexican wave of nausea there. But no matter. I still had a song in my heart, and a fart in my… Oh, hello. A fart! Where did you come from, you little tyke? Well, the conditions aren’t ideal, but if you really must insist upon making a life for yourself in the world outside my rectum, then who am I to… let me just feel it out here, and give a little squee…

Oh.

Oh my.

You’ve heard of a shart, right? Well this wasn’t a shart. It was pretty much a full-blown shit.

One doesn’t accept a surprise defecation quietly. My loud regrets, interlaced with hissed staccato swearing, stirred my sweet from her slumber, and led her siren-like to the hallway, where I stood temporarily frozen by fear, regret and disgust. I quickly bolted to the bathroom, grabbing up cloths and cleaning products. I didn’t want her to see this, to learn what had happened! To my horror, a few stray droplets of poo peppered the tiled floor of the bathroom in my wake. I sprayed and wiped and rinsed the tiles at lightning speed, and then hurtled into the hallway to mask or remove the worst of my shame. Why had we carpeted the hall and not kept the laminate, I lamented! Her footsteps drew closer still. It was too late, too late! I bombed back to the bathroom to grab more cloths, and to wash down my legs, but in my haste I slipped on a section of tile I’d just cleaned, flew into the air and just about knocked myself unconscious against the wall.

Even though I genuinely thought I’d have to go to hospital to be treated for a concussion, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a human being laugh as much or as hard as ‘the love of my life’ did that day.

Some people say that love is sticking by someone through thick and thin, being willing to go to the ends of the earth for them, risking life and limb in pursuit of their wellbeing and happiness, being willing to lay down and die for them. I’ve no doubt it is. But love is also still having the desire to fuck someone after you’ve witnessed them shitting the floor.

If our sex life can survive that, kids should be a doddle.

1 thought on “The Sex Life of Parents

  1. Pingback: Twelve things I’ve learned being a Dad to two under four (PART 2) | Jamie Andrew With Hands

Comments are closed.