Don't worry, Lisa - you're still on the hormonal rollercoaster. You'll bounce back in time. The key thing to remember is that the urge for sex comes from an adolescent desire to be physically, mentally, and emotionally close to someone else, and sex is the best barrier-breaking way to do it. Babies burst through all that because they're mentally, physically, and emotionaly naked with you WITHOUT fucking. Of course sex feels a little de-prioritised at the moment. But your taste for it will come back.
--jmb
10/13 |
-----oh yeh and I know someone will have something stupid to say about that post, so here is a pre-stupid post reply, "shut up stupid".
I <3 LC 4 EVA
--puke
09/21 |
I read "the Lisa diaries" this past week and then made out with someone in it. I feel like I'm you somtimes, I never want to meet you, but I love reading your life. Your husband was right, I almost puked a few times whilst reading.
--puke
09/21 |
i liked this because it's such a good observation. i'm only 21 and i've experienced many peaks and drops in my sex drive. ovarian cysts, the morning after pill, too much homework, total contempt for anyone with a dick, birth control, anti depressants...having cabbage for lunch, all those things effect the sex drive. i can only imagine what the toal upheaval of the female body during pregnancy and birth and post-birth would do. its beautiful how our bodies know better than we do. it's silly how some people get good and mad over self expression on the internet, typos, and natural hormonal and attitudenal changes in worldview. thats right: attitudenal. also, whats all this adolescentesque bashing of social norms, being normal, embracing the role of the family? get off the internet and send your parents a thankyou card and a check repaying them for the last time they bailed you out. if you didnt have a loving family, isntt hat something to think about when you have children? and dont bash gardening and other little pleasures until you've tried them. hehe, or just go drink espresso till your angst wears off.
--
09/21 |
'exactly' to the last feedbacker. it's very refreshing and reassuring to read lisa talking truth and sense within hugely idiotic culture that preaches no sex to people who want it (kids) and sex sex sex to those who maybe don't (adults -whatever age/stage). the idea of trying desperately to hold on to an urge that makes you desperate and panting on a yo-yo...why do we buy into it!>? obviously repression isn't an answer, sex can be very great and interesting etc. but things do change and there are other ways to read the world with those changes...and i certainly want to read it thru lisa's! please tell more about your dreams and your garden and your plants. i'd rather read your take on life however it hits you (and you hit it) than some hipsterish hitlerish nonsense about fucking the pain away liberation (enslavement)
--sc
09/19 |
Lisa,
Good luck with your garden and every other wonderful new thing growing in your life, but please keep writing, no matter what the topic. You're an excellent writer regardless of the current vogue to write about sex. You don't need a sultry subject to keep me and many others reading.
And most importantly, go get that goddamn groundhog! They are a scourge to gardeners and small children everywhere!
Regards,
A Devoted Reader
--KNH
09/18 |
Thought this was terrific. I would call this one of the bravest things she's written if she had addressed what I thought was a key area: given this couple's well-documented, hyperactive, multi-faceted sex life, what happens to him? Are prostitutes still cool when she's not horny? How flexible is she still prepared to be in the face of his (presumably ongoing) needs? Maybe that's the next essay.
--dh
09/08 |
I enjoyed this piece...but where were the editors?? There are typos throughout!
--LM
09/07 |
I have to say, I'm a bit taken aback by the rancor of these responses. I wonder if it isn't a bit threatening to read about Lisa Carver, LISA FUCKING SUCKDOG, is no longer interested in sex.
I certainly never got to enjoy as much or as interesting of a sex life as Lisa, and the idea that it might just sort of end just when I'm getting good at it is frightening.
I suppose some of this is just the simple fact that 22-year-olds could care less about what old people do. And people looking to get off were surely disappointed.
I loved this piece. I still don't buy that its the hormones or whatever. But I appreciate Lisa sharing her life and her secrets with me. She rules.
--ES
09/07 |
Hey PJ - Nobody tells them that because it's not true. The loss of interest in sex is not permanent, unless there is a more serious issue going on. If these guys absolutely gotta have it, it would make sense that they masturbate as often as they'd like, and maybe, if they balance the work of taking care of the kids enough, maybe their wives will occasionally have enough energy to be interested in jerking them off, of even giving them blow-jobs. If a man is patient with his wife's post-partum lack of libido, she'll probably remember it very kindly later on.
--aod
09/04 |
Bra-veaux
--DAS
09/03 |
So as she approaches middle age, Lisa finds herself "liberated" from her former sexual persona. Fine and good for her, but what should a husband *who's still extremely interested in sex* do if motherhood has taken away his wife's formerly-robust sex drive? Cry? Masturbate? Give up? Cheat?
Young men know their wives will age, and they know they'll be distracted by the children. But NOBODY tells young single men to expect their wife to someday utterly lose interest in sex, permanently.
--PJ
09/01 |
Another thing that causes birth defects in fetuses: being the product of self-obsessed pseudo-artists who junk up the planet with inane little 'zines and diaries and really bad music.
--MJ
08/31 |
i thought it was a waste of virtual ink lisa.
--dali
08/31 |
Bravo! Really enjoyed the article. So True...but wait it does come back!..give it time. -experienced male in Cleveland
--ces
08/31 |
hi lisa -i like your story..i think i hit my prime like those sufi's or whatever just a few days ago...i have not had sex in over three years but now i don't care and there is no reason for me to seek danger in between the cracks...
steve p.
--sp
08/31 |
Who are these men that refuse to fuck their pregnant partners? My wives would practically rape me in the final months, as if I wasn't willing enough. Perhaps all of this chaste squeamishness is some Calvinistic WASP hangup? Fear of what???Ignorance of sexuality?...Biology? Interestingly, this seems to be a problem for the educated classes. Intellect in opposition to libido.
--KMcL
08/31 |
Sure, it's the brestfeeding's lovely hormones (the booby buzz! feels so nice, doesn't it? like you've been smoking weed for days and just maintaining this light high where you're floating several inches off the ground) but it's also the lack of sleep and the fact there is a little being who needs you every minute of the day.
Let Dave have a taste too. My ex-husband (husband at the time) delighted in suckling my new rounded breasts. And, it WILL turn you on too! This is what the OB/GYN never tells you about. Have fun!
And, the sex drive does return, as you surmised. Like a tidal wave. And, just when you've hit your stride, your husband finds his favorite easy chair. By now, he's found a new power dynamic. Breadwinner. He won't know what hits him when you take him in that Laz-Y-Boy.
~Tigerswallowtail
--SR
08/31 |
I am probably one of hundreds of women who was steered here by a loving husband. It took me 2 days to find a moment when my 6 year old wasn't peering over my shoulder and my 3 yaer old's croup was under control... But, here I am and glad to have read of Lisa's post-baby libido. With my first child, I was still randy and naughty, my husband and I barely waited the 4 weeks for the all clear before we jumped back in to once a day love-making. But after the second, it became more difficult to manufacture the time and energy. we find ourselves scheduling in a way I find troubling, after the kids go to bed, before Paradise Hotel we have an hour...I think, I hope that its cyclical, I know I have many more mad romps in me.
--SRB
08/30 |
About that adaptive effect: Yes, but wouldn't nature then take sex drive away from the new father as well? I've heard of couples breaking up in the first year of the baby's life, largely because the woman never wants to have sex anymore. And it is to the child's advantage to have the dad around. There are some hormones -- mainly estrogen, I believe -- the dad sort of ABSORBS if he's hugging the pregnant woman at night and then the baby when it pops out. Scientists have measured this recently.
--lcc
08/30 |
as per the last poster, its amazing to me that this self obsessed ex-libertine is clueless abt the obvious adaptive advantages of there being a libido drop after birth. duh!
and her claim to being happy that she ends on "methinks the ex slut doth protest too much
--jsg
08/29 |
Um, aod? You maybe wanna edit your comments next time? You know, before you hit the "send" button?
--max
08/29 |
I continue to be impressed at how no one bothers to tell women about the postpartum libido drop (especially when one is breastfeeding) until after it happens. Funny how how pregnancy, birth and their effects on the body are inextricably linked to sex, and still the general populace knows next to nothing about these subjects.
I think that we're more biologically driven than we tend to give ourselves credit for. The human intellect has such a large ego - especially if one is the type who bridges their intellect to their libido. I know I do.
But we're animals when fucking, and animals when birthing and our bodies remember everything about species propegation that we keep forgetting and/ or defying and/ or neglecting (I sometimes wonder if our collective biological unconsciousness will figure out what we've been up to with The Pill, and do something the sabotage it). I'm fairly convinced that our libidos drop postpartum to keep people from neglecting their young because they've gotten into it with their rut buddy. Cute as babies are, without the aid of certain chemical assistants in the parents, baby might get re-prioritized in the same way that meetings with friends, arriving to work on time, breakfast, dinner, classes and numerous other Need-to, Have-tos have been.
I could go on, but then I'd be here all night. I don't know what you do with "Feedback," but if you care to respond - doulatena@yahoo.com.
--aod
08/29 |
it's the no-sex issue you idiots.
--
08/29 |
i hear testosterone gel may cause birth defects in fetuses.
you really need to talk to a doctor if you are going to consider using it.
--tca
08/29 |
testosterone gel, e.g. Testim, rubbed on the bean and the labes might make you randy as a billy goat. it is available in europe. talk to a doctor first...
of course, you might enjoy the nonsexual aspects of your life...
--tca
08/29 |
What a huge vocabulary you've got, RM.
--gg
08/29 |
People can have their opinions, but dude, if you say LC is boring, you obviously haven't read the majority of her work. I still have to go buy the Diaries...
--GDE
08/28 |
i thought it was beautiful lisa.
--dila
08/28 |
Awright, now, I'm reading all the feedback about this piece, and it strikes me that there's a whole lotta bitching about the author doing what she's always done -- writing up the details of her life. If it ain't your bag, can't you just stop fucking reading her stuff, instead of coming in and bitching about her doing what she's always done?
Goddamnit, I could maybe understand it if you clicked on "This Week in Sex" and got a long erotic poem ... but you can't bitch at TWIS for being another roundup of sex in the news, and you can't bitch at Lisa for writing about her life. That shit ain't reasonable!
--RM
08/28 |
Ms. Carver is always capable of taking a vague look at the obvious. The self-absorption leads her to believe every waking moment, every errant thought in her brain rattling around like a BB in a tuna fish can, is somehow mind boggling or unique.
None of this is new.
--GW
08/28 |
nice to know I am not alone. And nice to hear your positive version on it since my marriage with kids and no sex drive just ended - now with kids 5 and 7 my sex drive is back and in overdrive, more creative than ever! After about 7 years of almost no sex while I was happy about it, I have had a lion's share - been with younger men, a much older man, and wow - men are AMAZING "out there" these days ~ nice reminder for me that a possible future relationship might include babies and no excellent sex for a while AND might stay positive too.
Bummer that some here dont want to "suffer" through more "normal" "boring" writing - I find this educational, important, and if ya dont like it, dont read it! it's good to be prepared for anything you or your partner might go through someday.
--
08/28 |
Gee, I wonder what would make Lisa Carver lose the desire to write? 'Cause that would be so awesome, if she finally stopped rambling on about every minute detail of her tedious life. Meanwhile, if I could teach my pet gerbil how to type, I'm pretty sure he'd have about ninety-thousand more interesting things to say than Ms. Carver, whether she's gettin' any or not.
--luv
08/28 |
Yawn. If I don't want sex, I just ask my wife. Sound familiar? Congratulations, you just got old.
Welcome to BORINGville.
--MTV
08/28 |
Someone in here called Lisa a "hipster." Lisa is not a hipster, she's prehipster. Libertine, though, is a possible moniker.
--gum
08/27 |
What a teriffic article -- bang on the money! Lisa, you've proven yourself once again to be an astute participant in life, laying open its wonder for us all to consider more clearly. Thank you!
--RM
08/27 |
Here's more of the process, from my angle (I'm 60)(baby wasn't born till I was 39). Absolute cessation of sexual feelings for men and could ONLY look at babies: 5 years. Late birth of feminism, bad menopause begins, only interested in women, no deeds: 5 years. Fixing life, menopause getting under control, wanting other men( 2nd marriage worseening), no deeds (with anybody) - 5 years. Found other men, left husband, daughter grown and marvelous, best sex of my life or that I can imagine - last 5 years and continues. This may be a much longer trajectory with much longer sections than many women will have -- let's hope so -- but the point is, SEX DOES NOT END WHEN YOUR BABY IS BORN.
--mf
08/27 |
this is a fantastic article. i am a 23 year old female who just can't get enough sex, but at the same time is all too keenly aware that somewhere in the wee future there is probably an expiration date on it. to me this article is just one more vote for the "life is in the process" idea.
--LR
08/27 |
so true about the single mom doing it up like a teenager on her weekends off. i am in that spot right now, but am transitioning into the next phase: it's started with a simple idea...time to stop and rethink that pleated mini-skirt. even if i am 27 and look 19, i still need to wear a sensible skirt length while chasing after my 4 year old in the park.
--wf
08/27 |
I loved it. It was beautiful, and though it could have been sad, it wasn't at all. Being content is a wonderful thing and I'm glad that you have that.
Good luck with your garden. Lately, I've been sans partner five days a week and have been releasing my frustrations into growing herbs for my cooking. It's wonderful, making something alive.
--kp
08/27 |
when the kid is 9 or ten you'll be spreading like
never before. trust me
--dh
08/27 |
I have been reading your work for a LONG time, all the Diaries, etc. I just turned 21 ( yeah, so I was under 18 for a lot of those... oops) and I got a boyfriend that is all sweet and normal, and it totally has knocked out my sex drive. No kids!! Ahhhh!! I can't even think about it. I used to be so EASY!! If only I were older and could make peace with it like you... sigh...
Or it could be that your crazy ideas helped me think of crazy ideas to make the whole sex thing more interesting.
--gde
08/27 |
think of it this way, at least you can get a good night's sleep. i'd give you a couple of years until you are back to your old self with some twists and improvements...
--tca
08/27 |
Pretty typical. Libertine/scenester/hipster settles down. Oldest story in the world. Now must we suffer many tedious essays on being "normal?" Hope not.
--glt
08/27 |
Loved this. Love to step away from the horrific marketing of myself in the nerve personals to realize I'm not all about simply sex and trying to look good.
--Ben
08/27 |
Wow, thank you! I was up late once again with really hardcore insomnia, and I was sort of surfing 'round, looking for something to make me sleepy, since half a handful of pills just wasn't doing the trick. Anyway, now, after reading this navel-gazing thing, I'm yawning my head right the hell off...so I'm going to hurry away to bed now, where I know I will sleep exactly like a giant freakin' log.
--lyn
08/27 |
Lame lame lame.
--mr
08/27 |
hapiness is subjective.
--efm
08/27 |
congratulations, Lisa (and Dave). Your article left me sad, and wistful, and very very conflicted. The idea of losing sex, losing the need for it is about as appealing as losing my hair. But, as with all things, I suppose I'll just embrace it when it arrives, like an old friend returning.
--X0
08/27 |
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