This story is an “as told to” and anonymous. The mom in this story is the mother of one, in her 40s, living in the southeast.
Sex was really hard for us after we had our child. We struggled to conceive for a long time, and when we finally got pregnant, I was so scared something would happen that we were never really intimate. It also didn’t help that we were both completely worn out from all the trying-to-conceive sex.
When our baby was about 6 months, some of my libido started coming back. I felt lucky because so many people told me that their desire for sex fully disappeared after having kids, but I think I felt like myself again. And it was such a relief not worrying about timing sex anymore. We only wanted one child, we had them, and now I could actually live my life.
But when we tried to have sex, it was difficult. I was a little self-conscious about my body, but I also had some physical changes postpartum that made sex less enjoyable — I was not expecting that at all. I had heard people talk about a low sex drive, but never that sex could actually hurt. We tried a bunch of different positions and lubes and sex toys, and it was all OK, but nothing ever really felt as good as we wanted to.
And then I remembered doggy-style.
We hadn’t done that position in years. I always felt sort of icky about it, but it really seemed like a solution for us in this weird period of time. Not only would it help some of my body image issues, like my stomach being softer than I wanted it to be during sex, but I also didn’t like wearing a bra during sex, and my husband getting it from behind could help so that I wasn’t experiencing milk leakage.
Again, a thing nobody told me about. My milk used to leak everywhere during sex, and it was so off-putting.
The problem with this position is that my husband is super tall and I am super short. Like, there’s more than a foot difference between the two of us, and we found this position super challenging when bending over.
So I started wearing high heels. Red ones. I think I bought them for Halloween once.
Up until this point, my husband’s sex drive had really dropped. I think he was struggling with the baby blues in his own way, and he just wanted to be able to have sex with his wife without all these gadgets and tricks. When I would put the heels on, I think he was sort of turned off at first. Like we couldn’t have sex without this tool or something, but it really did help us get in the best position without either of us in any pain.
But I’d say maybe a month or two later, everything changed. We found other positions that worked and eventually the vaginal dryness I was experiencing had eased up and we’d found a lube we both really liked. We were having sex a lot, and it was good.
Then I randomly wore those red high heels out for dinner with our parents one night. While they were cooing over the baby and I was snapping pictures on my phone, I saw a dirty text pop up on my screen from my husband. He said that seeing me in those shoes gave him an instant boner. Never in my life have I had sex in public, but we literally asked our parents if they could keep the baby for like an hour while we had a nightcap at a nearby restaurant, and we snuck into the bathroom and had the hottest sex of our lives.
From then on, they were my sex shoes.
That was 12 years ago. Those shoes are in pretty bad shape and I’ve had to repair the heel twice, but they are still my sex shoes. When I’m in the mood, I just walk through the kitchen wearing them, and he will drop everything and meet me upstairs. Sometimes I wear them on date nights, and he can’t keep his hands off of me. Sometimes I just swing them from my fingers as he comes out of the shower before work, and we’ll have a quickie right there at 7 a.m.
I don’t always have to use the shoes to get him in the mood, but sometimes if it’s been a while or we’re in a funk, I’ll just pull them out.
We still have a very healthy sex life, which I am so grateful for, but I really think I owe it all to these shoes.
