Ejaculating milk from my nipples during orgasm was not something I can say I expected, while I was expecting.

It was a rainy afternoon during my third trimester and, without even aiming, I shot my partner straight in the eye. Fortunately, unlike semen, breast milk doesn’t sting and there was no burning or redness. In fact, the sweet, off-white fluid appeared to smooth out his wrinkles and invoke a healthy glow.

“What a fantastic remedy for conjunctivitis,” I found myself thinking, the new mother in me already emerging.

As I would later learn, the parallels between pregnancy or birth and sexual orgasm have long been recorded. Back in 1955, anthropologist Dr Niles Newton published a paper claiming that “the survival of the human race, long before the concept of duty was evolved, depended on the satisfactions gained from two voluntary acts of reproduction – coitus and breastfeeding…these had to be sufficiently pleasurable to ensure their frequent occurrence”.

Newton’s research goes on to describe the parallels between orgasm and breastfeeding, pointing out that uterine contractions and nipple erection can occur in both processes, both types of contact involve skin changes and possibly milk ejection, and the emotions experienced might also be closely aligned.

Finally, Newtown points out that “an accepting attitude toward sexuality may be related to an accepting attitude toward breastfeeding”.

Dr Marc Ganem, a French gynaecologist, estimates that between 33 and 50 per cent of women are sexually aroused during breastfeeding, and some women exacerbate the potential for an actual orgasm during the feeding if they happen to cross their legs.

“As a result, the labia minora may rub against each other, potentially leading to the stimulation of the clitoris,” he says. “The mother could experience deep orgasm from clitoral stimulation and uterine contractions from oxytocin. A completely normal phenomenon.”

Image: Jackie Dives

I have a friend, Eve*, who has always been celebrated and envied within our circle of friends for her ability to achieve orgasm through nipple stimulation. When I told her of this article she admitted that since the birth of her son, she has found herself so aroused during breastfeeding that as soon as the feed is over, she puts him to bed, then takes herself to bed to masturbate.

This is something she feels incredibly guilty and ashamed about, despite the absence of sexual feelings towards her child.

Midwife and founder of The School of Shamanic Womancraft, Jane Hardwicke Collings, says that human biology is based on us being rewarded, through positive feelings, for the things that are “best for life and will ensure propagation of the species”.

“We all know that breastfeeding is the best for life,” Hardwicke Collings continues. “And so the reward the mother gets from doing that is most often a wave of oxytocin, the love hormone, so she will feel good and keep feeding her baby. By blaming the mother for her biology, we as a culture are messing with nature, to our peril.”

Sex therapist Jacqueline Hellyer agrees. “There are all different types of arousal. Having and caring for a baby is very sensual – the breastfeeding, skin-on-skin contact and the sharing of so many body fluids. The ickiness of it is a very raw, beautiful experience.”

Icky and raw is something I could most definitely relate to when my first child arrived. Only five hours after having my insides torn to shreds, and shooting 10 pounds of blood and tissue out of my now unrecognisable vagina, I found myself alone on the couch in my living room, my new son tucked up in bed with his father, while a raging, hormonal tornado surged through my veins, activating nerve endings I never knew existed.

Physically, I was a mess, yet I found myself surprisingly aroused. This was a hormonal cocktail that I can only liken to coming down from a party drug. A mix of oxytocin, prolactin, adrenalin and waning serotonin combined with the exhaustion of a three-day birth transported me back to the nightclubs of my early 20s.

Like all good parties, I did not want this one to end. As dawn arrived, I tripped out watching a kookaburra deliver the first light of motherhood through my lounge-room window.

The pull to live in the authentic, dark place I had visited in order to birth my son was too addictive – I had not faced death just to return home and wash dishes.

I imagined I would be enjoying my first months as a new mother at mums’ and bubs’ yoga, or at the kitchen bench, elbow-deep in Nutribulleted organic baby snacks.

Instead, I found myself at the local brothel – while my body healed, if I could not be out having sex with strangers, I would at least hang around people that were.

I had to find out how other women balanced mothering and their sexuality, so I began working on a documentary about sex workers. At the brothel, I found sexually empowered, financially independent individuals in touch with their erotic nature, who worked kid-friendly hours. These women spent their days packing school lunches, and worked nights when kids were tucked in bed, none the wiser.

Despite being content and mostly proud of their chosen careers, most of the women were cautious listing their profession on school and government forms, preferring to tick dancer or entertainer instead of sex worker, even though the role is legal. But what does who you’re fucking have to do with how you parent? And why do we still reject sexual archetypes of the mother?

Hellyer says the ‘mother wound’ is still very much evident in society, which is run by patriarchy and celebrates neither motherhood, nor women’s sexuality.

“[Female sexuality] has been suppressed for so long that the act of birthing can act as a reminder of our womanhood and a chance to get in touch with something that’s been lost. With birth comes death, but also richness and possibility and expansiveness.”

Hellyer says childbirth can be empowering and transformational for women. “You get a physical awareness you might not have had before, and are emotionally open to a love you’ve never had before – not a fairy-tale, false love, but a very raw, truthful love. For some women, their entire life changes.”

One such mama is a friend I’ll call Sarah. She always had a healthy sexual identity and although her relationships pre-motherhood had always been with men, she had a strong fantasy life for women.

Sarah took a break from penetrative sex to heal from traumatic post-birth surgery. Then she healed.

“I felt pretty awesomely feminine with my massive breastfeeding boobs,” Sarah tells me. “And, ultimately, uber sexual again. I would fantasise about the female form.”

Sarah could no longer resist the urge to pursue a relationship with a woman from her past that she had always fantasised about. “Becoming a mum ticked off my hormonal urges to reproduce, and subsequently a fertile male was no longer necessary. I’m not saying that men stopped being an option – they are just no longer the only option.”

Although Sarah has noticed no lapse or gain in her sexuality since becoming a mother, she says her emotional requirements in a partner have changed and she also feels more comfortable in her own skin: “Motherhood removes your ability to give two fucks.”

For Sarah, the balance between mother and lover is asynchronous. “While I’m mothering, I aim for clarity and focus,” she explains. “The aim in love and lust land is to completely lose yourself – is it not? Escaping time and space.”

While my son’s birth was physically transformative, it was my daughter’s arrival that transcended me to a much deeper, more truthful place. The act of birthing her had me howling like a wolf, surrendering to primal urges in much the same way the firstborn had.

Her birth was quick, easy and beautiful, yet the changes she brought were excruciating. Her arrival made me question my entire existence: was I really living my values and morals? What kind of life and freedom would she have? As she is strapped to my chest in the wee hours of the morning, I pat her bottom affectionately while scouring the poly couples on OkCupid.

Again, I find I’m not quite ready to let go of the darkness, the raw and truthful power I found in childbirth. I understand why the French call orgasm la petite mort , or ‘the little death’.

Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estes, an American poet, psychoanalyst and author of Women Who Run With the Wolves, said: “When women reassert their relationship with the wildish nature, they are gifted with a permanent and internal watcher, a knower, a visionary, an oracle, an inspiratrice, an intuitive, a maker, a creator, an inventor, and a listener who guides, suggests, and urges vibrant life in the inner and outer worlds. When women are close to this nature, the fact of that relationship glows through them. This wild teacher, wild mother, wild mentor supports their inner and outer lives, no matter what.”

It is my inner wild woman who hangs with me, after the birth of my daughter. She challenges my belief in the nuclear family, and in monogamy; questions why we can have many friends but only one lover; and demands to know why a change in parents’ relationship must be the death of the family unit.

It is her voice I hear when I look at my new baby; her urgent whispers that call upon me to act. So our family changes, although my mothering remains fierce. Maybe even more so because I am happier and living more authentically, and more aligned with my truth.

Of course, it’s not like this for every mother. Erotic author Leta Blake found that pregnancy and breastfeeding were the exact opposite of sexual, and she had the constant feeling of being observed by her child, wanting to “shudder with disgust at the thought of my husband touching my breasts sexually”.

Blake says she felt her unborn child’s presence acutely, noting how aspects of the extra presence changed her, from the food she craved to the TV shows she watched.

“I could not forget that another person was there, and that was very much a sexual mood-killer.”

For Blake, fear was also an issue. “I had a hard time getting and staying pregnant, and every time I had an orgasm when I was pregnant, my uterus would cramp for hours after, and I’d become paranoid that I  was going to miscarry.”

It took a while for her sexuality to return at all. “The breastfeeding hormones were almost like opiates in that they kept me incredibly happy, but robbed me of a desire to create. I noted a marked change when my daughter began to self-wean: when she dropped her nursing way down, and those hormones slowed, I felt almost like I was awakening to myself again. My sexuality roared to life. Sex came back, too, and my fiction – my erotic tales abounded.”

So, how can we embrace the sexuality of the virginal mother? For Hellyer, the most obvious place to start is the bedroom. “Good, quality sex makes for happy couples, and happy couples make for happy families, and happy families make for a happy society. If everyone was having good, regular sex, the world would be a saner, kinder, lovelier place to live.”

For Hardwicke Collings, reclaiming feminine power can only happen through reconnection with ancient women’s mysteries – a time, almost 3000 years ago, when women were celebrated for both their sexuality and their mothering.

In our time, there’s always the tumblr account lact8.

Of course, the same diversity that graces womanhood also exists within the paradigm of mothering. For some mothers, the role of parent may not need the act of birthing to realise itself. Some are in touch with sexual nature already, and the addition of a child is a small bump in their journey that doesn’t change much at all.

For me, there were definitely parts of the self that died with the birth of my two children – although it’s probably more accurate to say that in birthing them, I also birthed myself.

If my sexuality has been transformed since becoming a mum, then it is thanks to them. I’ll be sure to remind them on their 18th birthdays.

* Names have been changed for privacy reasons.

Carly Lorente is a writer, photographer, lover and mama. She enjoys exploring the mystical side of humans, a possible consequence of losing her virginity at a funeral.

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