Women’s sexual experiences are greatly determined by the fact that they are women. This is not an essentialist or naturalist affirmation – women’s sexual experiences are directly linked to their womanhood not because of some biological element, but simply because these experiences are inevitably impacted by social and cultural discourses surrounding female sexuality and, indeed, can’t escape the cultural background of those discourses. As a result, women’s sexual experiences are always, at least to a certain degree, in dialogue with cultural discourses of female sexuality. Historically, cultural representations of female sexuality have been in contrast with cultural representations of motherhood, as is well exemplified by the ‘Madonna-whore’ dichotomy. Women interact with these contrasting discourses and build their identities and experiences in relation to them (whether it may be in accordance, contrast, or reform of them) throughout their lives, but the period of pregnancy and post-partum is especially interesting as an object of study, since cultural discourses and representations of motherhood play a particularly central role during this time. Taking this into consideration, how do women live and make sense of their own experiences of sexuality during pregnancy and post-partum, against the background of cultural discourses about female sexuality and motherhood? How do these discourses shape their experiences during this period, and in what ways? Drawing on 45 biographical narrative interviews with women about their lived experiences of sexuality during pregnancy and post-partum, we try to discuss these questions and to bring sexuality in pregnancy and post-partum to sexuality studies. The results show us that women build their sexual experiences through simultaneous, heterogenous and oftentimes contradictory cultural discourses. They also show women as plural social actors, able to navigate their roles as sexual beings and mothers, mobilizing different discourses and representations to guide their practices and to build meaning for their lives.

--