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Why are we still so surprised that Kate Middleton looks so good after having 3 children?

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The usual response ensued, of which the obligatory ‘how does she look so good?’ made its way to the media platforms. 

‘How does she look so good?’, of course, is mainstream shorthand for ‘how can a mother of three still be sexually attractive?’.

When Kate stepped out looking like she always has, what was the (social) media to do? The (social) media that has fetishised Kate’s ‘lithe’ figure and chased down pictures of her breasts. 

READ MORE: Did Kate pay tribute to Diana in her third baby maternity dress?

Once you’ve made a sexual object out of someone and they become a mother (heavens especially for the third time), aren’t they supposed respond to The Change with some self-respect and quietly morph into a grey blob? 

The only socially acceptable way ‘woman’, ‘sex’ and ‘motherhood’ intersect is when the gaze labels it yummy mummy or MILF and neither of these are appropriate for princesses. 

Sadly, they’re pretty limiting for the rest of us plebs as well. 

Neither yummy mummy or MILF have anything to do with women owning their own sexual power or being tapped into it when they put another human on the planet. 

The act of creation is a powerfully sexual experience. It is a powerfully sensual, sensory experience. It may be a pleasant experience, it may be unpleasant, but those two facts remain.

READ MORE: 11 movie moms that remind us how much we love our real life ones

And yet, yummy mummy, MILF and ‘how does she look so good/bad?’ are where mainstream conversations about women, sexuality, pregnancy and childbirth stop.

An anthropologist friend of mine researching pregnancy, women and sexuality reminded me that most people divorce pregnancy and birth from the very act that conceived both: Sex and sexuality are no-go zones when it comes to conversations about and between expectant and new mothers. 

Women, she told me, don’t feel comfortable speaking to their mothers/sisters/friends about sex and the pregnancy experience because they fear being judged; they don’t know how to engage with or find sex- and body-positive conversations or information resources; they don’t know it’s okay to be sexy, sensual and desirous – or that feeling unsexy isn’t forever. 

READ MORE: Pushie speaks on motherhood

All their doctors inform them about as a matter of course is when ‘she’ will be ‘ready’ for ‘him’ again.

None of this should be surprising to me I guess. If people don’t like engaging with conversations about sex and pleasure meaningfully before pregnancy, why would they suddenly consider it after?

But it would be nice to start. Until then, maybe we can practice one small thing:

How about every time a famous woman does what millions upon millions before her have done, we don’t respond with surprise that she didn’t come out on the other side looking like something life shat out? 

Baby steps.

Follow Dorothy Black on her blog and on Twitter.

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