When you have a baby, you’re pretty much told that your relationship with your body will change and “you’ll learn to love it.”

It’s like forced optimism that doesn’t necessarily account for your actual feelings about your new body. Even when you raise your doubts, your uncertainty as you adjust, it’s often shut down by somebody who “means well”.

Layer on top of this the fact that, in this community, we are more likely to be unclothed around others, sometimes multiple others, and it stops being just about what your partner thinks. There are more eyes on you, and that adds a layer most people outside of kink don’t have to consider.

Then there’s another part no one really talks about - your erotic identity can change too.

We spoke about this at our latest event - how desire and identity can shift after major life events. Writing it now, it seems obvious, but I don’t think I’ve seen a discussion about it online. We keep it separate, our after-dark proclivities from our identity as parents - quite rightfully, I believe, but in doing so we also don’t air any conversation about disconcerting it can feel while we’re finding our feet in these two juxtaposing identities.

Early in my pregnancy, I went for lunch with Dr. Lori Beth Bisbey, and I remember her saying how difficult honoring both identities separately can be.

My deviant-identity pre-baby was firmly rooted in being the Dominant caregiver, organiser, project manager - the steady one. The coach and the cheerleader.

I had, perhaps naively, assumed this wouldn’t change.

And then I found myself post-partum, alone and caring for this beautiful new life. And trying to show up in a dynamic in that same way became incredibly difficult. 

I had to pull back, and in that space - something significant shifted.

I found myself craving being the one cared for, supported and considered. It wasn’t that I was becoming submissive, I still feel very much Dominant, but my needs have changed because my capacity has changed.

And that now changes what I look for in a partner - whether that’s short term, or long term. Where I was once more than comfortable prioritising someone else’s pleasure, I now look for more balance, more reciprocity and more awareness of what I need as well. I look for somebody else to carry the mental load alongside me.

And this was unexpected - disorienting, even, when you’re used to knowing yourself.

Then the second shift happened, because this doesn’t stop at identity - it moves into desire.

Desire is tied to capacity more than people like to admit. If you’re exhausted, touched out, mentally overloaded, you haven’t lost your appetite entirely, it’s that your body has deprioritised it. It moves further down the list, below everything else that feels more urgent.

And then, when you do finally have the time or the space, it doesn’t always arrive on cue. Your head is filled with tasks you haven’t got to but cannot possibly be forgotten.

That’s when you start to question yourself. Am I still into this? Is this who I am now? Do I need to push myself back to where I was?

In my experience, pushing doesn’t work.

It turns something that should feel natural into something that feels forced, and that usually creates more distance rather than closing the gap. What helped me was letting go of the idea that it should feel the same.

Instead of trying to access desire in the way I always had, I started paying attention to what still worked. 

Your body has changed, so the way you relate to it needs to change too. What feels good, what doesn’t, what requires more care or attention - all of that becomes part of the process.

It’s something you’ve got to work with.

And this translates into a scene too - the way you play, the intensity, the pacing. The things that might once have felt so easy and effortless might need more thought.

I realise now that desire isn’t static. Identity isn’t static - both respond to what’s happening in your life, whether you want them to or not.

The important part is giving yourself the space to understand how it’s changed, and adapt to that without feeling bad about it.