Welcome back to A Slut’s Guide to Happiness, where your body is perfectly imperfect and it’s safe to be as sexual, kinky, queer, or slutty as you want. 

Today I am excited to be talking with my friend in sunny L.A., Anna, a fantastic queer performer and content creator who has been involved in Cliff Media for the past year. 

She also does a lot of her own work. You can find Anna’s work in many places online, including her FetLife page, Mellokheel and her OnlyFans by the same name, as well as on Cliff Media’s website, cliffmediaproductions.com 

Like me, Anna has a whole other part of her life, because we’re complex human beings in addition to being sex workers.

Anna is also a mom and her toddler – I’m not sure the age when you can start saying “toddler” instead of “baby” – that little girl standing up is the freaking cutest. She also looks so much like Anna’s partner, which I adore. 

The first time I met Anna was at a Cliff Media orgy shoot, as it goes. She was pregnant, beautifully voluptuous, seven months pregnant. I thought, what a badass trying a bold new experience while in the depths of significant body changes. 

So much happens during pregnancy, as you know if you have experienced it. 

Just to catch you up on some of the gritty details, some of the changes are inherently awful. For me, I experienced sore boobs and indigestion. When I was walking to work at the time, I’d have to stop in alleyways and I would throw up and pee on myself, then have to walk back home, change my clothes, and then try walking to work again. None of those were particularly sexy fun changes. 

And then there are also a lot of changes that are not inherently bad one way or another. They’re just a remarkable contrast to the rest of life. The implications of those changes will depend on how you think about them and what you make of them. For example, it is a fact that you get bigger during pregnancy than you were before. And all of these changes can have a significant impact on people’s sexuality, including hormones.

Sometimes for some people, the physical symptoms can simply make sex undesirable. And for some pregnant people – I want to note that we’re specifically using the language
“pregnant people” instead of “pregnant women” because anyone with a uterus, regardless of gender, can get pregnant – so, some pregnant people talk about feeling unattractive or unsexy, which was definitely how I felt at first. But especially in the second trimester, I was ravenously horny, more than at any time in my life.

I pretty quickly gained a “fuck it” attitude towards my sexuality. For me, it wasn’t like I started feeling attractive and then I started having a lot of sex. Instead, I felt horny, I didn’t give a fuck if I’m an attractive. Quite like anything else you think is unattractive about your body, if you accept it, if you’re confident, if you’re not focused on it, if you’re focused on connection or fun or play, you will inevitably find people who think you’re sexy as hell.

As a solo parent, I was intentionally single throughout my pregnancy. I fucked so many random people riding the heady hormones of that pregnancy. 

Today, we’re going to be talking about sex and sexuality during pregnancy, especially the experience of non-normative sex. If you’re trans, non-binary, queer, or your sexual desires are non-monogamous, kinky, or slutty, you may have a different experience with your sexuality than people who are married or in monogamous, traditional relationships during their pregnancy.

If you’re listening to a podcast, you probably already know quite intimately that slut-shaming is common regardless of what’s going on in your life. Add the layer of pregnancy, and you’ve got a lot of assumptions about what is possible and permissible. 

I’m excited to talk to Anna about this because we really need empowering conversations about sexual liberation during pregnancy.

Anna, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your experience today. 

You shared with me that you went through three processes of discovery and realization during your pregnancy. Throughout this episode, we’ll be able to dive into each of them. 

I want to start with a time way back, even before you got pregnant, you had the fear that you wouldn’t find someone who wanted to have a child with you in part because of that slut-shaming we just talked about, I think. Can you tell us more about that, where that belief came from? And then what changed all? 

Anna: 

When I just started slutting around, a lot of people were very against having kids. I had a lot of conversations about that. Male partners didn’t want to get a female pregnant or have kids. It was said it’s a very bad thing.

I found out maybe I was just with the wrong people because, what stops you from being a parent who is slutty, if you find a good balance between your sexuality and having a child? I don’t think having a child makes you any less desirable. But sometimes people, especially people with uterus, have a wrong perception of it. 

Vanessa: 

What were you hearing from people about why having a child and being slutty weren’t compatible?

Anna: 

First of all because pregnancy affects your body with stretch marks and gaining weight. Some people can feel very ashamed and see it as unattractive. But it isn’t a just way of looking at it. 

And also, of course not when you have a child, it also adds a lot of responsibilities that some people are too afraid to balance it with kink life. Of course it’s good to have a kink life, but you should do it outside of your child. So I try to find a balance between two things.

Vanessa: 

I absolutely get that. I think even outside of judgment and shame, I see a lot of people who feel like they’re choosing one or the other. I have a lot of friends in the kink, sex work or slutty lifestyle community who don’t have kids, I think more than the average population. 

When I find other parents, kindred spirits like you that have both, of course, like you said, compartmentalizing them, but choose to have both lives, I feel excited, like yes, I see you! 

So how did you change for you? What was that process of realizing you can do this? 

Anna: 

I think that changed when I met my current partner because she always wanted to be a mom. She had several attempts at becoming a mom and none of them worked. So she was very into having kids.

I probably was wanting to have kids as well, but I was so scared because I don’t think anybody would want to have kids with me, as I said prior. 

So when she was very open about it and she brought the idea, saying she really wanted it, I thought it was the right person. I really started to plan for a child very soon in our relationship.

I also had some issues with conceiving because I have been on hormones since I identify as non-binary. I also have been on birth control because of my shame of getting pregnant. 

At some point I thought I was infertile because it was very hard to conceive. But once I was in the hospital for something else and I accidentally found out I was pregnant. I was both scared and excited.

I was happy when I realized it was happening and I was not infertile, I was a bridal. 

Vanessa: 

I didn’t realize that. Although you really wanted a baby, the exact moment in which you had it wasn’t specifically planned. It was a surprise when you were in the hospital.

Anna: 

Definitely. I wanted a baby, but I had decided to give up because we were trying for almost a year and I was not getting pregnant. I thought it was impossible. 

So I was very surprised, but also excited because I really wanted to have a baby. I had already given up on that idea and finally I achieved it.

Vanessa: 

When I was trying to get pregnant, it was about a year for me, too. I really relate to that. 

I was trying to be a solo parent. I was paying for the sperm bank. I’m glad that exists for the people who want it and that’s some middle class bougie shit that I could not really afford. 

So I was also just living my life, and I was, of course, not on birth control and continuing to be slutty. I was having the conversations with the people that I was fucking. I told them, I’m trying to get pregnant. I’d love for you to creampie me then ditch my life if I get pregnant because I want to be a solo parent. 

But it took me a while to combine this reproduction focused activity with this still fun play. And I think from what I’ve kind of gathered from people who are doing it even within the context of a relationship, that that can come up for some people. Was that a factor for you in your relationship to sexuality during the time?

Anna: 

Yeah. I think like if you’re trying to have a child, of course it makes that sex much more meaningful because having sex, you are having sex for the purpose of having a child. Of course it makes it much more exciting because of the process of breeding, it makes it a much more exciting thing.

Vanessa: 

Okay. So for you, there was some level of excitement or arousal related to the attempt to become pregnant. 

Anna: 

Definitely. It makes it much more meaningful because it’s not just sex. It’s sex for creating a family, which is much more meaningful and valuable for me every time. I felt very beautiful about it.

Vanessa: 

It’s interesting that there are lots of different ways that the process of becoming pregnant can be arousing. 

For the people that I was interacting with, because they weren’t trying to have a family, their interest was mostly around breeding fantasies. You’re describing that, for you and Alex. a lot of it was about wanting to start a family and that’s what made the sexual connection.

Anna: 

Yeah, definitely love. Both me and Alex came from pretty unhealthy families. So we wanted to have our own family so we could do it differently. I think we both are dedicated to our family. And of course it brought us much closer together. 

Vanessa: 

I want to ask you and raise this for listeners because I think it’s really beautiful and is another layer of bravery for you. You and Alex, your partner, your co-parenting partner that you had a child with, you’re both trans, right?

Anna: 

Yeah. She was transgender, female, and I identify as non-binary. 

Vanesa: 

Okay. And did that come up while you were in the process of trying to get pregnant and early in your pregnancy, when you’re interacting with doctors about your pregnancy?

Anna: 

I don’t think we really wanted to talk to the doctors about it because we didn’t want to have any transphobia around us. 

We didn’t know if it would be better for me to present as a mother or as a father. I tried to present as a father at first, but when I realized that my wife was female, my mother was female and we also had a pet then who was female, I felt it would be better for me to present as a mom just because there’s so many women in the household and I wanted to be one of them. 

Vanessa: 

That’s beautiful. So you both chose to identify women out of the desire to have that family in that connection. Your child is a little girl, is that right? 

Anna: 

Yeah. She’s a little girl. We both wanted to do girly stuff with her, like go get nails done, wear dresses, all that stuff. 

Vanessa: 

Beautiful. So your gender – and gender can be fluid – was informed by the desire to have your family. I hear you describing that in your sexuality and your sex pre-pregnancy as well, that you were having more meaningful sex because of your vision for your family. 

So it’s just beautiful how much I’m hearing that your desire for family influenced your own identity as an adult, separate from your child as well. 

Anna: 

Definitely. Because my identity can be fluid, but being pregnant and just going for more prominent process of pregnancy and childbirth, it made me much more accepted on the feminine side. 

I was suppressing my feminine side and it was mostly about misogyny and sexism. By seeing some strength in femininity, it was much easier for me to connect to it. 

Vanessa: 

Hell yes. I loved when I went through the process in my personal life. I do not want to invalidate genderqueer and trans folks, including assigned female at birth trans male identifying folks. But for me personally, my experience of accepting my own gender identity as a woman required realizing I can be razor edged and fierce. And that power doesn’t have to be invalidated by my own identification as a woman. 

I want to jump to that second moment of realization that you talked with me about – the realization after you got pregnant that you were still attractive.

I think that this was particularly powerful for me. I know that I have privilege walking through the world because, as a fact of random coincidence, I happened to be born in a smaller body and we live in a fucked up, fatphobic society. 

So I remember experiencing comments about large body size for the first time while pregnant.  I was on a bus and this dude said, “It looks like you’re getting so big that you can’t even fit in the seat anymore”, which isn’t a great thing to say to anyone, regardless of why someone’s body is big. 

It took me a while after starting to have sex while pregnant to realize that people were into me. I had to unlearn those internalized, discriminatory narratives about who is attractive and desirable and worthy of love.

How was it that you went through that journey, both for your sexual relationship with Alex? And how was it during your slutting adventures while you connecting with other people in your pregnant body? 

Anna: 

I think, first of all, I’m a bigger person just in general. A lot of people stigmatize what you can have, who is not okay to have sex with. I like what I like about it. You should make your own decisions. Even if you have a partner, your voice is still the primary variable in what you do with your body. 

You have your own decisions about what you do. This is why it’s empowering. Because women are usually put inside boxes about what they should do and what they should not do. I probably agree with some of it. But also it’s good for me to decide for myself what I think is right exactly for me. 

That’s why I want to have a midwife because when you have a midwife, you can make your own options about what to include in your birth. I think the ability to choose what’s right for me is what makes it empowering.

Vanessa: 

Yeah, it goes right back to making choices about your own body. 

I want to ask a couple more questions about the changes in your body and how it’s been over the last period of time throughout your postpartum period. 

For me, it was really important to get back to being strong. I got into boxing and weightlifting, but I have never lost the changes in my body. My body is permanently a post-baby producing body. I will always have stretch marks. That took a while for me to accept. 

I know that you have gotten back to having sex with other people, and I am interested in hearing how you went through the process of feeling good about that.

Anna: 

It was pretty easy, probably because I was already a bigger person. My weight almost immediately came back to what it was before I got pregnant. Losing weight was not an issue because, almost immediately after birth, I came back to my normal weight body. 

I was a little bit concerned about my stretch marks, but my partner didn’t care and I was still exploring with people. A lot of people didn’t care. Some of them were even more attracted to me as a mom – and now, while my partner is incarcerated, a single mom. I think having a child as a single mom was even like making me feel more appealing to people. Taking care of a child on your own requires maturity and motherly qualities which can be attractive to people. 

So I don’t think people don’t really care about my stretch marks. I kind of had my own stigma about it but I don’t think anybody paid attention to it. 

Vanessa: 

I’m tearing up as you’re saying this, because you’re pointing out another important layer here. There are negative narratives around single parents. But I deeply agree with what you’re saying – your ability to be a single parent actually shows your maturity. You got your shit together taking care of your baby all on your own. That’s impressive and sexy. 

I love that you’re getting affirmation from people that both your body and your strength and capacity as a human is beautiful.

I want to close out with your recommendations for people who are either getting pregnant or currently pregnant and trying to figure out how sexuality continues in their life and what to make of their sex life during this huge change in their body, family and lives?

Anna: 

Pregnancy should be a process of loving yourself and loving your partner. It’s a good time to bond with your own desires and love your partner. 

It’s also a good time to actually change your lifestyle, because that’s something I didn’t do and I regret not doing it. It’s important to change your lifestyle to come from a more wild lifestyle to a more peaceful and comforting and child-friendly lifestyle. 

But also keep some wildness about it as well. You still bond. Even if you’re a parent, just be safe around your child, but you should not be only absorbed in your child. It’s a good time to become more loving and nurturing to your body or the child or your partner and just enjoy this time. 

I don’t think you should change much of your lifestyle. You can still have sex when you want, eat what you want, exercise how you want if it’s not hard on your body. You should stop doing drugs and alcohol because it’s definitely dangerous for the baby. But other than that, you can do whatever you want in life. 

Pregnancy should not limit you from being a successful, powerful person in your life. It should just empower you, because a lot of people see pregnancy as something beautiful and attractive. I don’t think it should stop you from being yourself.  

I don’t know any titles right now because it’s something I want to explore, but I know there are some books and podcasts already about people who are pregnant or parents and also are kinky. 

I already got a book, I don’t remember the title, but it’s about how to be a mom while being a sex worker. I think literature can be very helpful at this point. That’s something I want to get into and I recommend you to look up as well.

Vanessa: 

Yeah, I love that, we’ve talked about the importance of finding in-person community, and then there’s books, podcasts, literature and movies that allow us to have some kind of online community or community through writing. 

I have always felt that being less stressed, feeling confident and happy in myself makes me a better parent. It’s not necessarily an either / or question. It’s not like I have to take time away from my baby to have a kinkier slutty or sexual life. Instead, having that empowering part of my life helps to feed my positive relationship with my child.

Anna: 

I agree. It might sound selfish, but it’s real because a healthy parent is needed to have a healthy child. So if you’re good to yourself, as long as your child is in a safe environment, it can be good for your child because when you feel better about yourself, you’re better able to take care of them. 

Vanessa: 

Anna, thank you so much for sharing your experiences and your incredible, empowering perspectives. And viewers, thank you for joining us today. 

This has been another edition of A Slut’s Guide to Happiness with your host, Vanessa Cliff and our guest, Anna, or Mellokheel on cliffmediaproductions.com and her FetLife and OnlyFans pages.

You can find us wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple and Spotify, as well as on cliffmediaproductions.com. 

If you’re over the age of 18, you can also check out our video content on our website, cliffmediaproductions.com. 

And most of all, I invite you to join us in the pleasure of being awkwardly human, naked and without pretense. 

Let’s get free.