Why they call it ‘Mommy Porn’

By A. C. Mayman

I first heard about THE BOOK, very fittingly it turned out, during a mommies-only parenting class. A beautiful but shy lawyer looked at the floor, turned fifty shades of red, and said, “It’s almost like … porn.” My Kindle was out of my bag and downloading before you could say “developmentally appropriate behavior”.

I ended up reading the first two books in the series at a breathless pace, then went back to savor the naughty bits. It was like I was back in elementary school, stealing my mother’s Judith Krantz novels, only now I didn’t have to hide in the basement cedar closet. After I read the third (and slightly disappointing) installment, I read them again in their entirety. Usually when my husband comes to bed and sees me with my Kindle he says, “Babe, please turn it off.” While I was reading THE BOOK(s), the sight of my Kindle made him smile that special goofy-but-irresistible smile usually reserved for lingerie and Jennifer Aniston movies.

It will probably come as no surprise that THE BOOK is Fifty Shades Of Grey by E. L. James. It’s so popular it has been credited with launching the new literary genre of ‘Mommy Porn’(even the New York Times used the phrase in their front page story). Hollywood has joined in on the action with a major studio recently purchasing the movie rights.

Why is this particular piece of erotica particularly appealing to mommies? Lord knows we are a group in dire need of a sexual jump-start. Parenting young children, something that is often started in a very sexy way, becomes un-sexy pretty fast. In the early days, mommies are sad in all their happy places. Even the most devoted and still-mad-for-each-other spouses fall victim to late nights and early mornings attending to the needs of the little people in their lives. For me, it seemed that for a good three years that every time my husband touched my boobs, one or the other child would cry out over the monitor. My dear hubby once lamented, “I think they bugged them while they were breastfeeding!” This is a good part of the reason I am proponent of letting children cry it out. Prior to Fifty, the last time most of us spoke with our girlfriends about sex was the “Oh God it is my 6 week post-partum check and my husband is waiting for the all-clear and I am not ready yet” conversation.

Fifty changed all that. Fifty is Mommy Porn because:

To read the full article at New York Family click here.