Before I started identifying with the MILF moniker, I’d felt anything but sexy. I was living the definition of the American Dream—180-degree ocean view Malibu home, successful husband, and Irish twin boys—a literal (and metaphorical) white picket fence. Yet, even as I experienced some artistic and career milestones, I was on multiple psych meds, terribly depressed, and often paralyzed with dread. Eventually, with my sexual needs unmet, I unraveled and so did the ‘storybook’ marriage.

I fell in love with the word MILF. I reveled in the male gaze, while loudly proclaiming it wasn’t important if men deemed us “fuckable,” but that we were engaged in a love affair with ourselves. I started a podcast called The MILF Code. My reasoning was if we were the most popular search word in porn, couldn’t we peddle that, hypothetically, into being heard? Oh, how naïve we were, back in those heady days of the early 2010s…

The following year I joyfully documented my post-marriage Trampage on the internet. Sure, I was behaving a little like an adolescent, but I was also doing it in a somewhat adult way. I had consensual sex with other single people, and didn’t neglect motherhood to chase dick. (You too can be a whore with integrity!)

Within a few months, I became aware that being both a mother and sexually self-expressed was in itself a radical act. Not one, but three of my oldest female friends decided they didn’t want to be friends anymore because of my “behavior.” The ones I had not judged on their shenanigans while I was married and monogamous. The ones whose hearts I had picked up and dusted off the floor so many times. Ironically, as I lost confidantes, I gained confidence and began to see through the cultural lie that I was allowed to be an object of desire, but not a woman with sexual agency.

I’m not suggesting that breaking up a marriage is something anyone should do lightly, and perhaps that’s what it looked like I had done. Sure, my behavior seemed erratic at times, but a true friend believes that someone they care for can course correct before abandoning ship entirely. My own family acted as if I was the first woman on earth to ever (gasp) get a divorce.

Even in Malibu, where all kinds of underground hijinks go on, I was shunned. I may as well have had a scarlet letter sewn onto my baseball-mom hat—I was a pariah who was daring to get a room. I was not made of the same DNA as the other moms; I was “different.” I had let go of the transactional nature of many marriages in wealthy enclaves—the house, lifestyle, and turning a blind eye—in exchange for burying one’s desires underground. I also lost the protection that afforded, immersing myself instead in learning about sex-positivity.

When I was still writing about my sexual adventures online, my then-8-year-old was approached by another kid at school.

“Do you know your mom writes about sex on the internet?”

My large son replied in his preternaturally deep voice, “So?”

My sons didn’t care less and still don’t. Turns out they didn’t peruse the MalibuMom blog in their off hours, nor its successor, because they don’t see me that way nor want to. Now, as pre-teen and teen respectively, they appreciate that mom is a sex educator from whom they can always get a straight answer (and because I’m an intuitive, sometimes I even anticipate the question!).

The assumption was that the children would be hungry and shoeless, while I fucked someone on the coffee table. Outside of porn, horny moms’ mere existence is an affront to the idea that being a woman must be one definable ‘thing’ that gives us the choice of only one of two boxes, Madonna or Whore. Every time a mom has an orgasm instead of doing laundry, it is an act of Resistance. (BTW MILF Does Laundry will not be streaming on PornHub.)

Regardless of gender, if you’re a person for whom sex is a high priority, this is something worth honoring. In this way, each slutty act becomes gratifying in more ways than the sexual, an affirmation of your essential self. The question to ask is always whether your life trajectory is moving closer to your true self, or further away?

It’s a sign of emotional maturity to allow two [seemingly contradictory] things to be true at the same time. A person can be a devoted parent and also be Fuck Motivated—when it’s a man this is not even in question. It was by accident that I stumbled on the reality that America still has a hard time reconciling sexuality, femaleness, and motherhood. It was no accident that it led me to writing a book about what I’d learned from navigating a world I’d missed because we weren’t sexting in the 90’s.

I’m not going to pretend that the cum-coaster ride has not been bumpy or that sex solves all mental health issues. I can report that my ‘diagnoses’ and ‘chronic’ mental health issues became more manageable once I was able to get most of my sexual needs met most of the time. This is why I do what I do now. To give people the gift of support that I didn’t have then. To coach them to trust that little voice inside them, as crazy as it seems. To show by example that one day your life will be by no means perfect, but something you recognize as fully your own.

Susanna Brisk is a Sexual Intuitive® who coaches clients to get their needs met. She is the bestselling author of How to Get Laid Using Your Intuition. Email her HERE with a question, or to set up a Skype or IRL session.