I am a mother.

I am a whore. 

I am both. I am all aspects of a woman. 

I’ve noticed that the more I step into my genius as an Erotic Poet, the less I share the school lunch packing, taxi driving, ballet practice, Bluey watching parts of myself. 

This fading away of my maternal self was gradual. I didn’t notice the shift. The separation crept in over time, informed by residual, collective shame. The Madonna/whore split that forbids the mother archetype from being sensualised. The old conditioning that is comfortable with mothers in certain roles. But not erotic ones.

I realised I was bowing to a system that told me I could not be both. I realised I was out of integrity—with myself. 

Because when it came to my daughter’s first day of year one, I knew it was important to me to have a chronological record of this moment. I wanted to celebrate it. And yet I felt a contraction. I felt myself pause, not knowing how to merge these parts of myself. I’m a passionate advocate for full and free self-expression. But I’ve wobbled fully expressing myself as an Erotic Mother. 

I’ve seduced 150 souls to climax, barely clothed on stage, giving head to the microphone as I illicitly utter Erotic musings. 

I’ve guided master classes, championing poets to be brave in their own sharing. 

And yet, I’ve stuttered at kids’ birthday parties when asked what I do. I’ve shamed myself for being too sensual. I’ve tied my hair into a bun and called myself a “writer” when I’m wearing the hat of a “mother.” 

I’ve diluted myself to be accepted in a space that I judge as being domesticated and suppressed. Maybe it is. Maybe it’s not. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter. 

Ultimately, I’ve compromised my own soul. I’ve been a total sellout in dividing these parts of myself. 

It stops now. I get to be both. I choose to be both.

I am an Erotic Poet and I am a Mother. I refuse to compromise my truth. I stand in the integrity of authenticity. 

The thing is, there’s no guide to parenting; there’s little feedback. Not many markers, except for our kids being alive, fed, educated, kind, and not too emotionally screwed up from all the unhealed trauma of our own sh*tty upbringings.

We all parent differently. And we are all making it up as we go along. So my guide is truth. And the truth is, though it is uncomfortable at times, though my child may one day find it embarrassing, though it may not slot into the template society has set for me…I am a mother.

And I am a wild, sensual, Erotic being with an uncompromising commitment to truth. And as my daughter grows, I don’t want her to ever dim her truth to make herself palatable to anybody else. I want her to take up space, and sing her song, and wear her tutu and shake her arse, without ever questioning herself. I want her to shine bright and dance big. I want her to blast her messy, emotional, glittery fire-breathing essence into the world.

God knows the world needs it. So why would I set an example for her of a woman who puts a lid on her own magic? Why would I teach her how to hide in the corner, by modelling that to her with my actions? Why would I clear my throat and awkwardly claim to be a writer when I am a seductive master of words?

A proud and self-empowered Erotic Poet who permissions her damn self to be that…and a mother. 

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