Sex, Breasts, and Motherhood
I’m leaning against the counter in Christine Hall’s kitchen, sipping wine and watching her prepare the ingredients for peach cornmeal griddle cakes. The delectable smell of fried apples still lingers in the air, mingling with the scent of nag champa incense that permeates everything in the house with its spicy odor.
The kitchen—like the rest of the house—is full of interesting things to see. Art adorns every wall, and there are unmistakable traces of Christine’s two children everywhere you look: alphabet magnets cover the dishwasher and drawings in a childish hand adorn the fridge. A sign warning “HOT!” is taped to the stove for the benefit of her eight-year-old son, while her seven-month old bounces happily in his bouncer chair like the happy jellybean of a baby that he is, suspended in a nearby doorway.
Christine is telling me about her latest venture: her blog, musexbazaar.com. “[It’s a] smart, sexy, bizarre collection of musings on whatever topic catches my fancy,” she explains as she slices peaches. “I’m using it as a testing ground to get comfortable with writing about sex as I segue into pursuing the goal I’ve had since I was a teenager, which is publishing an intelligent erotica magazine.” She reaches past me to grab the box of cornmeal. “People feel comfortable sharing themselves with me. They know that I’m willing to consider any topic, I’m willing to try anything out for myself, to make an informed decision.” And she doesn’t believe in trying new things just once, either. “ I don’t think that once is enough,” she explains. “That initial shock is something you need to absorb, then try it again. Try it twice so that you have some sort of perspective on the matter.”
Sex is an important subject to Christine, and one she is entirely comfortable talking about. She wants to help people by openly discussing the things that “make us giggle or blush.” As she mixes the batter for the griddle cakes, she expounds on her mission. Christine worked in public relations and promotions within the music industry for years, but found it entirely too “manufactured.” Besides, she feels like she has found her calling.
“There’s sex in so many of our interactions with people,” she says. “And I don’t think we’re honest about it. I’m thinking about sex all of the time and I’m exploring all sorts of dynamics between people. I’m very curious, and very tactile and sensual in the way that I interact with the world.” She stirs the peaches into the batter and turns the stove on. “I love bringing that to the internet. That’s a great way to do it, with the mask up like that. In that sort of forum, you can be even more honest.”
The oil begins to wink on the stove, and she pours some batter onto the griddle. “I think it’s really important that we don’t actually feel that anything we do is wrong,” she says of sexuality. “As far as healthy consensual couplings go, there is nothing wrong about it; there is nothing that can be done that is too strange or too different.”
A crow of laughter from the baby turns her mind in another direction. Christine is a breast feeding mother, and has recently had to come to terms with the occasional shocked looks she gets when she feeds her child in public (despite it being completely legal in Tennessee until the child is one year of age). “It’s funny to me, to think that I would need to hide this,” she says. “I think it’s an important thing to make people comfortable with what is fully natural and normal.” She flips the griddle cakes, which are turning golden and smelling so good that my mouth begins to water. “I would love to see equal rights toplessness, anyway,” she continues, joking that she’s seen plenty of 300-lb. men (with bigger breasts than hers) mowing their lawns topless. “I could also be driving, and see a young strapping college lad jogging down the street with no shirt on, glistening. I find that quite distracting. Now, I’m not complaining… I can handle it. I would only hope the other sex could do the same for us.”
The griddle cakes are finished; she stacks them on a plate and pushes them towards me, along with a fork and a jar of honey to pour over them. “You know, humans have pretty well got the basics of life covered—housing, food—to the point where we’ve started turning them into art forms,” Christine muses, as she takes a bite. “That’s beautiful; we can begin to treat life itself as an art form. Sex has become an art form for me. That’s why I like to express myself that way.”
She unexpectedly giggles. “It’s no surprise, quite honestly,” she laughs. “My parents were pornographers. It’s got to be in my blood. So I’m ready to take on the mantle. I’ve established a happy, healthy family and a happy, healthy sex life is part of being a happy, healthy adult.”
Originally published by the Nashville Edge, 2007-2008.
May 6, 2009 at 11:21 pm | writings | No comment