Kimberly.
"I could barely hold down a job. I just felt dickmatized."
I knew I have to talk to writer Kimberly Harrington after a friend sends me her essay in the latest issue of Mother Tongue called “In Sluts We Trust.” In the piece, Harrington, a mother of two, explores sexual promiscuity — her own, and that of other moms — and dating after divorce. Here’s a taste:
Conservative fetishists want to keep mothers where they can see us. Keep mothers where we are so burdened, we can’t move — where we are so monitored, we can’t cross state lines. Most importantly, keep mothers where they can control us.
But you, a slut, cannot be controlled. Unless that’s what you’re into, of course, and if so, that’s between you and your partner(s). You, a slut, will be moving in the shadows but also hanging out right in broad daylight. You will be leading a secret life and you will discover you are far from the only one. You will meet other sluts and you will talk amongst yourselves. What great friends, is what everyone who sees you is probably thinking. How nice!
Kimberly and I chat over Zoom in early June and I’m immediately smitten. She’s smart, and thoughtful and open, with a dry sense of humor. She’ll say hilarious things but then not laugh at her own jokes. (Which, of course, makes them all the more amusing.)
What follows is a condensed and edited version of our conversation.
NAOMI: What prompted the Mother Tongue piece? What made you decide that you wanted to write about sex at middle age?
KIMBERLY: Right after the movie Baby Girl came out I was thinking about it and writing about it a lot. I wrote two pieces on my Substack, Honey Stay Super. The first one was about how having a Dutch director and writer who was also a woman made a huge difference in how that movie was written, shot, and promoted. The Dutch approach to sex education and sex in general could not be more different than what happens in this country. Then the second piece was detailing my own experience with being submissive in a partnership. It’s an incredibly personal piece. Probably the most personal until this one! .
From there I wanted to keep diving into writing more about sex, which I’ve been doing for the past three years but not nearly as fully as I’d like to be. Initially I pitched interviewing Baby Girl director Halina Reijn for Mother Tongue, but that timing didn’t really make sense. Then I pitched a sort of lightly fictionalized diary of my post-divorce sex life. But when I sat down to write it I felt like this it was a dumb idea, I just wasn’t sure how to execute it in a way that I would actually like..
I shifted to writing a personal essay and I wanted to find a way into it that tied to motherhood and middle age too. I decided to frame it with the detail of always needing to wear your reading glasses when you’re texting. If you’re a mother and have teenage or young adult children and also an ex-husband and family and friends and coworkers you text then add on multiple sexual partners that you’re sexting with? There is a lot that can go wrong on your phone if you’re not paying attention.
NAOMI: Have you accidentally ever texted the wrong thing to one of your family members or friends?
KIMBERLY: Thankfully no, it hasn't happened … yet. And I really think the reason is because I had a friend years ago who had to be extraordinarily careful about paying attention to who she was texting, for reasons I won’t get into. I think that planted the seed. Sexting feels so private, and it's just you and your phone and you know, everything's fine until it's not. You take one misstep, you share the wrong thing. Oh God.
When I first started having sex again, after being married for so long, I was absolutely not tethered to the earth. I could barely hold down a job. I just felt dickmatized. And I remember thinking, “Okay, the one thing I need to do, minimum, is have my glasses on my face at all times when I'm using my phone.”
NAOMI: I like the word “dickmatized.” I haven't heard that one before.
KIMBERLY: It’s so good. It’s so accurate. I hadn’t heard it before either, until it applied to me. There has never been, and never will be, a more perfect word for what that sexual haze is like.