ABSTRACT
I once read, in one huge insomniac gulp, a fabulous book written by an ex-playboy centrefold model (now suburban mother of four) about how to get your groove back post-childbirth. It made me laugh, and gave the odd piece of excellent advice, but I was nevertheless fairly sceptical about some of its more dubious recommendations. For example, about sex, where the main advice was not only to just do it, but also to fake complete enjoyment of it. The rationale was not only that marital relations were worth preserving through this restoration period, but that in the act of pretending you might be surprised how a fake moan can transmute into actual and real-felt pleasure. For the record (but by no means as a recommendation - more on that later) I had resumed sexual relations with the husband of my two youngest children as soon as coming home from hospital. While I was happy that things were ‘business as usual’ (and what was I really frightened of if it wasn’t, I wonder?), after reading this book I thought, OK, I’ll make an even bigger effort, I’ll pretend to not just enjoy the closeness and the intimacy (which was true) but also the eroticism of sex. I pretended and I pretended and - it worked. This trickery of pretence soon became a wider 116metaphor for my life. As a metaphor it was fine, but in practice it became my downfall.
