sex & the single mom is moving... to... here!

after years of writing about sex, relationships and parenting for Romper, they've retired all freelancers. so I'm gonna resuscitate my column here. (with your help!)

The week after I published this piece about Summer Celibacy for Romper, I got an email from my brilliant and beloved editor letting me know that Romper, and therefore my column, Sex and the Single Mom, was as good as dead.

Sarah Wheeler, author of Momspreading and fellow Romper columnist wrote this days after we got the news:

…What, exactly, are we mourning? A place for stories about parenting. Not just tips, or optimizations, or products to buy and experts to follow (but also that, sometimes we want that!). Romper is/was the most consistent publisher of complicated, long-form parenting essays — writing that respected parents both as subjects and consumers.

We asked, what kind of parenting content matters? And Romper said, over and over again, all of it! They wanted what was scary and fuzzy and overwhelming and hilarious and life-changing and mundane and uncomfortable because that’s what it’s like. That’s what parenting is. They let us write about it how it is — they didn’t make us turn into a one-liner or make it relevant to current events (though often it was) or treat it as unserious or ask, as other publishers often ask “is this relatable???” because they knew it was. They knew all of this shit was relevant, cause it’s fucking (sorry) life.

I started writing for Romper in 2020. It was the height of Covid lockdown, I had just turned in my final edits for ALL OF THIS and was looking to get back into personal essays. I hadn’t yet launched this newsletter, was VERY done blogging at Girl’s Gone Child and was excited when Romper EIC, Elizabeth Angell (who is THE dream editor of dream editors) got back to me to let me know she would publish my piece — an essay I wrote about my Covid relationship and sex/physical contact as a basic human need for single mothers during lockdown.

I expected that parenting during COVID was going to be intense, which is why I ended a serious relationship at the start of quarantine. I didn’t have the emotional capacity to be a girlfriend as well as the mother of four children while simultaneously working from home with zero alone time. But maintaining a serious, in-person relationship and needing intimate physical contact with another adult are two very different things. I knew that to preserve my sanity, I needed to find a person. Someone I could trust and felt safe with, a sexual companion with few emotional demands

I had just finished a book that was as much about sex as it was about grief, much to the chagrin of those who “loved the first half” and “thought the second half was “disgusting her poor children.”

And yes it was responses like those that made me even more excited to double down on writing not only about my sex/dating life but the sex/dating lives of single moms which is why, some months later, I pitched a column.

The fact that anyone, let alone MANY find it abhorrent that women have the audacity to be single, have kids and (gasp!) want to get fucked well and often — with or without a relationship — means we have some serious work to do in the normalizing-mothers-as-people department. And if/when I can ever afford to write another book, that’s what it will be about.

Because we live in a world where promiscuity, non-monogamy, and sexual insatiability is expected of men as a sort of default while women are labeled hysterical, nymphomaniacal sluts for wanting to have sex without serious commitment. Specifically women of a certain age.

And while celibacy is not for me, slut that I unabashedly am, I am also interested in diving deeper into the nuances of the NO “SEX” SEX conversation, specifically how women are responding to the frustrations of modern dating by abandoning dating men altogether, exploring queerness, prioritizing friendship as primary relationship, solo sex and peripheral ‘ships with men whose sole purpose is to help women get off. (Sexting, phone sex, etc.)

The fact that this is my most popular post — ironically inspired by my last paid piece I wrote for Romper — tells me that this is the kind of content readers want more of, especially right now.

All of this to say, now that I’ve sufficiently mourned its cancellation, I have decided to resuscitate Sex & the Single Mom here on the braid with a brief IN MEMORIAM for some of my favorite pieces I wrote for Romper over the years:

“Are you Open?” … — February, 2024

”How do I rediscover my sexuality when I’m touched out…” — June 2022

let’s hear it for the WILFS! … September, 2022

we’re all actually still sixteen! it’s true! it never gets easier! … August, 2022

BODIES BODIES BODIES … July, 2022

Pamela Anderson is my hero… February 2023

SATSM will exist behind a paywall because I literally do not have a choice. Losing many thousands of dollars a year means that I have to make it up everywhere I can so if you can afford to pay seven bucks a month to support the work I do here THANK YOU and please do. SO MANY freelancers are losing income RN (nowhere I used to get paid to freelance for is left, for example!) so while you’re at it, become a paid subscriber to all the writers you love! SUPPORT WOMEN WRITERS SO WE CAN CONTINUE TO WRITE ABOUT THE THINGS THAT MATTER TO YOU!

Like nudes, sex toys and virginity being a myth!

more nudes, more problems. but also… YOLO! … April, 2023

An important PSA that includes recs from hundreds of readers! … October, 2022

I actually wrote this one before I launched my column but it’s worth a call back, especially if you have teenagers

As well as bringing my column here, I will be hosting monthly hour-long zooms for paid subscribers who want to talk sex + dating in community (with special guests!) YES, THAT IS INCLUDED WITH YOUR MEMBERSHIP! SEVEN BUCKS A MONTH AND YOU GET AN INSTA-SUPPORT-GROUP OF BADDIES, GOODIES and EVERYONEINBETWEENIES.

AND BY GO OUT FOR DRINKS I MEAN A ONCE A MONTH ZOOM

I will be posting the zoom link in the paid sub chat later this month for PAID SUBSCRIBERS ONLY. THIS WILL BE AN EXPERIMENT, OF COURSE and if it works, I am open to doing more than one a month and turning it into a sort of support group for single women (sluts and non-sluts alike!) but we’re gonna start with monthly meetings and go from there.

You can respond to this newsletter, comment below or email me at rebeccawoolf at gmail with the subject SATSM to ASK ME ANYTHING. I will be taking questions as well as subject material requests for future columns. As always, you will remain anonymous unless you don’t want to be!

All topics are good topics and there’s no such thing as TMI, baby!

Sluts! Celibates! Friends! Foes! There’s room for everyone, GET IN. And thank you in advance for your support!