BATTLEFIELD: THE WOMB

Enjoy Zuzana Trachtová's slightly NSFW, candid and eye-opening collection of couples' direct observations of the minute or significant shifts in the romantic and sexual layers of their relationships after one of the partners gave birth. Accompanied by illustrations by Kim Zemene.

The womb. I carry a child that we have jointly fucked into being.

Juicy, zombie has a child under her skin. It’s a dream, it’s hell. What happens to a couple’s mutual attraction when they have a baby? I surprised a few new parents with that question. The mosaic of feelings was supported by illustrations by Kim Zemene, for whom the process of creation itself was self-therapy.

Seeping into you

“I want to seep into you, to connect with you with every molecule, there’s no other way than to create something together, a baby, a part of both of us.” Ralph

“When we decided we were going to conceive, it was a turn-on as shit.” Daniel

“Sex with ovulation was so hot, for the first time, Daniel could cum inside me without the barrier of a condom. The moment of climax wasn’t restricted, repressed. I also became attracted to porn where a guy squirts into a woman, or even bizarro porn with pregnant women.” Sonya

“We have Zoe. But we couldn’t get pregnant naturally. My body said no, you’re not supposed to be pregnant yet. I was throwing up and losing weight the whole pregnancy. After I had the baby, I kept losing weight. Dark times.” Karol

Juicy. Zombie.

“I felt juicy, feminine, something was taking form in me, full of life… that you could give life.” Tonya

“I have a bad relationship with my body, you can’t manage to heal it during pregnancy, you’re uncomfortable in your own skin and there’s another person in that skin.” Karol

“It’s exciting when you’re carrying a baby inside you that you fucked into being together. Sex isn’t suddenly just like that, it’s fulfilling that basic role.” Sonya

“I was more gentle, I was afraid of hurting her or the baby.” Luk

“As long as I could move, Jan served me as a sex slave, it stopped when I became a whale.” Dara

“I found Karol very hot when she was pregnant, I found all pregnant girls attractive at the time.” Matyáš

Disrupt and piece together

“Being cut into pieces, discovering a whole other person underneath the pieces – me as a mother – and then putting myself back together again.” Roza 

“My body has been transformed by the experience of holding life inside you, then you give birth to it, it all gets disrupted and has to be put back together and healed. Something happens in the body.” Tonya

“The first few days after I gave birth I was so horny, the mental side of me would have gone straight to fucking, I was on crazy hormones, I was so worked up, and this incredible rush of love for this baby… ” Sonya

“Some time after the birth, the body is ready for sex again, the uterus folds back. There was more trust between Tom and me. That man is suddenly a procreator and that resonates with him too, something clicked there.” Tonya

“My body was given to Zoe alone. She was with me 24/7. I wanted to erase traumas with that contact. I was only not touched for a few hours a day but that was the moment when Matyáš would want to touch me because he didn’t touch anyone all day.” Karol

“After the birth, we didn’t feel so much like randy stuff, it was a bit forced, it wasn’t so spontaneous. Sex moved to a more tender vanilla level.” Daniel

“I was like a zombie during pregnancy and after giving birth. Matyáš had to rescue me. There was no physical intimacy between us, he was afraid of breaking me even more.” Karol

“Now here we are talking about it in bed naked, the baby is with us and we are looking at each other, inspecting each other, and thinking about what you actually asked us.” Daniel

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Bio

 TEXT’S AUTHOR

Zuzana Trachtová graduated from anthropology and Romani studies. In previous years, she focused predominantly on Roma-related issues and social topics, and subsequently started directing her attention towards the areas of culture and arts. Currently, Zuzana pens up articles about the topics of masturbation, intimacy and sexuality also for the recently emerged, feminism-oriented Czech magazine Heroine and Czech psychology periodical Moje Psychologie. At the same time, Zuzana has been developing her own project called Naked (IG: naked_cz) that is built, in essence, on opening sensitive and taboo topics surrounding sexuality and masturbation, and on motivating people to cross their boundaries and adventurously discover their bodies.

ILLUSTRATIONS’ AUTHOR

After studying site-specific scenography and creating multimedia objects focused on documentary production, Kim Zemene began to focus on film scenography. After maternity leave, she returned to art through illustration. She focuses on themes of body perception, feminism and environmentalism.

Credits

Text / Zuzana Trachtová

Illustrations / Kim Zemene

Translation / Františka Blažková

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