Christen Clifford

Writing

CHRISTEN CLIFFORD

“I greatly admire Christen Clifford’s risk-taking ...”
— David Shields
 

For someone who has, for better or worse, gotten strength and power from being desired, I am now operating unsuccessfully in two parallel universes. On one hand, I have never been so desired in my life. Felix ravages my breasts as no one else ever has. It’s not sexual hunger, it’s actual hunger…. The opposite universe is the one in which no one wants me. I’m a mother; I have little to no value to the outside world.

— BabyLove

Clifford first wrote BabyLove in 2004, while working towards her MFA in Creative Nonfiction at The New School. This second edition reprint was created as a way to explore hindsight, as the artist reflects on her role as a new mother nearly two decades later.

From the horniness of the second trimester to first intercourse after childbirth; from masturbating while breastfeeding to scheduling sex, Clifford declares “Maternal Sexuality Deserves Attention.”

Clifford writes, “I wrote BabyLove in a rush- in the delirium of new motherhood. It was first published on Nerve.com in 2004. The comments section told me that my partner needed to divorce me; that my child should be taken away from me; that I was abusive. Some also wrote that it was the most honest depiction of new parenthood they had ever read.”

The second release of BabyLove includes the addition of an afterword, which reflects on the original response to the work, fifteen plus years later after it’s original release.

This four color risograph iteration of BabyLove was produced in conjunction with the PES Story Lab, which partners with creatives and practitioners to develop printed matter, cultivating discourse around important social issues.

BabyLove is an edition of one hundred and fifty, ten with a special cover featuring Gold Leaf Breastmilk.

BabyLove has been acquired by the Thomas J. Watson Library of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

 
“One astounding essay by Christen Clifford, “Mother, Daughter, Mustache,” offers a wry meditation on femininity, aging, sexual assault and drag that’s almost worth the price of admission on its own.”
— Chicago Tribune, on Women In Clothes
 

I bought it at Halloween Adventure. It cost $6.99. A bright blond natural-hair mustache, with a net, that you attach with spirit gum to either side of the philtrum, that dip above the lips. I couldn't smile very much, or the mustache would start to peel off. Maybe that's why I felt less feminine. I couldn't smile. 

It's wonderful to be a women if you are young, thin, and pleasing to men. Otherwise there's not so much that's wonderful about it. We were told to be sexy, that without children we wouldn't be fulfilled as women, but raising them in decent conditions is practically impossible. It seems essential to capitalism that women be made to feel that they are failing all the time. Every choice is the wrong choice. I wanted to break free of convention.

— women in clothes

 

Essays