"Why should you get everything you need from your husband?"

Jo Piazza on women's infidelity, sex, and desire

Jo Piazza and I first bonded over our shared love of Smeg fridges.

“All the cottage-core momfluencers have them and now I want one,” Jo told me during our first phone call.

“I know,” I said, “But they’re a million dollars and you know they wouldn’t hold enough.”

“Oh, totally,” Jo agreed, “But I still want one.”

“I KNOW,” I said.

As became instantly clear during our inaugural chat, which was technically me interviewing Jo about her podcast, Under the Influence—which is a delightful deep dive into the momfluencer industry complex—for a piece I wrote about momfluencer culture for Harper’s Bazaar, Jo was my type of person.

We’ve stayed in touch throughout my reporting and writing of Momfluenced, and I’m routinely amazed at Jo’s breadth of skills and obsessions, which leads her to co-write books interrogating how race impacts friendships; host hugely entertaining and informative podcasts; and most recently, launch a Substack,

Over the Influence

, which momfluencer obsessives will definitely want to check out.

What the F*%^! am I Doing?

Jo is relentlessly curious about what makes us human, and while I could’ve focused this interview on any number of her projects, I’m SO EXCITED to talk to her about her newest podcast, She Wants More, which interrogates women’s sex lives, why they’re having more affairs than ever, and above all, their desires. It’s gotten love from Bustle, Vogue, The New Yorker, and many other places!

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Sara: What made you interested in investigating women’s infidelity?

Jo: I started seeing so many women I know have affairs. And I think that's because I'm in my early 40s, and so many of my friends are mothers who are just starting to come up for air after the intense baby years, and sort of reclaim themselves, you know? So I wanted to know what was happening, and why it was happening because I don't necessarily want it to happen to me. I wanted to report it out and better understand it, and I also wanted to at least try to stay faithful within my own marriage. And maybe that’s an antiquated idea too! But I’d like to try.

Sara: I, of course, write about the ideals of motherhood, which are obviously directly connected to family ideals and marital ideals. And I’m assuming those ideals show up in She Wants More.

Jo: 100%

Sara: And I think culturally, we're doing a decent job of discussing the gritty or impossible sides of motherhood, but marriage still feels like a largely untapped topic.

Jo: Yeah, not a lot of us talk about marriage. Not a lot of us talk about, like, the antiquated ways we describe what a marriage is or what makes a good marriage or a good wife. I mean there’s the antiquated notion of a good wife being a faithful wife, right? You’re a good wife if you desire no one other than your husband. And these standards of “good wifehood” were created thousands of years ago by men in power. I wouldn’t say this podcast condones infidelity, but I think that women have been told we can't talk about what we need from a marriage and from a partner. Once you’re married, you should be getting everything you need from your partner, and if you're not, it's your fault. It’s hard to talk about—even for feminist writers like me—when we're not getting what we need.

Sara: When we consider the roots of marriage, you are completely right in that it is a construct that was developed to help white men gain and retain power.

Jo: And to provide free labor to white men.

Sara: And our modern romanticization of marriage as a union that should fulfill you sexually and in all ways is so relatively new (and so hard to attain).

Jo: It’s such a fairy tale, this idea that a marriage gives you everything you need: your soulmate, your best friend, the best sex of your life, your psychiatrist! We’ve all been fed this fairy tale, but it’s such bullshit, right? And so anytime that a marriage exists outside of that norm—and I'm not even just talking about sex—but anytime that you know, someone has a male best friend who isn’t also her husband. Or like, anytime someone has a great relationship with her work colleague who also happens to be a man. You know, people give you the side-eye for stuff like that. The conclusion people often draw is that that woman isn’t getting everything she needs from her husband. But why should you get everything you need from your husband?

Sara: It so reminds me of the cultural imperative to enjoy every single aspect of motherhood. If you struggle to find that joy, it’s indicative of a deficit within you, not a deficit within a mythical, impossible ideal.

Jo: Right, you are broken for deviating from the norm or for failing to adhere to an ideal. You are somehow not good at this marriage thing, as opposed to the whole idea of the marriage construct being flawed. The way we see it in pop culture and media is flawed. And the way that we see women is flawed! I mean, I went into this podcast with some judgment, right? There’s so much cultural stigma around affairs and infidelity when it comes to women. And I forced myself to drop those assumptions, because I really want people to listen to this podcast with an open mind so that you can question these things we've been fed about sex, women, marriage, and monogamy. You might not come out liking the things that you hear, but I think you’ll consider and question some of the things you used to believe.

Sara: So what were some of your preconceptions going in?

Jo: The biggest question I get asked is, “If someone’s going to cheat, why not just get a divorce?” I’ve come to view that as being a really simplistic viewpoint, because people are married for reasons other than having sex. People are married to have a partnership. Maybe that’s a business partnership. Maybe it’s a childcare partnership. Maybe it’s a partnership linked to a loving friendship. So why should sex be the one thing that can destroy all of that? One woman said to me, If my husband didn't like to play tennis, I would find someone else to play tennis with. But my husband doesn’t want to spank me. So why can’t I find someone else to spank me?

Sara: That makes tons of sense. And I don’t know what it says about me, but I’ve never found affairs to be particularly shocking. They’ve always struck me as being completely understandable. Like, it shocks me more that we’re not all having affairs simply because the institution of monogamy often feels fundamentally impossible and antithetical to the human experience in a lot of ways.

Jo: 100% I mean, it really, really does. And yet at the same time, I like being married.

Sara: Same!

Jo: But all the constraints of marriage feel insane when you think about them.

Sara: I mean, if you start having sex, like in your teens, and you don’t get married until 30 or whatever, you’ve spent over a decade having multiple sexual partners and multiple sexual experiences. And then you’re asked to never seek out sexual novelty ever again for the rest of your life.

Jo: The majority of women I interviewed on the podcast—I think all but one or two—were mothers when they had their affairs, and I think the fact of their motherhood stigmatizes them even more. Like, a mother is doing this. A mother is having sex with someone who isn’t her husband. There's such a taboo about women and infidelity. But there's an even bigger taboo about mothers and infidelity. Some of these women told me that after having children, they just wanted something for themselves again. They just wanted their bodies back. And the best way to do that was to be with someone who didn't see them as mothers.

Sara: I mean, I certainly empathize and relate to grieving the loss of the person you were before motherhood. And it seems to me like a relatively simple way to reclaim your pre-motherhood sense of self would be to experience yourself as seen by a new sexual partner.

Jo: That's what I heard over and over again. And the really surprising, interesting thing was that almost all the women told me having an affair made them so much more competent in every other aspect of their life, including motherhood.

Sara: Did they go into details about why they thought that was?

Jo: Because they felt so worn down by motherhood, by feeling asexualized, that receiving this confidence boost about their bodies, and their minds (because this isn’t solely about sex) was transformative. It's about someone wanting to see you and hear all of your stories and perceive you as interesting. And because these women subsequently felt so good about themselves, they also felt like better parents. Many of these women described their affairs as self-care.

Sara: How many of these women returned to their marriages post-affair?

Jo: Almost 90% of them. We wanted to talk to women specifically who hadn’t necessarily blown up their marriages but were having affairs within their marriages. So the vast majority of the women that we interviewed are still happily married. Many of them report that they no longer resent their husbands, that they can enjoy their husbands more. Because they’re getting some of their needs met from someone else.

Sara: Did you watch Fleishman is in Trouble?

Jo: Yes.

Sara: So both the Lizzy Caplan and the Claire Danes characters go through identity crises as women in their forties. And one of my favorite parts about the show is the way they explore that real sense of grief that attends having to live within the choices you’ve made. You are not able to leave every possible version of your life.

Jo: We’re not supposed to live every version of our lives. And I think the women that I spoke to are trying to live a version of their life that they've been told they can't have.

Sara: And are they succeeding?

Jo: For the most part, yes! For the most part, their affairs enhanced these women’s lives. They didn't ruin them. And of course, that was not true for every single woman. I mean, one woman blew up her entire life and ended up leaving her spouse because she was sleeping with his best friend. So that’s an alternate reality many people might not want to consider, right? But for the most part, their affairs did not make their lives worse.

Sara: I guess I’m curious about what we can do with this knowledge. Like, I don’t think the answer for all women is to have affairs outside of their marriages, right?

Jo: I don't think the goal is for everyone to have affairs. I tell people they should listen to this podcast with their spouses. Even just one episode. In so many marriages, breakdowns in communication prevent people from understanding each other’s sexual wants and needs, or their emotional wants and needs. People also change over time and don’t talk about those changes, right? I think having really open and honest communication about things that are hard to talk about can prevent you from looking outside the marriage for something else. For better or worse, I tell my husband everything. Everything I want. Everything I need. I’m probably annoying because I’m such a loose cannon. But at the same time, I think it's really healthy to be that open and that honest.

I’m also a huge proponent of couple’s therapy. Having a third party there to help you parse through stuff is so huge. For so long, we’ve been told that therapy implies your marriages is in trouble, or is doomed, or is a worst-case scenario. That’s ridiculous! It’s an investment in your relationship.

I’ve also been told to not talk about my marriage with other people. Like, you should keep it all sacred within the marriage. And that’s so dangerous! It doesn't just take a village to raise children. It takes a village to raise a marriage. And I think we need to accept that it’s ok to want and need partners outside of your marriage. Perhaps not spanking partners, but you know, someone who likes to hike with you or bike with you or whatever.

When I was writing How to be Married, I interrogated the stereotype that all French people have affairs, and actually, that’s not true. But French people are much cooler about flirting. And they would tell me that Yeah, flirting is fine and good, because at the end of the day you’re actively choosing your spouse and isn't that a nice thing?

Sara: I keep coming back to novelty. And no matter how much communication or openness exists within a marriage, you simply cannot manufacture that uniquely alive feeling elicited by being seen in a completely new way by a completely new person. Right?

Jo: It's true. You can't manufacture that. And some people crave that feeling so much, are so desperate for it, that they'll do any whatever it takes to get that feeling back. Nick and I met when I was 34. We got married when I was 35. So I had gotten pretty much everything out of my system. And I don't actually need to feel that feeling ever again. Maybe that’s because I'm in the thick of it with three babies, and maybe that’ll change. We’ll see. I also think the idea of the marriage contract lasting forever is so antiquated. If we had to actively choose each other like every 7 years or whatever and renew our vows, that might at least lead us to try a bit harder, you know? To grow with each other rather than stagnate.

Sara: So the title of the podcast is obviously She Wants More. And I can’t really imagine a podcast entitled He Wants More. It wouldn’t be a thing.

Jo: He gets more! He already gets more!

Sara: Men are entitled to want in ways that women are not.

Jo: Women are not entitled to want. Not entitled to desire. They’re not entitled to passion. And the title is simple, but I think it’s also quietly subversive.

Sara: What were you most surprised to learn in your reporting?

Jo: Mostly that sex, desire, and passion are all so complicated. And so stigmatized for women in a way that isn’t at all stigmatized for men. Male affairs are basically a pop culture joke, right? Like, he went to a bachelor party and hooked up with someone else because that’s what men do. Whereas if a woman does the same thing at a bachelorette party or whatever, it’s a dire crisis. It’s a tragedy. Our thoughts about “the faithful woman” are so deeply ingrained. I think this podcast is one small step towards more women telling their stories. To share more about what they actually want and need from their lives. Because this stuff is hard. Being a mom is hard. Being a wife is hard, and we deserve to find ways to get what we need to take care of ourselves, since we're taking care of everyone else.

Sara: It would make sense to me if women at large wanted and needed more sexual newness or sexual validation than men only because for the bulk of human history (at least in many western cultures) women were presumed to only have sex to produce offspring, not to experience pleasure or experience herself.

Jo: There’s this bullshit idea that men have affairs for sex and women have affairs for love. And we spoke to experts for the podcast who confirmed that yes, this is bullshit.

Sara: What did other experts add to your understanding of women’s affairs?

Jo: We talked to a lot of sex therapists, sociologists, and anthropologists and they think more women are having affairs than ever before because women have certain privileges that they didn’t use to have. I mean, when you're not financially dependent on your husband, when you have your own career, it makes it easier to take these kinds of risks. They also point out that women are very good at having affairs and keeping them secret because we’re socialized to be good at compartmentalizing.

Sara: I think sex for women (especially post-kids) can be this way of retaining grip on yourself outside of your roles as like wife, caregiver and mother.

Jo: Exactly. It's the way you find yourself again. And I think men pursue affairs for similar reasons. They also want to be seen again, they also want confidence boosts. The stereotype of the older man having an affair with a younger woman is all about that man wanting to feel young again.

Sara: I do think the aspect of caregiving is important though. Like, the desire to be seen as a sexual object rather than as a caregiver.

Jo: Absolutely. And I think many of us are comfortable ignoring our innate need to feel desired by someone.

Sara: Can you share any particularly interesting little tidbits from specific stories that you share on the podcast?

Jo: We have a whole episode on how technology has made it so much easier to seek out affairs. You can very easily find someone to hook up with, someone to text with, or someone you want a deeper affair with. In one of the episodes I actually signed up for Ashley Madison to see how it all works.

Sara: Ha! This is reminding me of you trying to become a momfluencer for Under the Influence.

Jo: Totally.

Sara: I feel myself struggling to locate a nice, cozy takeaway that can be universally applicable, but that’s silly isn’t it?

Jo: Every marriage is different. And every affair is different. And so there's no closing takeaway. I just wish that we could approach marriage, sex, and partnership with less stigma and stereotypes and judgment than we currently approach it with. I will say that I'm getting messages from so many women who say they've never felt this seen. That they’ve kept their affairs and their infidelity a secret for so long and never felt like they could talk about it or that anyone would ever discuss what they were going through. I’ve gotten over a hundred of messages like that.

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Thank you Jo! You can check out She Wants More here, and Jo’s most recent book, You Were Always Mine, which she co-wrote with Christine Pride, here, and subscribe to her newsletter,

Over the Influence

here.