hey Jennifer Tracy, ultimate MILF, podcast host, author, artist, muse

We sat down with Jennifer Tracy to talk all things sexy lingerie, relationships, personal reinvention and championing other badass women.

At Lunatic Femme, we pride ourselves in our ability to spot badass women when we see them. The ones who are fearless, sexy, messy, humble, falling and rising, making it happen, in all of those deliciously imperfect roles and hats and juggling acts we embody every day.  Enter Jennifer Tracy, the ultimate multi-hyphenate: veteran actress, dancer, book author, creative doula, writing coach and founder/host of award-winning MILF (Moms I’d Like to Follow) podcast, featuring raw and real conversations about motherhood, sexuality, entrepreneurship, gender roles and more with the likes of Kathryn Hahn, Cobie Smulders, Shannon Watts, Jenna Elfman, May Lindstrom, and more. She also knows her way around sexy lingerie and toys. (We love a woman who can work with tools.)  It’s a lot. Even so, she manages to squeeze in six orgasms a day. #goals  Read on to see how she literally does it all. 

xxx

What we love about you is that you’re always learning, growing, opening closed doors to see what’s behind them…  Our fave example: When you wanted to learn about BDSM, you hired the king of LA. Where does this drive come from?

jennifer tracy: 

I’ve always lived outside the box. I kind of hate the fucking box. It wasn’t until I was 38, married with a kid, that I realized I had boxed myself in. Not just because of the husband and kid, but my identity was wrapped up into some presupposed narrative that I thought I was supposed to choose for myself. My friend brought me to a pole dancing class and I was in awe of these women. And I discovered a whole new world inside of myself through this erotic movement and I remembered what it felt like to have fun in my body. Shortly thereafter, I began writing my first novel and the story wasn’t working inside the exploration of pole in prose, (dance is so visual), that I decided BDSM had something to offer me (and my characters) that was more psycho-sexual, more internally explorable, and more of an exchange to explore between dominatrix and submissive. So, I hired Sir Nik, one of the best doms in the world, to be my dom for the night at a sex club in L.A. I literally got my ass, back and breasts whipped and caned in front of a small audience. I was blindfolded for a portion of the time. It wasn’t at all what I thought it would be. It was so much more. What I learned in those few hours was immeasurable. What I learned about myself was priceless. My ass was bruised AF for about a week and it hurt to sit down. If you wanna know more, buy the book. Lol.

You’ve had many reinventions in your journey to realizing you’re an artist — how did knowing your purpose change who you are and how you live?
 

jennifer tracy: 

Being an artist is a torturous existence. You are constantly questioning yourself, your self-worth, your talents or lack thereof, not to mention your finances. It’s not for the faint of heart. Yet, it’s really the only way I know how to be. I have had hundreds of jobs in my life. Acting jobs, writing jobs, a million shitty side jobs, yet the one constant is the creative life inside my brain. The most important thing for me to do is to feed it with other art. I have to read, go see theatre, films, art museums, travel. Unfortunately, most of those were taken away from all of us during lockdown, but hopefully we will be free again to experience the lifeblood of what keeps us going and informs us of who we are: art and nature.

You’ve talked about how being an actress prepared you to handle failure… how have you used those experiences to empower you?

jennifer tracy: 

Oh, boy did it ever continually and relentlessly prepare me to handle failure. Haha! Eileen Ford when I was 15 years old: “I don’t know how she’ll do on the runway with those thick calves,” was one of thousands of comments about my looks and how I physical appearance may or may not “cut it.” (Note that she said it about me in my presence, not to me.) And it went both ways. There were agents or bookers who said, “Oh, you’ve got that thing, you’re going to make it big, kid.” Then there were so many who felt completely entitled to comment on every aspect of my body, my face, my very essence. The problem is that there’s an unspoken agreement when you join the circus of entertainment, you are opening yourself for public consumption, starting with the people who audition you for work. I developed a thick skin at a young age and was able to get through the workdays with my head held high, but it wasn’t until I really started writing my own material in my late 20s that I felt empowered. Saying someone else’s lines, especially for a commercial about cleaning supplies, doesn’t feel like art. It isn’t. I mean, it is in a way, you’re playing make-believe for this production so that people will know about and buy this product. And you’re getting paid, so that’s nice. But, really, you’re just a puppet. Which is fine. It was a fine way for me to pay my bills, but it started to feel really empty. So, taking more control and writing my own stuff with my sketch partner and putting shows up on a tiny black box stage in Los Angeles that a few hundred people came to see felt more empowering than the thousands of auditions I went on with NO ACTOR PARKING. The more I wrote and performed, the more I felt like I had something to say. Writing my first novel and now my second novel has been the most empowering creative endeavor of my life. I finally feel like I have ahold of the steering wheel. 

Being an actress subjects you to a ton of scrutiny about your looks, your talent, etc…. how have you learned to turn off those voices and listen to your own body, your own voice?
 

jennifer tracy: 

Taking the risk of getting on stage in front of people will scare the shit out of you and center you into yourself faster than anything else. If you’re not present and vulnerable, the audience will know it and they will be disengaged and disappointed. And if you’re a good little co-dependent like me, you want your audience to leave satisfied at the very least. Once I realized I had something to say, that my perspective had value, even just to myself, I wanted to express it. So, I did improv and sketch for 10 years, honing that craft and writing a ton. Then I had a baby and I couldn’t do anything for the first 3 years until he was in preschool. (But that’s for another interview.) Then, I had an idea for a TV show which I brought to my writing mentor. She said, “write the novel.” I said, “I’ve never written a book, I wouldn’t have the faintest idea how.” She said, “Get a coach.” I did. I worked on it for years before I felt confident enough to show an agent. When I finally did, I flew to New York and got signed right away. I shocked myself. It all goes back to putting yourself out there, knowing you’ll probably fall flat on your face at least once or two dozen times. But that’s part of the deal for all of us.

Being an artist is one of the bravest, most vulnerable things you can do or be — is that vulnerability and fearlessness something you have to cultivate or overcome every day? And how has that helped shape your success?
 

jennifer tracy: 

Yes. I have to overcome my self-doubt and fears every damn day. I battle with depression on and off and have since childhood. It sucks. And it feeds on my fears and can come out of nowhere until I’m drowning in self-loathing. I have to do a lot to stay afloat. I’m sober, so I have a whole practice surrounding my sobriety and recovery. I have been in TONS of therapy. I take care of my body with yoga, healthy foods, good sleep, etc. I try to laugh as much as possible because it keeps me going. Somehow, I’ve managed to reinvent myself many times and keep going. Like Dory says, “Just keep swimming.” 

Being the queen you are… of reinvention, of fearlessness, of artistic expression… is a full-time job, how do you make time for pleasure and passion?

jennifer tracy: 

Well, being that we were just locked down in a pandemic and I’m single AF, pleasure and passion has to come from myself to myself. I’m GREAT at giving myself pleasure. I always joke with my girlfriends that it’s a slow night in my bed if I only have 6 orgasms in a row! My orgasms have gotten deeper and bigger as I’ve gotten older. I have no idea why or if there’s science behind that, I’m just enjoying the fuck out my body. Passion in my sexuality definitely comes to me through my dance movement. I don’t go to the studio anymore, so I usually end up lighting some candles and putting my air pods in and rolling around on my living room floor dancing by myself. It’s the MOST fun. I love it. It reminds me how alive my body can feel and how revved up and sexy I feel when I’m moving like that. When I find my partner, I’m excited to share that part of myself. It’s so intimate and special to me.

You’ve mentioned going through a divorce, what else have you discovered about yourself, your body, your likes, your sexuality, etc., that’s since been unleashed?

jennifer tracy: 

Well, I really, really, really enjoy and NEED my alone time. It’s crucial. I’ve also learned a lot about my desire to please others and throw myself out the window in the process. I’m over that and into communicating what my true feelings are, even when I’m scared they won’t be popular with the other person. In a safe relationship, there should always be room to be held, seen and safe in your feelings. Anything else isn’t worth staying for, in my opinion. I’m currently not dating anyone, so I can’t speak to the likes and sexuality in a partnership way, but see above for the answer to “what I’ve discovered” since divorce.

You’re a big advocate of mental health and support for new moms. How were you able to get past your own post-partum depression and find yourself and your sexuality again?
 

jennifer tracy: 

I am always here to support mothers. It’s so important to me. We do not get enough support. It’s a worldwide issue. It took me 2 years to realize that I was depressed. As soon as I reached out to my OB-GYN and told her what had been happening, she referred me to a therapist and a psychiatrist, and I got the support that I needed that I wish I could’ve gotten much, much sooner. Slowly, I started coming back into myself. Then when my son started preschool, I was working again, and I found pole dancing. That’s when everything changed. I had no interest in sex after the baby was born. I felt like an asexual neuter. I was just a robot to feed and care for my baby. I loved him deeply, but I didn’t love myself or feel anything other than extreme anxiety or extreme fatigue. But then, when I discovered the movement in my body again, I realized there were oceans of desires and longing inside me. Life. 

You’ve interviewed tons of badass women... when it comes to self-love/self-pleasure, what are we getting right + can we do better?

jennifer tracy: 

We’ve definitely come a long way. We are talking about things that need to be discussed: miscarriage, postpartum depression, mental health, sexuality, LGBTQ+ equality and rights, gender equality, how fucking hard it is to be a woman, etc. So, that’s a start. We are learning to be real: not paint the picture that we are perfectly happy and beautiful and groomed and fuckable and without real emotion. We are HUMAN, just like other gendered folk. I think the most important thing we can do as women is to support other women’s journeys whether we relate to them or not. You do you, girl. I got you. I see you. Keep going. I love you. 

As someone who loves lingerie, how do you use lingerie in your everyday life?

jennifer tracy: 

I like to wear lingerie that feels comfortable and decadent for me. Even my everyday underwear is “fancy.” It’s not about performance, it’s about sort of worshiping my own body with a bra and panties that turn me on and wake up my erotic side. During the first few years of my pregnancy, I only wore cheap 10-to-a-pack underwear and I really, truly thought my days of ever feeling sexy or wanting sex again were over forever. Boy, was I wrong. I’m just getting started! I like feeling sexy under my clothes or around the house just for ME! I never did that before. Lingerie was always something for someone else. Now, when I have a date with someone I’m interested in, I like to have something on under my clothes that feels like a little secret he doesn’t know about. It doesn’t matter if we don’t even hook up, it’s powerful to have that secret and feel the fabric between my legs or the lace on my breasts. It’s mine to feel.

Even the most exciting things can become boring or routine esp when it comes to sex — how do you stay creative, push your boundaries, reignite yourself when you plateau?

jennifer tracy: 

I like to ask questions. Sometimes I ask with my body, but honestly, I like to talk about sex. Learning what your partner might be interested in or fantasizes about is powerfully intimate and SO SEXY. I love that. I want to know what makes his mind blown when he masturbates. I want to know the secrets in the corners of his sexual fantasies that he’s never told anyone before. I want to explore that with him and have fun. It’s supposed to be fun after all, isn’t it? Oh, and I love to laugh during sex. Laughter is important to me all the time, but sometimes there’s this sweet moment that happens and you connect and laugh together while you’re having sex… I love that.

How do you use sexual or creative energy (ie that power or confidence) in other areas of your life?

jennifer tracy: 

Sex is vitality. So, I feel like it’s a pulse that runs through everything we do. And when I’m low energy, I definitely don’t feel sexy or creative. When I’m in a depression, it’s impossible to feel either. So, keeping myself healthy and fit is key to keeping that energy alive and coursing through everything I do: writing, mothering, entertaining, romance, etc. 

What do you do when you want to turn on your feminine power?

jennifer tracy: 

DANCE! 

What question should I be asking you and what is the answer?

jennifer tracy: 

“Where do you see yourself in 10 years?” On a beach somewhere in a string bikini, reading a book I’m really into, holding hands with the person I love, receiving a text with photos of my son from wherever he is living his best life. 

📸: Karen Mortensen