Having assisted over 4000 women in childbirth – she once joked that her office was the vagina – legendary Dutch midwife Beatrijs Smulders knows a thing or two about feminine power. Luckily for us, she is sharing her wisdom and life experiences in ‘Blood’, the juicy first installment of her autobiographical trilogy. I talked with the formidable feminine feminist about love, power and sex in the age of Pornhub and Tinder. “YOU make the rules.”

Marlies: In your marvelous memoir ‘Blood’, you talk about finding out there was a brothel next to the spot you had chosen to open your Birth Center. Even though most people were scandalized, you were delighted: ‘The two oldest professions in the world, right next to each other! A great omen!’. Why were you never afraid to make the connection between childbirth and sexual pleasure?

Beatrijs: That connection was one of the reasons I chose this profession in the first place. I always knew that the baby nesting in your womb is a manifestation of sexual energy, of love. Giving birth to it is a beautiful phenomenon, very similar to the act of sex itself. You have to get out of your head and into your body. Everything has to open up – your legs, your cervix – otherwise you can’t give life. A midwife’s job is not unlike that of a lover; she has to find the key that unlocks your trust in your body. She makes you feel safe enough to open up and let go. Luckily, nature likes to help out – in labor, the same hormones are released as when we make love: a cocktail of oxytocin, endorphins and prolactin.

Marlies: A love cocktail!

Beatrijs: Exactly. Through the placenta, the baby receives the same combination; a process that reaches a climax during that magnificent final push. Right after the birth, marinated in their shared mix of hormones, the mother and the baby bond through a so-called love gaze, a look that anchors their love for each other deep inside the brain. Lovers can actually make a similar connection, when they gaze into each other’s eyes during sex.

Marlies: Awakening love through the senses, what a beautiful idea.

Beatrijs: It is. And the fact that women can forge a deep love this way, is really a great power. A feminine power.

Marlies: Yet for the longest time, we have been told that we are the weaker sex… because of our child-bearing bodies! We even started believing it ourselves.

Beatrijs: After millennia of patriarchal suppression, we carry a residue of collective pain, stress and self-doubt within us, even today. I came of age on the crest of the second feminist wave. During the sexual revolution, with the birth-control pill in the back pocket of our jeans, we thought we could just erase that trauma. God was dead and we were free to do what we wanted! But in our excitement to get on our backs and get it on, we didn’t take the time to discover and define our own sexual identity. Instead, we started copying men’s behavior, joining a sexual free-for-all without boundaries, becoming even more estranged from our bodies in the process.

Marlies: Can you give an example?

Beatrijs: God knows I haven’t exactly been the epitome of monogamy myself, but at the end of the day, the female sex organ just wasn’t designed to deal with a continuous invasion of new bacteria, causing all kinds of infections. I believe that biologically, women are not built for polyamory. But when suddenly so many of us became so readily available for sex, we felt the pressure to do anything to please a man. “If I don’t satisfy him, another woman will.” So, even though the sexual revolution was about freedom and emancipation, subconsciously we were creating a new kind of sexual servitude. And the rise of porn and dating apps only made it worse.

Marlies: How can we remedy that?

Beatrijs: Women have to take charge again. Girls tell me they feel insecure, not knowing for sure if they are officially dating a guy, even though they had sex several times. That’s ridiculous, he should be at your feet! Remember, you have that feminine power. Use it. Boundaries and rules are good. You could try the Dating Rule of Three for example: after meeting someone, you wait three days to give the first kiss. Three weeks later, you can get a little hotter and heavier, but you wait three months to really go all the way sexually. By then, you can love and make love without constantly worrying whether he’s into you or not. You know he adores you.

Marlies: The return of courtship, I love it.

Beatrijs: I’m all for men holding doors open for women etc. Let them worship us!

Marlies: (laughs) Agree! At times, your book reads like a raw, sensual ode to the female body. The senses play a big role in it. I was especially moved by your descriptions of smell: realizing as a teenager that your vagina smells ‘like sweet, freshly baked bread’, for example, but also your ability to smell if a pregnant woman has a uterine infection. Beautiful reminders of the fact that our senses hold the key to our body’s innate wisdom.

Beatrijs: There is so much wisdom and knowledge stored in our bodies. To trust it is one of the most empowering things a woman can do. Your body never lies.

Marlies: A type of feminine feminism we need more than ever. Thank you, Beatrijs.