Christina Aguilera spent the weekend getting ready for Halloween by following other celebrities' lead and picking pumpkins in West Hollywood with hubby Jordan Bratman and their son Max. She's also Cosmopolitan UK's November cover star, and revealed her preference for female bodies in her frank interview with the magazine. Here are the highlights:

• On women's bodies: "I’ve always had fun playing up to my sexual side. I think women are such sensual beings. And, I mean, I’m attracted to men ultimately – I’m married and I love my husband and I love what we do together, but honestly? If I had a choice between viewing a naked man or a naked woman, I’d choose the woman. We’re just naturally sexier and more beautiful to look at."
• On sexuality: "I just appreciate sexuality … in the past people have had to be ashamed of their sexuality. So I love to embrace it – there’s such a sense of freedom in it."
• On being nude: "I feel sexiest in the nude … [My husband] has a way of making me feel sexy … When you see something you dislike and your partner looks at you and embraces it. It makes you feel good. You know, the scars of life are beautiful."

To find out what Christina said about keeping the romance alive with Jordan, being a mother, and her abusive father, and to see more pictures from the pumpkin patch, just read more.

• On keeping the romance alive with Jordan: "It’s important to make time for yourselves. I don’t like schedules – I don’t think sex should be scheduled. We all have our little turn-ons and the things that make our romance spicy, so you just have to tap into what that is for you, and keep experimenting."
• On changing her image: "It’s like tapping into different sides of yourself and your past, and getting to feel good about it. I still get that sense of, ‘Wow, I did that, I was that girl.’ I love looking back and seeing so many different sides of myself and knowing that I experimented … there was a reason I did it and I consciously felt good going into it … I get bored when things are too safe, or too played by the rules."
• On being a mother: "It’s important for me to be the first person [Max] sees when he wakes up and the last thing he sees when he goes to bed … there are a few songs that have been inspired by him. But as far as it affecting me creatively – like, I shouldn’t be wearing that because I’m a mum – no. Because that wouldn’t be fair to me. It’s important to keep a strong sense of yourself when you’re a mum. You’re still you, and you can still be confident in your sexuality. I’d never give up my musical or artistic side just to be a mother. There’s got to be a balance and I want to set that example – as the kind of woman I want my son to respect."
• On her abusive father: "I used to be very motivated and driven to succeed by the negative in my past, by remembering the abuse and not wanting to repeat that for myself. But in embracing my new family and my home life, I’m completely inspired by the positive. I truly have been able to let go and know that that was my past and that was the card I was dealt."

The full interview appears in the November issue of Cosmopolitan UK, on sale today.

Photographer credit Ellen von Unwerth