Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

December 13, 2008 By Fausta

Orgasmic birth? Plweeez!

RANT WARNING
Ranting ahead. You have been warned. Proceed accordingly

Just when you think you’re heard it all, along comes a new one: a movement towards telling women to experience orgasm during childbirth.

I kid you not.

It’s not enough that young women are pressured to have an orgasm every time they have intercourse; to have sex with anyone they feel like while avoiding pregnancy unless they really really want it; and once pregnant, to examine and exult (as if they were the first and only woman on earth to ever have a child) in every moment of what honestly is a stressful experience that involves a fair amount of discomfort (which thank goodness does lead to a wonderful outcome – a baby)’ to go through childbirth without medication, and to breasfeed whether they want to or can’t’ now some yutz comes out and wants women to have an orgasm during childbirth.

Look, this is too much.

I’m sure someone must have had an orgasm while passing a pineapple, too. Or perhaps a kidney stone.

Certainly, childbirth is the most binding experience a couple can possibly share. A considerate and supportive husband can and will do a lot of things to ease the wife’s discomfort during labor. In a sense, it is a spiritual experience, too. But take my word for it, having a fully formed, seven and a half pound, twenty-two inch human being squeeze out of a narrow opening doesn’t happen without pain. That’s just the way it is.

At least the people who came up with this doozy admit it’s not for everybody:

“I hope women watching and men watching don’t feel that what we’re saying is every woman should have an orgasmic birth.”

Back in the olden days weddings used to be about the couple and now they’re all about the bride. The husband-to-be’s opinions on how many guests, how formal, etc. were taken into consideration because it was their wedding; now, brides-to-be contort themselves trying to outdo each other in locales, settings, gowns, flowers, name it, because the wedding is all about her.

As if our culture of narcissism didn’t have enough “stuff” to feed on, now the childbirth is going to be all about the mother’s orgasm. Dr Melissa points out,

And another thing, I recognize that the birth canal has multifaceted uses, still, I can’t help but to think that this orgasm business is just one more way to sexualize, well, everything. The birthing isn’t about having a healthy baby or a woman surrendering to the primal forces of motherhood. Oh no! It’s selfish and all about a peak experience, man. It’s the narcissism-part of the hippie thing that bugs me.

Motherhood isn’t entirely about self-sacrifice, but giving birth is pretty darn self-sacrificial. Your body isn’t your own. And out of the experience comes an entirely new creature. And yes, some women have babies to be the center of attention and make it all about themselves. They are annoying. They don’t need encouragement. This orgasm business will just add fuel to the self-obsessed culture. It will also delude women into thinking that it’s a likely outcome. Silly-headed women who believe this will often end up with C-sections because they have such inane expectations of birth. It’s called labor for a reason. Birthing is hard work.

Amen to that.

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Filed Under: Sex. Tagged With: childbirth, Debra Pascali-Bonaro, Fausta's blog

Comments

  1. Pat Patterson says

    December 13, 2008 at 3:15 pm

    An “…orgasmic birth” seems to imply that the referenced 7 and 1/2 lbs baby is now a sex toy? That’s not quite the way my mom described having me when she was ranting over some slight trouble I got into when I was sixteen. For some reason the presence of two deputies trying not to laugh irritated her.

  2. maryatexitzero says

    December 13, 2008 at 4:15 pm

    Reading about how nutty the birthing experience has become makes me almost glad both of my kids were C-sections (they were both upside down)

    There are a lot of experiences in life that are easier if we don’t expect them to be enjoyable (root canals, surgeries, birthday parties for small children). Just be glad when they’re over, and everyone came through it alive and well.

  3. Michael Fidanza says

    December 13, 2008 at 4:42 pm

    Fausta…I’m starting to worry about you; first it’s Tom Jones, then tango and now – orgasmic birth? It may be time for an intervention.

  4. Jungle Mom says

    December 13, 2008 at 5:10 pm

    So I’m reading this and trying to think of some pithy response… I got nothing.

  5. expat says

    December 13, 2008 at 5:48 pm

    Will these idiots start to bottle the delicious scent of dirty diapers and market it as the new Chanel #5. If this isn’t malignant narcisssism, I don’t know what is.

  6. Obi's Sister says

    December 13, 2008 at 7:25 pm

    For once, I’m speechless.

  7. Mad Mad Mom says

    December 14, 2008 at 12:40 pm

    This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Dr. Melissa had it dead right — this is narcissism pure and simple.

  8. newton says

    December 15, 2008 at 9:50 am

    Yeah, my hours of labor exactly two years ago today, with the worst menstrual cramp of my life x 10 (which almost caused me to break the rails on my hospital bed, and maybe punch the walls as well), compounded by a passing-a-head-almost-the-size-of-a-small-cantaloupe delivery that would have become a death of a thousand cuts, were it not by the epidural that made the whole difference in the world… That’s “orgasmic”?!?

    Since I’m about to have the same experience come February (maybe worse than the first one), I’ll try to “fake it” then…

    There’s a reason why it was written, “In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children”. A birth is not about the mother, but about the child. It is a huge reminder that our bodies are not our own, but made for that ultimate purpose: to bring forth new life into the world – a life that doesn’t really belong to us. (I wonder if that’s the reason why many choose to have an abortion rather to carry the child to term. They sense they’re not in control anymore.)

  9. collin237 says

    January 3, 2009 at 3:16 am

    Newton, you go girl on that description. But quoting Scripture doesn’t add to it. It’s about the “snap-in memory” personality that deals with something unpleasant by denying it and replacing it with a fantasy. There’s a far more common instance of this: denying evolution and replacing it with Biblical creation. So the Bible is a mixed bag on the rationality scale.

    I would call these women narcissists if I thought they were feeling what they said they were. But they’re not. Would you say that Barbarella is a narcissist? No, she doesn’t exist. And neither do the women in the film. It’s sci-fi; they’re not really giving birth at all.

    The fact that this issue has never been brought up before the 20th century, never in the entire history of humanity, shows that it’s not about morality. It’s about what’s possible. The human mind ordinarily creates sexual thoughts. A woman giving birth, it can only be assumed, is in an altered state in which sexual thoughts are instead destroyed.

    In the hippie culture that emphasizes the sexual undertone of life, this must be very scary. I’ve heard childbirth compared to dying, and to a woman locked onto the channel of sexuality it must indeed seem like death when that channel goes silent. After she finishes giving birth, what does she do about the scarcity of information in her memory of the event? What else than take in a ready-made fantasy from her “mentor”? And most importantly, what messages are being overlaid on this fantasy?

    Once you fully realize that these so-called orgasms are literally something that didn’t happen at all, the question of these midwives’ motives takes a whole new direction. They may be talking to their subjects about far more than just birth, but about all aspects of their politics and philosophy. Their subjects, hungry for fantasy, take it all in, and lose their own identities.

    You do a great service by providing a description of the reality of the pain, but remember whom you’re competing against. If you include an agenda, such as the Bible (which, like it or not, is not the only Holy Book), you’re not setting yourself apart from them as much as you could.

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