I'd rather not jump into the larger debate, but being mysterious does make one more attractive. But I limit the observation to mysteriousness of character -- it also has something to do with incomplete information about interest. You are most attracted to people who you think are also interested in you, but you aren't sure. A delicate balance, sometimes.
I should replace "you" with "I" -- since I've got my own special character flaws.
Familiarly with vaginas has not decreased my attraction to them -- but I have never seen a woman give birth either.
Ogged,
Go eat some breakfast, then delete this post! Quick!
as long as we assume that the non-patient really loves the patient, it's always easier to be the patient.
This seems contestable to me (of course, any statement with 'always' in it is contestable at the margins, but I wouldn't even want to defend this one with an 'almost always'). For any medical condition, under any circumstances, you would switch places with someone you really loved, no questions asked, because it would be easier to take the suffering yourself than to watch them take it? If so, you're an uncommonly decent person, but I don't think you can state it as a general rule. Either that, or you're defining 'really loved' in a way that excludes an awful lot of apparently loving relationships.
And I can completely sympathize with the post. I had a reasonably easy time with both kids, (well, a certain amount of drama with the older girl, but nothing that made the process significantly more painful) but it is difficult and painful. The absolutely last thing I needed was to have to worry about whether I was traumatizing Mr. Breath by being all revoltingly bloody and in pain.
So you decided to play to your strengths and make celibacy a choice, eh, ogged?
You should have seen the post I did delete, pjs.
For any medical condition, under any circumstances, you would switch places with someone you really loved, no questions asked, because it would be easier to take the suffering yourself than to watch them take it?
Of course, I have no idea, but comparing my experience of being a patient, which obviously doesn't include childbirth, but does include unpleasant stuff like getting the heart paddles (more than once), and my experience of watching people I love being patients, there's no question that I'd rather be the patient. You can disassociate and cope as a patient in ways that reduce the ordeal to a merely physical trial, but watching someone else go through it is particularly horrible mental torture.
The absolutely last thing I needed was to have to worry about whether I was traumatizing Mr. Breath by being all revoltingly bloody and in pain.
See, that's what I think is really unfair. These guys were reluctant to bring it up, even with their shrink, and your response (and Belle's response) is that they're not allowed to even have the feeling. This is particularly unfair to the guy in the story who seems really traumatized by seeing his wife cut open.
"They ended up having to cut her open to get the baby," one patient told me. "I saw it. I mean, how am I supposed to get that out of my head? Every time I look at the scar, it's like I'm seeing it again."
I read that as a surfeit of empathy, and the response I'm hearing is that he's either a wimp or an asshole. That's just wrong.
On your question: I think a lot of the crap advice about mystery and sexiness is the detrius of a bygone age, when male-female relationships had substantially less to do with the sort of companionship we all now seek. When sex is a one-off decision (marriage/no marriage, for example), luring someone in with mystery makes sense. When sex is part of a package of goods, and not the most important of them, it makes less sense.
But I don't think childbirth engenders the same fear of death in men or women that "heart paddles" do.
I don't really see the surfeit of sympathy. Sympathy ought to involve seeing things from the other person's perspective. This seems more like a maddona/whore complex if it's interfering with the relationship. I can see why that might kind of piss off moms.
I think mystery just makes it easier to shape your partner into whatever you want most in your own mind. It replaces the reality of a human being with a fantasy.
"surfeit of empathy" and "wimp" are not incompatible. I mean, "I am so utterly traumatized by your pain that I cannot bear to touch you, even though you'd like me to" is carrying the empathy past the point where it's productive, isn't it? When you feel others' pain so intensely that you cannot function, in ways that harm those very same others, then you're a wimp. Granting arguendo that it is a surfeit of empathy.
I do hope that we now understand and approve of women who, after giving birth, never want to let a man touch them again, if there are any such.
"surfeit of empathy" and "wimp" are not incompatible
Ok, point taken. Though I don't think the proper response to someone having these feelings is to be utterly dismissive.
It occurs to me that there are lots of reasons why relatively new parents might find themselves having a reduced interest in sex, and this shrink's leading questions may just be causing people to attribute it all to the trauma of witnessing childbirth. What if he'd started pestering them all about seeing their wife breast-feeding? Or the odor of baby food?
That's silly, Matt, everyone would eat baby food all the time if it didn't come in baby food containers.
Seriously, I don't think his questions, at least as related in the article, are very leading. There's just the one "You saw more than you wanted to?" and it sounds like he's heard this from enough guys that he knows it's a pretty good guess.
But if I were to take issue with the explanation, I'd guess that people just stop finding each other sexy after a while, and this seems like a pretty good reason, so people latch on to it.
I assure you this isn't the case. Gerber's "Squash Corn Chicken" is among the fowler (sorry) smelling substances around. I'd sooner eat gjetost, and that's saying a lot.
Also, no way would I trade places with my wife for childbirth. I don't even have a vagina! The baby would have to tunnel out like an Alien. Much better to leave these things to those equipped for the job, no?
Who's idea was it to put men in the delivery room in the first place? I know for myself that blood and flesh totally gross me out, and it's no different whether the issue is heart surgery or giving birth.
Women might want to think about this a little more carefully before insisting (in all those subtle, passive-aggressive ways people are capable of) that their husbands be there by their sides.
Let's analogize this. If you saw, say, your friend get sliced open on a bus by an assailant, and thereafter had issues with riding buses, would that be wimpy? I mean, really, you big pussy, it was worse for the guy who got sliced open.
As I said in the comments over at J&B's, I've been in the room for one vaginal delivery and one C-section and both were pretty gruesome. Luckily, I'm not much phased by gruesomeness (except for the Mr. Hands video, which left me not right for about a week), and no amount of blood or exposed small intestine has ever kept me from hankering for panky, but I can see how those less fortitudinous types might. I know people who can lose their appetite at the sight of a rare steak, after all. I think they're big pussies, but still...
Fazed, not phased. Though I'm not phased by it, either.
How come the man can't stand on the wide with the wife, looking at the doctor, instead of facing the shall-we-say business end of the transaction? Or is the idea that the guy goes in thinking he has more fortitude for birth gore than he's actually got?
Well, if you had sliced the friend open yourself, that might make a difference. I mean, it could still be a rational reaction that you don't want to go on the bus again, but it would make you a jerk for not wanting to ride the bus if your friend wanted you to ride the bus with him.
Gjetost, to me, tastes quite literally like caramel mixed with bile. I'm sure I've eaten grosser things, but I can't think of one at the moment.
Kriston: It's harder to avoid than you might think.
Matt: Fair enough. Of all the friends who I have stabbed, only one or two ever come see me any more. They have their own cars.
I can't think of one
Nougat mixed with bile would be grosser, but you can't get that just anywhere.
How come the man can't stand on the wide with the wife, looking at the doctor, instead of facing the shall-we-say business end of the transaction?
During the birth of our daughter, it was my job to help my wife hold her legs as wide open as possible while the head crowned. There's no reason that couldn't have been done by a professional while I patted the missus on the hand and said "there, there," but it certainly did make me feel like I had something to contribute. And I did get to be the first person in the world to look at my daughter's face.
Okay, thanks. I was under the impression that the most substantial difference between the guy being inside and outside the delivery room was a cigar.
Chopper, you look totally blissed out in that pic. That's awesome.
Considering you were the first one she saw, does she blame you for everything that's happened since?
The article is typical NYT-fluff over the top with lots of leading questions.
It's totally fine to think that birth is gross. It is. People are gross when they're born. Lots of men have fainted because of all the mess and the blood.
But it's different to think, "wow, that's gross, and I'll have to steel myself up for it" and to think "shit, my personal playground has been bloodied and messied and i just can't think of my wife of 12 years as attractive". First one is okay; second one needs to grow the fuck up already.
Or just cheat instead of whining about it.
Or just cheat instead of blaming it on your wife.
/mood change
And Chopper, what a beautiful picture!
Ogged wrote:
"See, that's what I think is really unfair. These guys were reluctant to bring it up, even with their shrink, and your response (and Belle's response) is that they're not allowed to even have the feeling. This is particularly unfair to the guy in the story who seems really traumatized by seeing his wife cut open."
It seems to me that there are certain kinds of emotional reactions that, while you're not necessarily a bad person for having, you are a bad person for not actively repressing once you have them. Take the following example. Suppose that my Philadelphia Eagles make it back to the Superbowl. And suppose, further, that some horrible tragedy befalls a friend of mine that causes me to miss the game. Say, his child dies and the funeral is scheduled for that day. Without doubt, as devastated as I would be for my friend, and as eager as I would be to support him in any way possible, a very tiny part of me would be bummed about the game. But, of course, I would have a moral responsibility to do everything in my power to keep that reaction hidden from the world and to work on purging it from my psyche.
I think a father's disgust over the physical realities of childbirth is similar. Given the profoundly unfair way in which nature has chosen to divide up the baby-making labor, a grossed out father is, I think, duty bound to repress any and all feelings of disgust. And I say this as someone who is both incredibly squeamish and likely to be a father in the next year or so.
I've changed my mind about the picture. Chopper has clearly had an epidural.
Thanks. You should see her now.
/threadjacking
My wife had 3 c-sections. The first one was a little gross but I am used to them by now. I think this goes down into the category "everyone does it; don't be a sissy." Plus, it really is helpful for the wife to have the husband there.
I often get faint when I give blood or read about operations. But that is all psychosomatic; caused by spending too much time with my own thoughts. That isn't how it is when your wife is having a baby. It isn't about you. The nurses told me that they never had a husband faint and I believe them.
Whoa. I know there's another name at the top of the flickr page and all, but Chopper is Josh Marshall.
/being sucked into the baby vortex
awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! so cuuuuuuuute
/climbing back out
A couple med students friends of mine have said that men get faint all the time, but don't pass out as often because they usually get them to relax or distracted in time.
Good analogy, pjs. To take it further, if you broke off the friendship because you never got over missing the Superbowl and your psychologist began to give the advice to grieving parents that they should ensure that the funeral didn't inconvenience anyone, you'd both be idiots.
Not a bad analogy, but not a perfect one, either. In the analogy the behavioral output is going to the kid's funeral or going to the game; w/r/t to the article the husbands have a choice about whether to keep their mouths shut, but it's hard to imagine that this is really the sole outcome that's being sought by the aggrieved wife. It's also a question of being physically attracted to and emotionally comfortable with her, which isn't something that seems likely to be affected by telling the guy to dutifully suck it up.
I object to the idea that those of us who feel impelled to ridicule the sincere emotional reactions of other people should remain silent. We have needs, too.
What Tom said. The reaction here as basically been "Shut up and find her attractive." I don't think it works that way.
I commented and then had to run do stuff, but I agree with pretty much everything that has been said.
If the problem here were seeing a loved one in pain, then we'd all be familiar with the articles about how parents who've had to take a wailing kid to the emergency room with a broken leg were traumatized every time they looked at the kid again. This really doesn't seem to happen to normal people -- having a relationship with a loved one screwed up by the trauma of seeing them hurt, under circumstances where everything turned out fine in the end, is not at all a common problem.
The issue here is the romantic relationship: the men in the article can't look at the woman they're married to romantically or sexually because they saw her bloody, or in pain, or in surgery. That really sounds to me like an idiot who can't accept that his pretty princess shits and bleeds -- to the extent that a man is having those feelings, he just needs to suck it up.
(I should say that I don't know how many such men exist. The guy writing the article seems to me to be himself an incredible twerp, to the point where I don't trust him as a reporter. What on earth was the paragraph about childbirth education? A man who couldn't handle seeing a cross-sectional diagram of the female reproductive anatomy would be very, very strange, and suggesting that childbirth education is traumatic to men generally is, again, very, very strange.)
Susan, Catherine, Kriston and I have been having a lot of related, alcohol-fueled arguments lately about unrealistic standards of beauty applied to women (some of the consequences of which can be seen here). I think my point, prior to forgetting it each time, is that it's very hard to change what you find attractive. I think the best you can do is to change the conditions under which conceptions of what is and isn't attractive are formed; or alter the relative importance of the beauty standard for each sex.
But if you accept that, you basically have to write off all current post-pubescent men as lost causes. Which I think is fair, but pretty well justifies the water-throwing that follows.
pretty princess shits
Coming soon to a ToysRUs near you!
Okay, having witnessed the birth of my four children I will claim expert status and will say things never uttered before.
First vaginal birth is gross. It is a testament to our (men's)sex drive that we recover quickly from the sight (and the sound - shudder!). At the moment of expulsion there is this awful gross squishy sound I can't describe.
And fear not, young Kriston, there is absolutely nothing wrong with facing your loved one's head during the entire process. You don't have to look, although you will still hear. By the third I looked.
I felt the most useful when I could be an advocate for my wife when she could not speak. I could explain, during the fourth delivery, that they better start the epidural early because it would be very hard to place. I could explain that she always did very well in the pushing phase and so please be liberal with the epidural pain killer. I could understand her when she was unable to speak and could do that for her.
One other thing - the experience was not "mystical" or very impressive to me. I also did not bond immediately with my kids. That came later, after a couple weeks, and of course I would now do anything for them.
A man who couldn't handle seeing a cross-sectional diagram of the female reproductive anatomy would be very, very strange, and suggesting that childbirth education is traumatic to men generally is, again, very, very strange.
See, this is the American orthodoxy. I get that. But there's a whole world full of advice about keeping sex sexy that says, "keep all the shitting and bleeding hidden." Call me old-fashioned (and where's baa to help me out here?) but I'm not ready to dismiss the wisdom of that.
The reaction here as basically been "Shut up and find her attractive." I don't think it works that way.
I really think it does. Barring truly extreme reactions (e.g., trauma-induced impotence, for which the guy should certainly go to a shrink) what is wrong with telling the guy not to indulge any qualms he's having, and to get back into a sexual relationship despite the fact that his wife is no longer the ultimately desirable porcelain goddess he once worshipped? Needing mystery to find your partner attractive is really not workable in a long-term relationship -- to the extent that your relationship can be damaged by this kind of thing, the problem isn't the trauma, it's that there was a severe pre-existing weakness in the relationship.
To put it in slightly more palatable terms, we all admit that "clinical" and "sexy" don't often go together, right?
If a husband finds his wife sexy before birth he should be able to get back to that after birth. If he can't I suspect it has more to do with thinking of her as a Mother (and not lover) instead of anything he saw during birth. I mean, okay, it is gross, but you gotta wait, what, six weeks for sex again and you really should be over it by then.
Do you really want mystery in a long-term relationship?
I mean, I get the chestnut that a guy might not want to admit that his wife has a period because it's gross and icky, but I'm pretty sure same guy wants her around taking care of him when he's ill and puking all over the place, not saying, "But doesn't seeing you have the flu take the romance out of things? I'm going out for a while."
Tom and Ogged,
I meant the behavioral output to be whether or not you're sulky at the funeral, not whether or not you go. That probably wasn't clear.
I guess I just think we have more control over our reactions than you two suppose. I think that most of us are capable of willing ourselves out of feeling a particular way if we recognize that we're not morally entitled to that feeling. I recognize that those feelings tied up with sexual attraction could be different, though.
Second point, really a question: the old advice about being sexy has a lot to do with "mystery." So is that advice just crap?
Sexiness doesn't come from anatomical mystery.
But there's a whole world full of advice about keeping sex sexy that says, "keep all the shitting and bleeding hidden." Call me old-fashioned (and where's baa to help me out here?) but I'm not ready to dismiss the wisdom of that.
Is she still going to be sexy after you've seen her change the baby's diapers? Or is that a problem too? If she gets sick and needs someone to hold her head when she's vomiting, is that going to be a problem for your future relationship? What if she ends up really sick, and you have to visit her in the hospital, with tubes and surgery and stuff? Is the sexual part of the marriage over when she gets out?
The whole world full of advice you're talking about is a world of advice that tells women that they may be sexual only so long as they're perfect or they can successfully conceal any imperfections. That sucked when it was general societal wisdom, and it still sucks.
And I think it's important to distinguish between a real trauma-like problem, such as the C-section guy seems to have, and the asshole with the madonna/whore complex. But the first guy needs help to get past that, and that help really shouldn't be 'Women, realize he might not find you sexy anymore, so don't expect him to be around for you during birth." My problem's not so much with the feelings as much as it is the idea that it's somehow his wife's fault for not hiding childbirth from him.
I don't see this as gender-specific advice, though I know it has been, traditionally.
And totally what pjs said. (And Tripp, Cala, and Ben.)
chopper, man, i think you're funnier than hell, but that picture makes it look like that baby is way, way scared of you. is there something said child sensed that we should know? Or was it a simple matter of the child expressing an opinion on dating ogged?
My problem's not so much with the feelings as much as it is the idea that it's somehow his wife's fault for not hiding childbirth from him.
Yup.
I don't see this as gender-specific advice, though I know it has been, traditionally.
If I thought it wasn't gender specific (and I do. Not from you, but from the article), I'd be less cranky, but I still think it's bad. A big chunk of the reason you get married is to have an ally -- someone who's always there to help you out when you need it. Putting a big swath of real problems out of the realm of things a romantic partner can be expected to help you with strikes me as a terrible idea.
62:
But it *is* gender specific advice in this article,whether or not you want to characterize it that way. There's no link here to an article about men with colon cancer, and the doctors who advise them not to let their women get too involved, lest they get icked out. I can't imagine a doctor saying that to a man.
My problem's not so much with the feelings as much as it is the idea that it's somehow his wife's fault for not hiding childbirth from him.
This is another thing I've been getting hit for a lot recently. Maybe I missed it, but I don't think anyone's trying to blame the wife for anything. That's a straw man -- obviously you can't deny biological reality. The question is whether a guy is necessarily a jerk for not dealing with it well.
Being stereotypically sexy has a lot to do with mystery, at first. You want the girl to believe that you cooked the wonderful dinner effortlessly and weren't calling your mom every five minutes to figure out how to boil water. She wants you to believe that she wakes up looking that gorgeous, and that it didn't take an hour of blowing drying and waxing to look stunning. Neither of you talk about your neuroses on the first date, and you don't tell your whole story, so the other person can ask you things and feel like you're sharing something with them.
But that gets old awfully fast, doesn't it? It's very superficial.
"Women may want to consider the risks as they invite their partners to watch them bring new life into the world. For some of the passion that binds them together may leave their lives at the very same time."
maybe you're not blaming the wife, tom, but that part of the article sure sounds like it's her fault for not thinking of her husband's sensitivity if he ends up not wanting her later.
59: exactly, exactly.
w-lfs-n has some things figured out.
tom,
Women may want to consider the risks as they invite their partners to watch them bring new life into the world. For some of the passion that binds them together may leave their lives at the very same time.
That's the quote that's pissing me off. It's not a strawman.
Maybe I missed it, but I don't think anyone's trying to blame the wife for anything.
Well, the men were in the delivery room, presumably, not simply for their own edification but to support their wives. The conclusion that can be drawn from the article is that the wives apparently asked for too much, and future wives should think hard before they ask for support like that from their husbands.
Yeah, what silver-fingered silvana said.
I'd have no problems with a quote that said Men should be aware that glaringly absent from the avalanche of childbirth information is the simple fact that childbirth is a fundamentally bloody, messy process that could require an emergency surgery. and then directed them to talk with their partner or psychologist about their worries about the changes to their relationship.
Okay, you're right. That's certainly shifting responsibility in a way that I don't agree with. Any guy who ends a relationship over this is a jerk.
But, if a guy can't look at his wife in the same way after childbirth, although it's certainly not her fault, I'm hesitant to call it his fault, either. It's just a problem that has to be dealt with.
If she gets sick and needs someone to hold her head when she's vomiting, is that going to be a problem for your future relationship?
This depends on whether the sickness was induced by excessive amounts of alcohol. In that case sickness is part and parcel of the hott life.
I kid! Really, who's this article about? Sexiness and sexual attraction is not a single-variable phenomenon; in cases in which witnessing childbirth actually shut off a man's previously sexually healthy appreciation for his wife, I guess I would believe that that's post-traumatic stress syndrome—and very odd, and surely very rare. I think if this were a statistically valid phenomenon, it would've worked its way into our literature and archetypes. A man who says that he's suddenly lost all sexual attraction for his wife may not be the best person to guage the proximate cause of the shift.
That said, certifiable cases of post-childbirth stress syndrome deserve the same sensitivity as any sudden-onset psychological disorder, despite the discomfort we all feel with from its manifestation. Shame probably ain't going to turn these fellas around.
The NYT, frankly, is on sounder ground with the Man-Date. That one's tough.
i don't think the solution, though, is to shoo the poor men out of the delivery room at a time when their wives want and need them to be there. you know, one's view of someone else changes over your relationship. hopefully, long-term relationships usually involve emotional and physical vulnerability. this can change your view of a person - who's to say that's necessarily a bad thing?
Yeah, the problem with this article is that it does what we all do as humans, which is try to see our very personal, specific reactions as universal ones.
Would it be his fault if he couldn't bear to look at his wife in the same way after a double masectomy and a round of chemo?
I only ask because while I agree the problem just needs to be dealt with, who bears responsibility is still relevant to the solution: do we kick the men out of the delivery room to protect them or say, here, we'll help you learn to suck it up?
Would it be his fault if he couldn't bear to look at his wife in the same way after a double masectomy and a round of chemo?
Tony Kushner wrote a 7-hour play dealing largely with this question.
81: Obviously the latter, although "suck it up" probably isn't the way to start things off. But I think your first sentence is telling, since it seems to focus on whether a woman deserves to be found attractive. The answer to that is almost always yes, and it's almost always irrelevant. Empathy and arousal just aren't interchangeable, Conor Oberst's female fanbase notwithstanding.
Would it be his fault if he couldn't bear to look at his wife in the same way after a double masectomy and a round of chemo?
We do deal with these problems; these procedures are typically matched with a lot of therapy.
Empathy and arousal just aren't interchangeable, Conor Oberst's female fanbase notwithstanding.
Dude, you keep saying shit like this, and I swear Susan and Cath will beat us senseless.
Your women are moving away, say what you want.
You know what, fuckers? I wouldn't even let Ex say "fart."
so I guess you aren't one for Dutch Ovens then.
84: Yes, we do deal with these problems, but that's not quite what I asked. Maybe I should have said What needs to change? and left fault out of it, but I think assigning fault is useful here only because it takes "My husband shouldn't have to support me if he finds doing so icky" off the table.
Typically I don't think that therapy involves telling the woman that she really should have bypassed on the masectomy, that she she always ensure that she wears a nice wig and heavy makeup so hubby doesn't have to think about it, ya know?
Had her on a pretty short leash, eh ogged?
Reading comments in The Mineshaft is kind of like Achilles' trying in vain to overtake the hare. Therefore, I submit that "commenting" is only an illusion.
Everyone can insist on some things in a relationship, Joe.
Hygiene and decorum aside, I'm pretty easygoing.
That's not the way you put it last night.
well that is a false analogy. Nobody is saying that the wife shouldn't give birth -- besides the fact that not getting the masectomy would lead to death. The issue is whether the husband should stay out of the room so as to keep his hard-on.
As to which, I am agnostic.
>Women may want to consider the risks as they invite their partners to watch them bring new life into the world. For some of the passion that binds them together may leave their lives at the very same time.
That is stupid. It doesn't really matter whether the guy is there or not as long as the cultural norm is backing him up. But currently, not showing up for your wife in the delivery room shows, not only that you are a passive-aggressive asshole, but that you are the kind of passive-aggresive asshole who can be identified with a 15-second long anecdote. Is that really what you want?
And Jesus, don't be a baby and go to talk therapy. There is no evidance that that shit works. Go get some drugs for that.
If you wanted to complete the analogy, the husband probably wouldn't stick around to watch the masectomy. But then, the procedures are very different. Which is probably why they shouldn't have been correlated to begin with.
"suck it up" is almost always good advice.
Cala, I think your guy who insisted a wife bypass a mesectomy for his benefit is hiding out with all those Democrats rooting for the other side. In the straw. With Michael Moore!
Ogged, could you do The Aristocrats for a date? Susan and I saw it the other night and laughed our heads off, then felt mildly icky about one another later on in the evening.
I thin #95 is right; if it's going to be enough of a pain in the ass, and the benefits are minimal, keep him out of the room.
And "by the other side," I didn't mean the other breast.
what is it about birth that makes one a passive aggressive asshole for not wanting to sit it on it? It might make you a pussy, but not an asshole. I understand why men want to be there, but I don't understand why not being there is prima facie evidence of being an asshole.
Fine, fine. The foregoing the masectomy thing was overdrawn. The rest of it wasn't.
As Joe said, cultural norm. But you know what? We all have our wierd little quirks, and they aren't all charming. Not being in the delivery room (if that's all it is) strikes me as one of them. If this ends up being a huge deal in a marriage, I suspect the marriage is not long for this world.
104
It doesn't have to be but that is what it currently means.
Depending on the relationship, the benefits are pretty significant. Again, I had a pretty easy time as childbirth goes, but I really wanted someone there I could trust, both as a security blanket and as someone to communicate with medical people. (That is, labor makes you pretty loopy -- if I needed something, I could get it across to Mr. breath much more easily than to the midwife or a nurse, and he could then make sure it happened.) While I guess that could have been someone other than my husband, I can't think of anyone else who would fit the bill other than my big sister, and she lives two hours away and works all the time.
It really is something significant to give up.
I see that. And I will pull the lame rhetorical maneuver of saying: of course, I would want to be there. I don't imagine I could miss it.
But let's say one of these guys from this article -- which I haven't read -- knew beforehand that he would not be able to function sexually if he sat in on the birth. Would it then not have been preferable for him to not sit in on the birth? I think it comes down to a question of which benefit is more important for the marriage -- the benefit of sitting in on childbirth v. the benefit of crazy monkey sex.
I don't know which way that balance tips, but it is worth thinking about.
LB:
If it's a big deal, it's a big deal. But, one hopes, you know your husband pretty well by the time you get to childbirth. You probably know whether it's a "pretty princess" problem or not. If it isn't, then you weigh him being there against him having sex with you. If it is - well, you're going to have that problem with him anyway.
I guess I'm with tom; "suck it up" may be good advice, but it can be awfully hard to turn such a plan into a reality. Especially with sex.
I think we're really worried about cultural norms. We probably should think he's an ass for not going in; if he's willing to pay that price, he's willing to pay that price.
But let's say one of these guys from this article -- which I haven't read -- knew beforehand that he would not be able to function sexually if he sat in on the birth. Would it then not have been preferable for him to not sit in on the birth?
Sure -- if he knows he has a quirk like that, I'd certainly trade "husband present at childbirth" for "no more sex ever". I'm just saying that it's not a situation where it's nothing real to give up, so it's no biggie to just make absolutely sure the poor man isn't traumatized by keeping him out of the room.
And I would, again, want to separate the few unusual PTSD sufferers who can't function after what they saw, who should be sympathized with and given whatever therapy and drugs will help, from anyone whose romantic view of his wife was tarnished by seeing the birth. The one is a real problem, the other is just something I think the guy should work through.
I think we are all now in accord. Let us join hands and sing jolly songs among the dandelions and honey bees.
Ow! Can we have some non-stinging insects to dance among?
the Hemlock Woolly Aphid looks like fun. The bees will mostly stay in the hive, and they are not the angry kind.
One or two stings is all.
Didn't they use to advertise elective C-sections with the catchy, if medically nutty, slogan "Keep Your Tubes Honeymoon Fresh"?
Isn't that what a few of the guys here are really saying? And isn't it, frankly, a bit unforgivably retro despite all the murmurs about it being some sort of last taboo amid the gung-ho modern orthodoxy?
Of course, what's most interesting here is to compare this to the op-ed the NY Times wrote in which they noted that women who had seen their husbands vomiting and diharreal from food poisoning were being treated for PTSD, and men were warned that they should think twice before allowing their woman to witness them in such a state.
Only, wait, the NY Times never ran that op-ed.
Which is funny, because I'm sure there are women who have done that. Only all men weren't supposed to draw a big social lesson from it. How VERY strange.
Seriously, could there be one thing a woman does where she doesn't have to worry about it making her unattractive to men? On the day we're giving birth, would it be OK if society's message to all of us was "it's really about her right now, and you should be giving her everything she needs." Like, if you can't handle the pussy, then stand at the end that has the head. But YOU ARE A BIG BOY WHO HAS TO FIGURE THAT OUT FOR HIMSELF BECAUSE MOMMY IS BUSY PUSHING A FUCKING WATERMELON OUT OF HER VAGINA.
Ugh, and please don't say you'd take my pain if you could. You're just saying that. Odds are you've never even thought it through--like, have you thought about how much it might hurt to have the bones of your pelvis separate? Have you thought about how you'll stop the doctor from slicing your genitals with a knife? Like, how do you make sure everyone knows it--should you put a sign "NO EPISIOTOMY" on your door? Or gosh, can you make that your husband's job? That he tells every single medical professional not to do it and enforces your decision because you can't because you're again, busy with the watermelon? Wait, I can't ask him to do that, because that's too much to ask of him. He may find me sexually unsatisfying forever.
Well, I wouldn't take your pain, but my wife's, well...
Again, if you're worried about the "pretty princess" problem, and you're just sorting it out at the time of birth, that's really on you. Maybe date a little longer, get to know him, before you have his kid. It's not like there aren't other opportunties to find out if this is the problem. Maybe eat some spoiled oysters or something. Or send him to the store for Monistat 7. How hard a problem can this "we always have to be attractive" thing be to diagnose?
well, it's on you for not dumping the asshole, but he's still an asshole.
Can I get some clarification on what makes someone an asshole in this instance?
And I would, again, want to separate the few unusual PTSD sufferers who can't function after what they saw, who should be sympathized with and given whatever therapy and drugs will help, from anyone whose romantic view of his wife was tarnished by seeing the birth. The one is a real problem, the other is just something I think the guy should work through.
What she, the articulate one, said.
As long as we are talking about our unsupported theories about childbirth. My unsupported theory about childbirth is that I think that by the year 2025, there will be more C-sections done than vaginal births. Not for Honeymoon Fresh reasons, but to avoid squishing the baby's head.
Are they still using forceps? I was a forceps baby, and I'm pretty sure I'm still pissed about it.
Ogged, re 124,
per SCMT's 122, the inability to relate sexually to a woman who fails to maintain her princessly façade.
I was a forceps baby, too, but then I weighed 10-1/2 pounds and had crazy broad shoulders.
I don't know if they still use forceps, but squished heads just happen with most vaginal births; it's why the skull isn't solid yet, so it *can* squish without hurting anything permanently. It gives the babies a pointy head for a bit, but it goes away. Seems an odd reason to elect for a C-section that wasn't necessary for some other reason.
Having seen both, I can attest that babies start out much, much prettier when they use the side exit. The ones that take the long way home come out looking like they just went ten rounds in the ring.
My unsupported theory about childbirth is that I think that by the year 2025, there will be more C-sections done than vaginal births.
I guess it's a question of which value is gaining ground at a faster rate in our society: (1) the "our child must have every possible advantage" value that is pushing parents to convince their doctors to give normal kids HGH to gain a couple of extra inches over their peers and to Baby Einstein them to just shy of crazy or (2) the "makeover" culture that is holding women to an ever-higher standard of beauty for an ever-increasing number of years that would make your hyper-waxed and Botoxed woman not want to be left with a 6" scar.
Then again, I just remembered the "man date"-ish New Yorker magazine article a few months ago about the trend of wealthy women electing to have premature C-sections at 8 months to avoid the weight gained during the 9th month of pregnancy, which is supposedly the hardest to lose. So, perhaps you can get #1 with #2 after all.
134 -
Really? I've always heard the opposite - that because delivery by C-section is so unnatural, you never lose the tummy pooch. Also that it's harder to lose weight after C-sec, because you can't exercise for awhile afterwards.
Found it. Heh - you know how I said the tone was "man date"-ish? It actually contains the phrase "girl crush".
Re: 132
Coming out butt-first also preserves that baby-fresh look. Sally took that option, and I've always suspected it was from vanity.
From what I've read, the whole labor/squishing process apparently has some value for the kid -- kickstarts respiration or something, I don't remember what. It's not a huge effect, but between a vaginal birth and an elective C, I think (if I recall what I've read correctly) the vaginal birth babies have marginally better outcomes. (Not to impugn the medically necessary C, in which case the C kids clearly have better outcomes by virtue of survival and all.) So I don't think elective C's are going to take over for the babies' sake, although they may do so for other reasons.
I used to joke that I'd rather go through pregnancy and birth than suffer my wife complaining about it. Then I saw what it actually involved, and handling all that is _so_ much harder than holding her hand.
These guys really strike me as self-indulgent jerks. Suck it up is right.
I think any man who has trouble keeping the "wonderful mystery of sex" channel clear of the "saw my kid coming out of my wife's vagina" channel is a person who has a deeper problem. E.g., the man's the fucked-up one in that case, and we're perfectly right to say, "Suck it up, dude, and get your head clear". You know, it's like watching a David Cronenburg film: it seems perfectly clear to me that when gaping vagina-like wounds start forming in your TV set or what have you, you're meant to say, "Fuck, this is not right: the world is crazy or I am", not "Wow, I need social tolerance and loving understanding for my perennial inability to distinguish between vaginas and gaping wounds".
There's a useful trick that can be used with all sorts of pieces of writing and it helps to show what's wrong with a) the man writing the article and b) the men featured in it, assuming their quoted speech is accurate.
If you use a Word macro to make the words "I", "me" and "my" bold viz:
"They ended up having to cut her open to get the baby," one patient told me. "I saw it. I mean, how am I supposed to get that out of my head? Every time I look at the scar, it's like I seeing it again."
if, treated in this way, the piece looks unduly self-centred and whiny, that's usually because it is, in fact, unduly self-centred and whiny.
(Tim, Chopper -- those are some extraordinarily good-looking babies you have there. I want to compete, but the only online picture I have is one an artist friend took of my youngest and me when he was two weeks old and sells as a greeting card. While the picture is gorgeous, it doesn't really convey what he looks like.)
You had a headless baby? Sweet.
Here's Noah at the beach discovering that the slip covers come off the couch arms. For an entire day, every new removal was greeted with shrieks of laughter.
We change the pumpkins on him every so often. And Noah is awfully fetching -- there's nothing like baby glee.
jesus ogged. you really need to start eating breakfast more regularly. also, about the whole "not being the patient is worse" thing? ummm, I don't know how to put this politely, but fuck off. unless you're like this one chick I read about in an Anne McCaffrey novel who was like a mutant empath. and even so. also, she could talk to dragons; where's your magical power?
If y'all are going to compete through babies, do it right. You don't compete on cuteness; you compete on weight, taste, and succulence.
And the talent competition, where we discover which babies have a true and earnest plan to combat world hunger.
where's your magical power?
Ogged's three miracles:
1. He walked underwater.
2. He made a blind man lame.
3. He cured a ham.
you compete on weight, taste, and succulence.
Too bad. You take the giblets out of mine and he'd barely fill a biscuit.
Belle:
It just struck me that, "It's harder to be the loved one," is analogous to something you hear from parents with respect to their children all of the time (though not with regard to childbirth). Do you think that's an overstatement by the parents? (Not meant as snark; I suspect that it is an overstatement.)
I also had that in mind, SCMT. I didn't think it was particularly controversial. I wish we could get Aron Ralston in on this. I'd hope for, "Cutting off my own arm was a piece of cake compared to seeing my nephew twist his ankle," but he'd probably be all, "Ooh, motherhood is so hard...." Fucker.
dquared, I really don't get your response. Do you talk to your shrink in the third-person? Seriously, if these guys were on the talk show circuit, I think the derision would be justified, but the hostility of the response to guys who were, in fact, present to help their wives and who were reticent about the topic even with their shrink, is amazing. I know the shrink writes some stupid shit in the piece, but the shrink/patient distinction has not been, shall we say, rigorously maintained in this discussion.
I guess my feeling is that their shame (again, not the PTSD sufferers, but the 'It just isn't romantic anymore' whiners) is fitting and should be encouraged. Mental illness needs treatment, but outside of the clinical realm, feelings can be indulged or they can be squelched. Trying not to have shameful feelings, and not indulging them when they arise can be an effective means of no longer having them. The shrink in the article was encouraging men who were revolted by birth to acknowledge their feelings as normal and natural -- to the extent they do that, lots more people will feel that way, which is a bad thing.
On the motherhood thing -- sure, taking your kid to the emergency room is wrenching. However, the word for a mother who won't let her kid ride his bike any more because he broke his leg last summer is a very bad mother; if she involves the kid overly in how it hurts her when he puts himself at risk, she's on a continuum leading to emotional abusiveness. While those are normal feelings, the healthy decent thing to do with them is to sit on them and not make them the kid's problem.
the word for a mother who won't let her kid ride his bike any more because he broke his leg last summer is a very bad mother
In college, people used to mention some study of co-dependence in which every Asian family studied had been adjudged co-dependent. Which is to say, you just called all Asian mothers bad.
All Asian mothers forbid their children from doing anything risky after an injury? I don't think so.
"Trying not to have shameful feelings, and not indulging them when they arise can be an effective means of no longer having them." This is absolutely wrong, at least when it comes to sexual attraction. There is no way that you can trick or teach yourself (or, more important, trick or teach your genitals) into being aroused when they're not. That's why all this "suck it up" advice is useless. If you don't want to have sex with your wife as much as you did before you saw her give birth, you don't want to have sex as much as you did.
The question the article was asking was: For people who feel this way about witnessing childbirth, is the the exchange (husband in the delivery room for a poorer sex life) worth it? Some people -- like SomeCallMeTim, who thinks that sex is not the most important part of the "package of goods" that comes with marriage -- might think the trade is worth it. But surely others wouldn't.
This is absolutely wrong, at least when it comes to sexual attraction. There is no way that you can trick or teach yourself (or, more important, trick or teach your genitals) into being aroused when they're not.
Don't be silly -- of course you can. You can certainly talk yourself out of being aroused (say, by obsessively dwelling on gory memories of childbirth every time you think about sex). Likewise, you can talk yourself into being aroused. Look -- most people in the world are blemished and funny-looking. If we were hardwired to only be attracted to the few perfect specimens among us, no one but Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie would ever get laid.
Don't be silly -- of course you can.
Either we're using different definition of "aroused" or you know some very neat tricks, LB. J. Cornell seems obviously right about this to me, and taking that fact as given was the basis of part of my post.
Don't be silly -- of course you can.
Isn't this precisely the claim that teh gay "reclaimers" (or whatever they're called) make? That homosexuality is a choice that you can will yourself out of?
Which makes me wonder if LB is secretly married to Eugene Volokh.
You're telling me that your level of arousal has nothing to do with what goes on in the conscious level of your thoughts that you can control? This seems to me to be obvious -- of two men in a relationship with identical women, the one who intentionally concentrates on what's wrong with her (cellulite, the dead tooth that you can see when she grins, thick ankles...) is going to be less aroused, or less often aroused, than the one who focuses on the things that he finds appealing about her (pretty eyes, soft skin...).
Food is a basic physical drive like sex. I love raw oysters. I'll bet you I wouldn't if I looked at them and thought "Wow, that looks like an ashtray full of mucus." My enjoyment of oysters is not contingent on the fact that I've never had that thought -- I intentionally don't think about how gross they look, because it will screw up my capacity to enjoy them.
In very limited circumstances I can de-arouse myself. But I'm not sure I could arouse myself towards someone I was not at all attracted to.
But I am attracted to everyone. Polyphiloprogenitive.
Either we're using different definition of "aroused"
And this is a possibility. I was roughly using it to mean "desirous of having sex with." I'm not contending that one can consciously choose to find anyone arousing, just like one can't consciously choose to find any sort of food appealing, but I do think that your conscious choices about your thoughts can have a significant effect on your arousal.
This seems to me to be obvious -- of two men in a relationship with identical women, the one who intentionally concentrates on what's wrong with her (cellulite, the dead tooth that you can see when she grins, thick ankles...) is going to be less aroused, or less often aroused
Do you think that most such concentration is intentional, and that once begun, it can be stopped?
in a relationship with identical women
It seems strange to include this detail, and maybe this is relevant to the difference of opinion here. In my experience, guys aren't actually aroused by some ideal X, but by some random and strange Y, with different Y's for different guys, and the Y's not only not under the control of the guy, but often unknown to him as well.
No, and yes, sometimes.
Everyone knows that when you like someone, they often get more physically attractive to you, and when you can't stand them they tend to become unappealing (not always, but it often works that way); you dwell on the strong points of people you like, and the weak points of enemies. That doesn't mean that you can't choose to adopt or abandon a hypercritical attitude toward a partner. (I'm not a therapy person, but isn't this sort of control of helpful or harmful thoughts what one does in cognitive behavioral therapy?)
And in the circumstances we're specifically talking about, where seeing the birth was 'traumatic', I do think that (again, outside of the few PTSD sufferers) that there seems to be an element of conscious choice in whether one dwells on whatever was disturbing, or whether one puts those thoughts aside when they arise.
Maybe what's at issue here is the good faith of the guys who should be consciously trying not to focus on the birth "trauma". I think everyone acknowledges that focusing on the negative will help maintain a negative attitude towards someone. But what do you do once you've made that good faith effort and it doesn't seem to be working? (Normally, I'd say, "See a shrink," but that seems out.)
So I really think we're arguing, in part, about his good faith and, in part, about cultural norms. I think most of us agree that the cultural norm should be "he's probably an asshole" for whining about birth "trauma". I think if you doubt his good faith, then you're likely to have similar problems down the road, and you probably had similar problems before. In which case I wonder whether active attempts to focus on the positive and ignore the negative aren't part of what got you yoked to this fucker in the first place.
Re: 152, clearly the bloke himself agrees with me that it's a silly, self-centred and unpleasant way to think and behave, which is why he's taken the sensible step of seeing a therapist to help him snap out of it - what a shame he got one who writes for the New York Times. If this bloke was one of my mates or if I got a job as a therapist, I would probably try to be a bit sympathetic, but that's not the matter at issue; the matter at issue is whether, considered as a social phenomenon this is the sort of behaviour that ought to be condoned and it isn't. Also it's the kind of situation (a man trying to come up with reasons why he is unsatisfied with his marriage) where it is entirely sensible to doubt whether he's being sincere and therefore doubly important not to base one's judgements on the general case on the assumption that he is.
Well, in that case, we don't much disagree. Somewhere, in the thickets upthread, I think I actually said that I don't think birth trauma is the real reason these guys are dis-aroused.
(Normally, I'd say, "See a shrink," but that seems out.)
No -- that's fine. Shrinks are where you go to whine about shameful feelings. That doesn't mean you're entitled to inflict them on the rest of us. (And of course, no actual men that I'm aware of have done so - the only sinner here is the article-writing shrink who violated his patient's confidences. I just don't want him encouraging others to come out of the closet.)
So I really think we're arguing, in part, about his good faith and, in part, about cultural norms.
Yup. I'm arguing that good faith does and cultural norms should require that if you have qualms in this regard, that you make a committed effort to get over them, and that failure to do so (make the committed effort) is, as you suggest, diagnostic of being an asshole.
How can you "intentionally don't think about how gross they look, because it will screw up my capacity to enjoy them"? If you're intentionally not thinking about the grossness of oysters, aren't you therefore thinking about the grossness of oysters?
I think this is just wrong. You don't think about the grossness of oysters because you're focusing on all the things you like about oysters. You're not doing that consciously. You're doing it unconsciously. That's why it works. When it comes to sex, you can't say to yourself: "Concentrate on her pretty skin, but ignore her thick ankles" (to use your example). You're just taken with her pretty skin. Or maybe her pretty skin just is more important to you than her thick ankles. In any case, the point is that all that stuff happens somewhere underneath the surface. You can't control it. Again, you can't trick your genitals. A penis gets hard or not (or, to be more accurate, it reaches varying degrees of hardness). You can't convince it to rise when it doesn't want to.
The Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie point is completely off the mark. The argument isn't that we're all only attracted to perfect specimens -- it's that we're all attracted to different things, for different reasons that are fundamentally out of our control. Ideally, you can figure out what you like and don't like and make sure you get more of the former and less of the latter. But believing you (or your partner) can fool yourselves into liking what you don't is simply delusional.
Our minds just seem to work differently. When I eat oysters, I am consciously working at not thinking about what they look like. The "my goodness, that's icky looking" thoughts form, and I make an effort not to focus on them, and to think about the taste instead. I guess if you've never had a similar experience I can't communicate to you, but I assure you it is at least partially a conscious process.
"You can't trick your genitals?"
Isn't that what masturbation is (which, unless I'm doing it wrong, seems to involve focusing on something other than the actual physical object with which one's genitals are coming into contact)?
To me this sounds like the "don't think of an elephant" problem (once I'm told not to think of an elephant, it's very hard not to think of an elephant), but I'll take your word for it about the oysters. But I will say that I don't think, to be crude about it, that penises work the same way. I mean, you can sometimes distract yourself temporarily from the things you don't like, but on a fundamental level, attraction is pretty much uncontrollable.
Oh, goody, we're still talking about this and there are some crumbs left for me.
First, I didn't want to attend the birth of my first child, but in todays climate you might just as well where a big sign that says "sexist asshole."
I nearly fainted watching the video in the birthing class, but I took the video home and watched it a few more times until it wasn't really that bad.
In the birthing room I focused on my wife's head and that was fine. I was delighted to find that I was actually useful as my wife's advocate. I think LizardBreath confirmed that utility above. Before that I had thought "Why do I need to be there? I'm not good for anything except maybe fainting."
So there are good reasons for husbands being there and if you think you might have problems there are good ways to deal with that.
Oh, and feelings.
I'm no expert but my time on the couch has taught me this about feelings:
All feelings are natural. If you try to suppress the feelings you don't like (anger, revulsion, whatever) you will make things worse. The best things to do with feelings is feel them and accept them.
But - behaviour is a different beast. You totally control behaviour. You can avoid certain situations to avoid the feelings associated with them. You can choose to act or to not act on your feelings.
Ahem, guys (especially ogged).
Don't you think when we assume a position that mimics a splayed Playmate for the purposes of childbirth that it also uncomfortably crosses our womanly minds that the erotic/anatomically explicit is gonna get a bit muddled?
( When I say "crosses our minds" I mean "fleetingly, if at all, and to varying degrees and probably before the actual event" ).
And when SomeCallMeTim mentioned several years ago upthread about sex now being - part of the "package of goods", this was referring to both adults being able to "unmuddle" the erotic/explicit components?
I know we are meant to be calmly contemplating the whiny shrink guy.
But I would suggest his problem is chronic non-adult thinking, even clinical arrested development and probably not best treated by therapeutic "all-feelings-are-normal" bromides. Frankly, he probably shouldn't even have a credit card.
I was delighted to find that I was actually useful as my wife's advocate. I think LizardBreath confirmed that utility above.
Totally. I noticed your post after I'd written mine.
My dad was there for my mom for all four of us. I asked him once, when I was 14 or so, after having watched some old Bugs Bunny cartoon where the father wears a hole in the carpet while his wife has a baby alien, if he was allowed inside the delivery room. And he said, "I would have been in the room anyway. I wanted to be there for your mom."
I'm guessing the fact that I have three siblings means he wasn't too put off by it and I always got the sense that feeling useful during the delivery was very important to him.
LizardBreath is right about this one.
What about a case where a kid was in a minor car accident and became too afraid to learn how to drive? Everytime he got behind the wheel he thought about car crashes. Isn't the right advice to "suck it up" and stop thinking about car crashes? Isn't being supportive of the kid's fear a bad thing to do?
Look, "suck it up" is one of my favorite bits of advice, but in this case the analogy would be, "Drive, and like it." Actually, it would be, "Drive, and like it so much it gives you a woody." It doesn't really work like that, diesel dick notwithstanding.
Are we really talking about trauma-induced impotence, though? Because I didn't get that from the article (and to the extent that that is the case, again, those poor men should get therapy and whatever else they need). I mean, I'm not a man so I'm not an authoritative source on this, but isn't there a range within which one could be less attracted to a partner than one had been in the past, but nonetheless able to sexually perform? If the answer is "Nope, it's all or nothing," I suppose I'd believe you, but it seems unlikely.
Joe O,
Jesus, you don't deal with trauma by telling someone to stop thinking about it. You don't deal with it by calling the kid an effing baby, you don't deal with it by telling him he shouldn't be traumatised, and you don't deal with it by telling him to "suck it up."
I had enough of that get tough crap from my Dad growing up.
Hey, maybe you could shame him in front of a group, that should toughen him up.
LizardBreath,
It is certainly not all or nothing. Attraction varies day to day, sometimes hour to hour, and function seems to handle that. Otherwise normal life would prevent most sexual encounters. Sometimes there is not really much attraction at the moment, just fondness or love, and that can be enough.
but isn't there a range within which one could be less attracted to a partner than one had been in the past, but nonetheless able to sexually perform
Of course. But then sex is like a chore; depending on the importance of sex to your marriage (or your conception of marriage), that might not be sustainable.
LB,
Yes there is a range, it's pretty damn big, and can be expanded easily (if temporarily) through oral via alcohol.
(topping myself)
And I think maybe that is what happens in long relationships - attraction becomes less of it and fondness and love become more of it. I haven't really thought much about it, though. "It" being sexual arousal.
through oral
I managed to delete "administration of".
You know when the great English art critic Ruskin fainted/vomited (depending on the source) when he discovered real women had pubic hair, unlike statues and paintings, and females Just Weren't Supposed To Look Like That.
Is that all that's really going on here?
(I don't think Ruskin ever managed a woody again either - although I'm not 100% certain).
SCMT - wow. I thought sex was like pizza - even when it is bad it is not really bad.
A chore? Wow.
And apo - beer goggles can increase the desire, but they may decrease the ability too.
I am only talking about pressuring the traumatised kid in the most loving way possible.
I don't think Ruskin ever managed a woody again either
Either Ruskin had something else going on or he had a very low sex drive. Very low.
But then sex is like a chore; depending on the importance of sex to your marriage (or your conception of marriage), that might not be sustainable.
My assumption here is that desensitization therapy works. Whatever is going on with the traumatic memories of childbirth, wouldn't you think the effect would wear off after a certain amount of time continuing to have sex and not thinking about the trauma of it all?
Joe O,
Let's just say I have heard the term "gutless wonder" more than enough to last a life time.
Joe O,
Surely the first step for a responsible therapist would be to find out what trauma is lying behind whiny shrink guy's traumatised - and clearly unusually rooted - reaction?
Ogged. You really, really, really need to eat breakfast. If you ever want to get married, that is.
170, you might wish to consider switching all that from second person to first. Because then it would be, well, true. Otherwise, declaring that one's own internality must be universal is, perhaps, not as wise as it might be. Because it isn't.
People actually have a great deal of variation.
As a purely general comment, I'm impressed that many seem to be clearly asserting that there is no possible learning involved in sexual attraction, no slow accrual of various cues, of whatever sense, with certain feelings, and no sense of positive feedback involved in such associations. No, apparently, we're imprinted at birth, if not earlier, with all the feelings about what arouses us and what doesn't, and it is never, ever, something one can affect in any way.
The support for such assertions appearing to be, ah, purely subjective generalization.
I mean, there's an area between "this is 100% out of my control" and "this is 100% in my control." Rather a big area. And I'm willing to bet that -- and I know this is wild and crazy as a notion -- that people vary in this (how much input they can conciously have on their sexuality).
If I understand the point of your post, we're supposed to have empathy for guys who are grossed out by childbirth, but you're angry at women who are annoyed by that? Why is the latter response less "natural" and deserving of understanding than the former? Methinks I smell the whiff of a massive double standard.
As to the question of why parents say they'd trade places with their injured children in a second, my understanding has always been that that's because they realize that being in pain is, in fact, worse than watching someone else in pain. Otherwise the desire to trade places would be incredibly selfish.
It just struck me that, "It's harder to be the loved one," is analogous to something you hear from parents with respect to their children all of the time (though not with regard to childbirth). Do you think that's an overstatement by the parents? (Not meant as snark; I suspect that it is an overstatement.)
It's not at all analogous. If my son were suffering, I'd change places with him in a heartbeat. That's not because it's worse to be the onlooker; it's because I love him so much that I don't want him to suffer. I know perfectly well that he's feeling worse than I am. He's my kid; I'd die for him.
And Ogged, if you're with a woman who's given birth, don't ever, ever say that it's easier to be the father watching than the mother birthing. Unless you want to find out whether it's easier to be the patient being treated for being hit over the head with a frying pan, or the hitter.
don't ever, ever say that it's easier to be the father
Umm...
You know what this thread needs? Some input from the child-free community!
Indeed! Children are all light and happiness and joy! When you can give them back at the end of the day.
(I hope he got that backwards, apo.)
You know what's disconcerting? When someone has a handle the same as your old cat's name.
You had a cat named Matt Weiner?
Fuckit, *I* was about to make that joke!
No, Matt's my wang. He's a much slower typist, and has q lot more trouble with capitalization, than the Matt who posts here.
lot more trouble with capitalization
Once you can drop a testicle onto the shift button without striking the caps lock, grasshopper, then you will be Shao-lin.
Chopper's chopper can't hit the 'a' key every time, apparently.
It's like mashing your entire hand on the keyboard. If I'm not careful, swbgvjkxchvbjlkokn bdfsz.
Here's Noah at the beach discovering that the slip covers come off the couch arms. For an entire day, every new removal was greeted with shrieks of laughter.
I love that photo. But it also makes me want to say "Have you ever really looked at your couch arm covers? I mean really, really looked at them?"
There is no way that you can trick or teach yourself (or, more important, trick or teach your genitals) into being aroused when they're not.
Actually, it seems that we have quite a lot of evidence from what goes on in prisons, on submarines and ships long at sea, etc. that many men have a significant ability to somehow find things sexually attractive that, before they got in that situation, they would have sworn on a stack of Playboys that they could never ever ever be attracted to. There are no celibates in a foxhole, or something like that.
Of course, I'm not saying that marriage is analogous to prison or anything like that, just that sexuality and sexual arousal are more malleable than has been so strongly asserted upthread.
Also, this guy probably would have told you that he wasn't aroused by men before he started getting blowjobs from his masseur.
It occurs to me, as one example, that I can't count the number of times I've first known a woman from her writing, and gotten a major crush, and then after we met, although if I'd passed her on the street, I wouldn't have given her a second glance, because I knew that this was the woman who was so witty and smart and insightful, who impressed the shit out of me with her thoughts on this, that, and the Other, who I shared so many interests with, and knew was kind and who all around seemed Very Wonderful, I would be throbbing with Hot Manly Desire.
And part of that is also looking at her as her, and then finding physical aspects to focus on that would serve as, well, physical aspects to also turn me on, be they, well, whatever bodily aspect, no matter that it wasn't Perfect.
And, yes, there's some conscious elements of "encouraging" my arousal involved.
And, no, it's not 100%, of course. There also women whom, unfortunately, I'm unlikely to ever find myself sexually attracted to, no matter how much they impress me. But, like I said, between 100% Ability To Change My Arousal and 100% Inability, that leaves quite a lot of ground for Some.
But the bottom line remains that everyone is different in this, as in many things.
It's like that one time at Burger King: You really don't want to go back in there for a while after seeing somebody pulled out screaming and drenched in blood. Or maybe it's not like that at all.
screaming and drenched in blood
"We all enter this world in the same way: naked, screaming, soaked in blood. But if you live your life right, that kind of thing doesn't have to stop there." -Dana Gould
Check this out:
Some TV station is interested in Belle's post. Not so much in Belle, though.
