Would It Hurt If I Called You a Big Pussy?

I'm sure it is very unfortunate if some men are no longer attracted to their wives after seeing them give birth, but at the same time...get over it, dude.

And not every man gets over it. Several men have confessed to me that they never regained the same romantic view of their wives that they had before seeing them deliver children.

"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."

In the most striking cases, the symptoms that men experience come close to post-traumatic stress disorder, with its roots in the witnessing of an event that involves a threat to the physical integrity of self or others and responding with intense fear, helplessness or horror.

Boo-fucking-hoo. How do you think it feels to actually be the person getting cut open? How about having a miniature human being come out of your vagina, how are you liking that? 10 centimeters is full dilation. I know I'm not the only woman who contemplated the 10-centimeter top of a can of coffee and thought, "there is no way in hell." Maybe all these women should get vaginal plastic surgery to help ease the pain for their husbands. Hymen restoration, even!!

The fact that the subject is taboo also means that a man who is traumatized by the experience may be retraumatized again and again, with each child born to him....

I myself recall feeling as if the clinical focus on childbirth during prenatal classes, including the detailed descriptions of the placenta and the meconium, took away from the wonder of the process, rather than adding to it.

I don't know what is gained by showing the cross-sectional anatomy of a woman's torso to her lover.

Oh, I don't know...maybe an understanding of the physical processes involved in pregnancy? Most Annoying Guy Ever: "I think all that mysterious female stuff should just remain unknown, so I don't have to think about creepy womb-stuff." God, just don't go down to the bottom of the bed, no one's making you! You might have thought that of all things in life the experience of childbirth would be incontestably and solely about the woman giving birth. You'd be wrong.

Whether the father is present in the delivery room is a couple's personal decision, of course.

But it is a decision that involves potential gains and potential losses, and too few couples realize that fact or are willing to talk about it.

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.

Wow, so against my desire to have the guy who knocked me up actually help me out as I go through the most intense, painful experience of my life, I have to set his oddly-easily-quenched future sexual desires. Luckily for me, I didn't marry a total asshole, so I didn't have this problem.

UPDATE: welcome Slate readers! Please see my follow-up post above.

Comments

[dsquared]

Hmmmm I have to say that it certainly makes me less enthusiastic about starting wars in Europe now that I know that when we turn to the Yanks to save our asses, they will all be like this guy.

I'll tell you something though; childbirth is just murder on the feet. Four hours my missus was with the last one and I was standing up most of the time. In my bloody office shoes too. Christ my feet were killing me. Nobody ever talks about that, and if you mention it you get no sympathy. My only advice to young men on the point of becoming fathers is, wear trainers for god's sake.

[dsquared]

oh jeepers comedy gold.

"And predicting which men will be vulnerable to them is nearly impossible in a social climate in which men who admit reticence about being present in the delivery room risk being labeled throwbacks."

yes indeed; the only thing more frightening than childbirth is the possibility of being called old-fashioned.

I think that these precious prenatal classes ought to include a trip to a farm at lambing time, compared to which a human childbirth will seem as April showers. Apart from the feet thing obviously.

[Carlos]

Why should any man (other than a medical professional) have to see a woman's secret parts anyway? I can't think of anything that would quench male desire faster than seeing that!

[des von bladet]

There was also the story that grossed-out first-time fathers are suspected of lobbying for Caesarians second-time out. (The original story is in Swedish, of course, so I'm linking my own translation.)

I lean currently slightly towards the view that the precise details of childbirth are likely to constitute Too Much Information, but I dare say I will be briefed on my official final position if and when.

[Nancy Lebovitz]

I believe people shouldn't be mocked for their emotions. If seeing births is having that effect on some men, it's better to know about it, and possibly take it into account.

[dsquared]

That's an admirable sentiment but to be honest I don't think that squeamishness or cowardice are really the kind of emotions that deserve this sort of respect. If there are men out there who want to pretend that children do not arrive in the world out of women's vaginas, covered in blood, then I don't really think that we should co-operate in humouring them. Anyone who's scared not only of childbirth but even of a little bit of mockery desperately needs to toughen up.

(I seem to remember that the chef Gordon Ramsay refused to be present at the births of his children because he feared it would put him off oral sex. He also regarded himself as genuinely brave for having the courage to admit this fact. It was about this point in history that I developed the opinion that our Gordon was becoming a little too fond of seeing his face in the newspapers).

[dsquared]

(ach, all I can find on the web is that Ramsay was "concerned it would affect their love life" but I am positive, absolutely positive, that this is cutesy euphemism and in the original interview he was referring specifically to cunnilingus).

[belle waring]

yeah, what if you were going down on a chick, and like, suddenly, a bloody infant head crowned down there, that would be totally fucking gross.

[Glenn Fleishman]

There have been a spate of articles in the US on breastfeeding after the idiot Barbara Walters, once a "journalist" and now even the quote marks don't help, expressing her distaste at a woman nursing her child next to her on a plane.

The basic issue is that a lot of people are uncomfortable with fundamental human issues, and they spend their lives trying to build a castle on the ground: one in which uncomfortable biological facts are hidden.

For both childbirth and breastfeeding, our society (U.S., not Singapore as far as I know) has sexualized and fragmented the elements of the female body that are involved. So frat-boy mentality urban men are now allowed to say, gross, nursing and childbirth, because it disrupts their precious view of the organs that were designed for their exclusive use.

With a one-year-old boy under my wife and my belts (figuratively), all I know is that anyone who critiques breastfeeding in public is saying, "lock woman in their homes."

[Glenn Fleishman]

Oh, and I was in the OR for my wife's caesarean, and I was proud as ALL FRICKIN' HELL to be there to support her. I got to hold my baby seconds after he came out of the womb. We did 60 hours of labor (and NOT doing the full-on natural childbirth thing; it's just how it shook out with progression). My wife was actually perfectly happy with getting a surgical removal, and she didn't mind being out of it when Ben was born because she was blissfully no longer IN PAIN. It was beautiful in a way I didn't know a C-section could be--even with machines sucking fluids and eight people working on her at midnight.

Any man or woman who can't be man or woman enough to be there for birth hasn't paid the toll for parenthood.

[PZ Myers]

I'm a different kind of male jerk -- I found the birth of my kids to be wonderful and fascinating, and gee but my wife sure has some terrific plumbing. But then I'm not the squeamish type.

I do wonder, though...there was a lot of pain for my wife involved. Are there any women who show up at this doctor's office and say, "I can't bear to look at my husband's penis anymore--it reminds me of all the real suffering it caused me."

[des von bladet]

Any man or woman who can't be man or woman enough to be there for birth hasn't paid the toll for parenthood.

There is so very much studliness in the world of birthning spectatorship! But I, for one, do not entirely understand why such squeamishness particularly deserves disrespect either.

Taboos and squeamishness are for wusses, for sure, and I for one salute the many of you who have made videos of their childrens' conception to show them also that beautiful and very necessary moment in their life-cycle.

Personally I know very well how children come into the world, and I know very well what happens to the undigested remains of food, and I have a pretty good idea what happens in heart surgery, and I wish to observe or inspect precisely none of these occurrences first hand.

[Jeremy Osner]

"videos of their chilren's conception" are presumably the ones on offer to me from various emailers I don't know.

[Jeremy Osner]

PS. Does childbirth pornography exist? I have never seen or heard of it but there are a lot of warped desires out there being catered to...

[apostropher]

I was in the room and an active partner for the births of both of my sons (by different wives), the first a vaginal delivery, the second an emergency C-section. Now, I'm not remotely squeamish and certainly the only thing about childbirth that dampened my libido was the ensuing 8 months of sleeplessness. However, I can see how witnessing a C-section could be a really jarring experience for some, just like witnessing anything where a loved one is cut open and their organs placed atop them.

Honestly though, I found seeing an episiotomy being sewn up with a big shiny silver hook pretty damn unnerving. Didn't push me toward celibacy, but given my druthers I'd just as soon not see it again.

[Arthur D. Hlavaty]

I don't know if there is childbirth porn, but I have seen picture books emphasizing that the female participant was likely to give birth at any moment. The title that sticks in my mind is "About to Drop."

[julia]

If he's the same Dr. Ablow I found on Google, his specialty is forensic psychiatry, specifically murderers, gang members and sex offenders.

Perhaps the "other issues" his patient had were a little more serious than he's making it sound?

[diddy]

If it's not somehow a conflict of interest to win Comment of the Year for a comment on one's own post, I think we should close the nominations now because Belle's comment above totally wins.

[John Emerson]

I believe people shouldn't be mocked for their emotions.

I think that other people's emotions should be ridiculed or not on a case-by-case basis.

[Charles A. Lieberman]

Mr. Osner: There's pregnant-woman porn, so it stands to reason.

[Andrew Brown]

friherre von Bladet's link doesn't seem to go anywhere but the top of this page.

[theophylact]

Yeah, I read that in Science Times this morning, and I thought, "Who the hell are these wimps, and why would any woman want to stay married to them?" I mean, what did they think those organs were for, anyway?

Maybe they're Creationists...

[Timothy Burke]

You know, I read that article this morning and had exactly this same reaction. I really almost rushed upstairs to post something: boo-hoo, you wimps. Now I grant you that seeing a c-section might be traumatic, as would any major operation witnessed up-close. It would also be unnerving to watch a loved one get abdominal surgery, open-heart surgery or brain surgery, sure. But that's got nothing to do with birth or sex, geezus. I was there for the whole thing, vaginal delivery + small episotomy and post-delivery stitching included. It was amazing, interesting, yes occasionally overwhelming for its bodily intensity, but the idea that this would affect my sexual desire just seems weird to me.

No, wait, not weird. Weird is what I'd call someone's emotional state when that state might make some sense but it's not my state of mind. This is more than that: it seems to me that it's about someone whose sexual desire for women is premised on the necessary maintenance of the idea that the vagina is secret, mysterious, unseen, a place where men disappear into the unknown. Which is like the whole stupid "women are mysterious" thing, which I just can't respect.

[Geoffrey F. Green]

Goodness, I was right next to my wife during her two (natural) deliveries, I helped her out throughout her 27-hour labor for the first child, and I held our little boys all sticky and gooey from birth, but I was squeamish about watching them come out, I didn't want to watch, I didn't, and all was fine. I'm not sure why there's so much animosity. I'm not sure what I would have gained as far as "not being an asshole" by watching the baby come out instead of standing next to my wife holding her hand. (Actually, I'm not sure why not wanting to watch makes me an asshole.) But we all have different expectations, I suppose.

Re: Glenn, my wife breastfeeds in public, and I'm very supportive. But it's a wee bit different. Apropos of another poster, I didn't want to watch the birth for the same reason that I turn the TV quickly when they show open-heart surgery.

[Shamhat]

I'm a labor and delivery nurse, and for those of you who haven't been into a C/sec, I can assure you that we put up drapes so that dad isn't gazing into a gaping hole. He's by Mom's head, holding the baby if everything is fine, with the anesthesiologist for company.

Vaginal births with episiotomies can often be just as disturbing--particularly to us nurses who didn't think they were necessary anyway. I can imagine a man worrying about hurting his wife after seeing all those stitches. Wait until she's sure she's ready, and it's a good idea to use lubricant. And for those of you who haven't used it before, the fun way to use lubricant is to apply it directly to the penis, rather than squirting it into the vagina like you would use Monistat.

Some men don't watch the moment of birth. Many orthodox Jewish men leave the room during vaginal exams and while their wife is pushing, standing just outside or behind a curtain davening. I try to think of it as a form of respect for the sacred feminine, rather that a fear of the inherent uncleanliness of women. Sort-of like I see the romantic aspect of "no man but my husband has ever seen my hair." When you see his tears as he hears the baby cry and the doctor shouts "mazel tov, you have a daughter," so he can hear in the hallway, it's just as beautiful as the father holding the baby while his wife is stitched up.

In general, if the man isn't planning to be in the room, it's a good idea to bring another companion to help hold Mom's legs while pushing and to help her hold the baby afterward.