So, You Married a Man With a Virgin/Whore Complex August 24, 2005 Lauren Belle says it so I don’t have to. Don’t understand the squidge? See here. And buck up. Title credit: Scott Lemieux, whose last name has far too many vowels in a row. UPDATE: And there’s more.
I saw the doc on CNN last night. He sais that there should be more research on this and then a test or screening so that men who might be prone to this ‘trauma’ don’t have to go thru it. Ella’s birth wasn’t as traumatic as some, but the hubby was changed. For the better. Anytime we talk seriously about having another kid HE always says, “But I can’t imagine you going thru all of that again.”
I don’t think we should be too surprised when people act exactly the way they’re raised to be in our society. I prefer Maria’s take on the issue, where she points out: “They’ve not been part of a lifelong conversation with mothers, sisters and friends that takes childbirth as something – albeit weird and wonderful – that just happens to most people.” With the exception of the more enlightened families, many households still don’t admit males into the weird, wild world of female bodily functions. I’m from a generation that got divided into boy and girl camps when it came time to explain stuff like menstruation. I had to read a frickin’ Judy Blume book (one of the “girl” ones that were verboten to boys) to find out what the heck a period was. Is it any wonder, then, that a lot of males grow up thinking of women’s bodies — the gooshy parts, anyway — as scary and alien? Which is not to condone the attitude, but to urge a little compassion for these guys, who can no more help their emotional responses than any of us when it comes to our most irrational fears. We are barely — barely! — removed from the days when males were expected to stay in the waiting room, and the notion of a man witnessing childbirth would be unthinkable to both men and women. So, I urge patience and forbearance of our irrationality on this issue. While a certain amount of indignation is inevitable — and deserved — it’s probably more helpful in the long term to think about what we can do to avoid raising another generation of men with these obsolete attitudes.
B, I tell my story to anyone who’ll sit down long enough to listen — and I can draw it out for a few hours at least. Maybe I should tell it right now!
And, actually, I should say that I did appreciate Maria’s comments on the story, especially about childbirth being part of a traditional women’s narrative arc. Good observations, definitely. I believe the original article is behind a pay wall now, but while reading the original it became clear that the doctor’s editorial was trying to make a sweeping social plea for acceptance of this phenomenon, even suggesting a “trauma” test for men who would accompany their wives in the delivery room. Um, horseshit. Certainly I have sympathy for the individual here, but the suggest that this is a phenomenon that deserves serious, widespread consideration is absurd. The men were essentially saying that their wives’ girly-bits aren’t mysterious enough to fuck, and the only response I have to that is to, well, get over it. Granted, the human sexual experience is more complex than that, but when a married woman is in freaking labor it seems perfectly normal that she would want her partner to be there and socially desirable that he too would be willing to put his fears aside and accompany her through the process. Further, the doctor framed it as something WOMEN SHOULD THINK ABOUT. “Ladies, think about altering your birthing plan because your hubby can’t accept that the vag has more than one purpose.” As it always seems, the onus is put on the woman. Childbirth is not only painful, traumatic, gross, and bizarre, but amazing, and totally awesome. I personally think everyone should be present for at least one, if anything so they can witness the amazing neon green umbilical cord.
“Amazing neon green umbilical cord”?! Oh my God, should anything that color exist inside a human body?? But see, that’s my problem. So yeah, your point is well taken — anyone who would suggest that these issues are somehow the responsiblity of women to work around, instead of for men to deal with and resolve, needs a foot in the ass. The normal, healthy thing here is certainly NOT irrational revulsion towards childbirth or loss of sexual attraction due to actually being confronted with certain biological realities, so I can’t believe anyone would try to validate this irrationality as somehow acceptable or appropriate. By the way, if you want to see a movie that is basically an encapsulation of men’s fears regarding childbirth and women’s reproductive systems, watch Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Alien Resurrection. It’s all about slime-oozing vaginas and scary ass wombs full of weird fluids and tubes, and of course blood-flecked baby aliens that bite off your head. I thought it was a great movie, but it’s probably the most viciously hated of all the Alien movies, and what’s interesting to me is that it’s men who almost universally hate it, while all of the women I’ve talked to who’ve seen it, thought it was OK or good. I’m convinced that men hate it because it hits a little too close to home!
Hi, I would like to generate some discussion on the topic of The Holy Grail. I cordially invite you to drop by my blog and comment. If you feel my thoughts are worthy to share, please pass it on. http://kelleybell.blogspot.com/2005/08/davinci-code.html Thanks, from me and all the women of the world, Kelley Bell
I can’t believe I’m delurking over an umbilical cord color, but this is fascinating. Lauren: the cord was neon green? This is interesting. My son’s was kind of an oddly luminescent grey-purple. How did you get the cool color?
Totally. It looked like it could glow in the dark. And the placenta was theis weird, striated mess of an organ. They slapped it into a pan and took it away before I could get a good look at it, but the umbilical cord? Neon green.
Yeah, I remember the placenta as this massive liver-like thing. My doctor showed it to me up close and personal. But this neon green thing is definitely going to spark an umblical cord color poll amongst my friends and relations. (By the way, I’m a ’93 Purdue alum, so reading your blog is a lot like coming home.)
“I tell my story to anyone who’ll sit down long enough to listen — and I can draw it out for a few hours at least. Maybe I should tell it right now!” I’d like to hear it. My own experience with childbirth was quite intense in both a good and bad sort of way. To start with, I didn’t go into labor until almost a week after my due date. When it finally started, it did so in the middle of the night: I woke up with a nasty pain in my lower abdomen. Then my membranes broke on the first contraction, spilling amniotic fluid and meconium everywhere. I knew then that something wasn’t quite right, because the fetus doesn’t pass meconium (which is basically fetal poop) until after birth unless it’s stressed. So I was less than completely serene and confident already when the next contraction hit. I’d always heard early labor described as similar to bad menstral cramps. So I was suprised when my pains felt more like all the muscles in my abdomen being ripped apart simultaneously. Every 2-3 minutes. The only position that worked at all was standing leaning against my partner. Oh, and screaming. I haven’t had a lot of painful things happen to me in my life, but I can say that this pain was worse than second degree burns, shutting my finger in a car door (ripping off half the nail), and getting slammed into a stone wall by a careless climing move. After a few hours of this sort of thing, I said “hell with it” and went to the hospital. There I had an epidural (after a brief, insane argument in which I claimed that a little stadol to take the edge off was all I needed) and everything seemed much easier. Unfortunately, my cervix failed to dilate, I got a fever of 105, and the fetus was in distress. At which point, my midwife dragged an OB in to discuss an urgent c-section. It turned out that the cord was wrapped around the baby’s neck and her head was deflexed. A deflexed head can not be delivered vaginally–the head can only come through the cervix if it is flexed so that the narrowest part is presented. Even at that, normal delivery involves squeezing an 11 cm head through a 10 cm cervix. I was awake during the c-section (epidurals are great for that) and so got to hear the baby cry for the first time, indicating that she was ok, had not aspirated meconium, had not been hurt in the delivery. At that point I wanted to get up off the table and go see her, but the OB wouldn’t let me. Some trivia about removing a lake of green meconium from my uterus and sewing the thing back up. My partner and my mother stayed with me throughout this experience. While I have no sympathy for the men who find their partner’s vagina just too icky after childbirth, I do think that in some ways I would rather be in my position during the childbirth than my partner’s–or my mother’s. I could scream, cry, and demand attention. They had to stay calm and reassure me. Plus I got a PCA pump afterwards.
I couldn’t tell you what color any of my kids’ umbilical cords was. I doubt their dad remembers either. (That’s not a brag, just surprise–you had the energy to *look*?)
Something about this grates on me. It’s long been the case that 3/4 of murder victims are men. There was recently a post in which 10% of the 25% of murders have been averted through feminist efforts, and that’s fabulous. Now we have some minority of men who are, shall we say, unhappy with some aspect of childbirth, and what I read most is, “screw ’em.” Be a man; get over it. Changing men’s attitudes toward murdering nearby women and women’s attitudes about lingering in a dangerous place is certainly more important than any attitudes goofing up a private relationship. Nevertheless, I’m a bit dismayed by the apparent disregard for what is otherwise a real problem. I recall my mom saying before she died that having a terminal illness kind of trumps everyone else’s problems, but that those people still have problems. It would be unfair of her to disregard them merely because hers are clearly worse. I’m not sure I’m making sense. I don’t have a firm grasp of what I’m trying to say. I apologize for my incoherence, but something about this grates on me, and I was hoping I could clear it up by writing it down.
While reading Twisty’s post, I suddenly remembered something from one of the pregnancy magazines that struck me as somewhat bizarre. On the “labour bag checklist”, they included “a small hand mirror – so you can watch your baby coming out”. What??? Why would I want to watch? I have to shut my eyes while watching Nip/Tuck, for heaven’s sake. So, yes, squeamishness about all the blood and yucky stuff: not confined to fathers. But when a woman is going through labour, her partner’s squeamishness shouldn’t rank high on her list of priorities.
Kyle, I see what you’re saying. I really don’t have an issue with the individual’s problem, it’s the assertion by the article writer that this is a widespread issue that women need to consider, as I commented on above. What bothers people bothers people. I think part of it is social, yes, but part of it also depends on the individuals values, beliefs, and emotional triggers.