can't believe I'm asking this..

[Jasper]

Giving birth as a SEXUAL experience? Surely there must be some mistake! I have just been to a website www.freeborn.com ( or was it freebirth?) where many of the women ( who are into giving birth with NO medical/ midwifery help at all- YIKES!) go on about how sexual the last moments of childbirth were for them. Honest, I am not making this up.Many claimed to orgasm as the baby emerged. Now I can agree that the birth of my babies was wonderful, empowering, awesome etc. but it was at the same time extremely painful! Sexual? Orgasmic? Surely not! This website claims women may experience what is really sexual pleasure as pain during labour because they are tense!! It sounds barking mad to me.
What do you all think? Am I being incredibly narrow minded?

Hygeia Halfmoon?! This is a wind up site surely!

YAK YAK YAK

This site should be taken off the web before men across the land start insisted on a B.J. while their wives are in labour - according to one posting there swallowing semen during labour makes the whole experience far less traumatic all round.

Obviously none of those women had a forceps delivery. The only ectasy was the knowledge it was over at last.(bar the stiching)

Have just read this thread and am gobsmacked. Quite frankly, if my dh had suggested a bj as pain relief during labour he would have been the one needing stitching. Thankfully the only thing that I stuck in my mouth was gas and air, and that was useless too!

I have nothing to add that has not been said already but could not resist posting to say how much I have enjoyed the posts in this thread. Seems you are a very witty bunch!
Willow2, you just made me laugh out loud. Thank you!

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Thanks Jasper for posting your original message. I have just nearly wet myself laughing reading this thread & heartily concur with Willow2's comments about who would need the stiching if my husband requested a BJ during labour.
Hilarious!
PS: I shall be renaming myself as Cool Crescent Moon for the birth of number two. Maybe I will have a more pleasurable experience!

A friend's husband ran off with a woman he "met" via the internet. She called herself "strongheart". My friend called her "Weak liver"

I wonder if the women who describe giving birth as orgasmic have ever considered that their partners might be doing it wrong.

Oh, thats wonderfull!! LOL LOL LOL!!!!

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And I thought the only thing mums agreed on was ''it hurts!''
But I know a woman who claims this, she's heavily into yoga. She tends to use it as a conversation stopper when mums are discussing childbirth and it's done very much (imo) as an attention-seeking ''oh you poor mere mortals, I'm on a higher plain than you; when you're a little more evolved, you'll understand'' sort of way (iykwim). She's also a total slapper (sorry, didn't mean to say that out loud

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this was an article in nov's Junior preg & baby mag.

I found the feeling of my baby coming out very pleasurable and my sex drive has gone through the roof since her birth (1 month today ).

Was scrolling through this thread while on the phone to very slow advice centre.

Woman on the other end said 'hold on please I'm just saving this.... OOOOHHHH... that's it...'

Crossed my mind to ask whether she was in labour or just pleased to hear me.

I have to say that apparently my mother once told my sister that she had an orgasm while giving birth to me. I have never been able to even contemplate asking her about this. And my mum is the most non-yoga, non-Hygeia Halfmoon person you can imagine - she is a retired editor with a 97% navy blue wardrobe. Thinking about it i was born at home without a midwife present - it was quick so the latter hadn't arrived yet.

I can just about believe that it's possible but the thought of making a big deal out of it when it must be rare is bad news.

"Thread killer... qu'est ce que c'est? da da da daa da da da da daaa da"

Actually I had one vaginal examination when I was 7/8 cms. I found that 'soothing' in a strange way, didn't like being on my back for it but, ummm, to be touched down there was 'soothing', sort of nice.

This thread reminded me of that, although I would never tell the midwife this as I really want to make her feel weird. I was definitely nowhere near an orgasm at any point in the experience though.

I've checked out that site,mouth agog (think there was a link from MN a while ago.)

Pretty mad but hey,they're all American aren't they?!

I read a couple of books like this during pregnancy and was really looking forward to my orgasmic birth.

Sucker!

I have heard of such things happening, and tbh, I can understand it. OK, it was 'distractingly' painful, but some of the sensations were very close to sexual - after all, it's the same area that's being stimulated, after a fashion, and many of the hormones are the same. It's not that far off orgasming while breastfeeding - wouldn't have minded that, some light relief in the middle of the night .

I've read about women using their vibrators for pain relief while in labour. Americans, of course.

According to Sheila Kitzinger something like 20% of women experience orgasm in one of their labours. I think that noone would want to tell anyone which is why we all think it is so rare. I was in hospital for my labour with an epidural. I think that I was in transition when the epidural stopped working for about an hour. during this time I had a very intense experience that was like a very intense orgasm. It wasn't actually pleasent because it was so intense and came along with the pain of the contration. I didn't feel turned on or lustful. however I would say it was an orgasm. So maybe it is possible. Anyway I am sure we shouldn't judge people for having inappropriate feelings when they are coping with labour as best they can.

I agree it's used as part of the 'birth as a fabulous sexual experience' agenda though.

Personally, I would say my inappropriate feelings during labour were more in the nature of wanting to punch my poor partner when he tried rubbing my back soothingly. If he'd tried rubbing anything else....

And how were SK's 20 per cent selected? It could be that she asked five women and one said yes. You need a really, really big statistical base to make conclusions like that. And given the frankness with which many of us discuss both sex and labour, if one in five of us has experienced orgasm in labour a lot more of us would come out about it, so to speak.

As an American, I can assure you that I DID NOT have an orgasm during the birth of my DD. When my large colon is being crushed like a crepe suzette, for some reason I can't think of that being condusive to climaxing.

apologies to Sheila Kitzinger it was Ina May Gaskin who runs a birthing centre in America. She did a survey of 151 friends and found 32 who had had at lease one orgasmic birth. 21%.

Ok so not a huge survey and only amongst the friends of a very alternative midwife but even she was suprised how many said they had.

There is a stigma attached to feeling sexual with relation to anything to to with children - of course there is. I have certainly never told anyone about my experience - apart from these messages today.