Sometimes Sex Isn't Pretty

I don’t think I’ve ever been a dirty talker much before. Lately, I can’t believe what is coming out of my mouth! It is amazing. It has really been shocking me. My whole life my breasts have not been particularly sensitive. Probably because of the pregnancy, that has changed.

Now my nipples are much more sensitive and so I am asking for them to be sucked in a way that before I was like, “What are you doing there? What are you wasting your time for? It is not going to do anything for me.” And now it is like, okay I am getting it, I am getting why the nipple thing is good. That leads sometimes to this role play of like, “Do that for Momma!” And I am like, “Who the hell am I, and what the hell is this?” And then sometimes when we joke, because he is becoming a father, I call him Daddy.

It has been really fun and exciting and I am not quiet unless I absolutely have to be, given the surrounding circumstances. But, yeah, I moan, I scream out. The other day actually I made some kind of a high pitch like squeal that I had never made before and Tom got scared, he actually stopped. And I was like, “Why are you stopping?” He is like, “What was that?”

I definitely am older now, I am 39 years old. I am firmly entrenched in middle age. I feel sexy in my bedroom but I don’t know how sexy I feel on the street, frankly. And maybe that’s because right now I am pregnant and I haven’t quite figured out how to look sexy in pregnancy clothes. In my house, in my bedroom, I definitely do feel sexy, and my husband helps me to feel that way. But, sometimes what I would see in the mirror doesn’t match how I feel inside. I have developed this crazy pregnancy rash on my face; like every day I get different red spots on my face.

When I think about giving birth, I don’t want to have this concern. I am surprised that I have it; but I wonder if my husband will see me the same way sexually once he sees the baby come out of me. And, I have shared that concern with him and he is a little squeamish with blood and stuff anyway. And, he is like, “That’s okay, I am going to be up by your head. It’s going to be fine.” So, maybe that’s how we will work it out. I might have some romanticized notions of my partner catching the baby, but I don’t know that that’s what’s right for him or perhaps right for our sex life. I haven’t talked to a whole lot of women postpartum about that. But I think that most couples get over it or work through it or move through it. But yeah, I definitely am a little bit worried about that. Birth can be very very very sexual. Especially so for women who are moving through labor, un-medicated, and who are really into it and who really want to open to the power of birth. A lot of the sounds of birth are very similar to sex sounds.

I have occasionally seen women stimulate their clitoris as the baby is being born. I have only seen it twice that I can remember. I actually love it when I see it. One was a young Spanish speaking woman who I don’t think was doing it consciously. I think her hand went there, and we are not accustomed to, outside of a sexual arena, watching people touch themselves. But she let an 11 pound baby slide out of her vagina. It was her first baby ever, she had no tears whatsoever, and it was amazing.

If you believe in the gateway theory of pain, it is like providing this other intense stimulation to sort of counteract the fact that the baby’s head is stretching her body and sending all these fiery signals to her brain. I believe that women who do that don’t tend to tear. They are able to relax and let the baby slide through them.

What I love about birth is its rawness, and its primalness. We all know, sometimes sex isn’t pretty. Sometimes there are sights, and sounds and things that aren’t all airbrushed and perfect. And that is the way birth is too.

And, I think being able to let go in one arena, I’m hoping will help with the other arena. I am certainly hoping my ability to let go into sex and to be in my body and let intense feelings happen, will serve me as I go through a natural birth.

One of the reasons why I think birth makes much more sense at home is because it’s the place where you probably conceived your baby and it’s a place where you are used to being open and vulnerable and sexual and it’s your house. If that’s what you need to do to get through labor, it’s your house, your space, your body and you can do what you need to do. Versus going into a hospital where it’s not your house, and it’s not even your terrain and it really belongs to the doctors and the nurses and the midwives. You are a guest there. How are you going to feel comfortable making sexual noises, and being sexual in an institution?

Adair, Midwife, 39