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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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...
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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.
>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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 mar
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.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 10:34 AM
Ogged,
Go eat some breakfast, then delete this post! Quick!
Posted by pjs | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 10:40 AM
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.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 10:41 AM
So you decided to play to your strengths and make celibacy a choice, eh, ogged?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 10:53 AM
You should have seen the post I did delete, pjs.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 10:54 AM
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.
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.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 11:03 AM
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.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 11:04 AM
But I don't think childbirth engenders the same fear of death in men or women that "heart paddles" do.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 11:07 AM
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.
Posted by cw | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 11:07 AM
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.
Posted by winna | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 11:21 AM
"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.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 11:23 AM
Ah, PZ anticipated me.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 11:26 AM
"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.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 11:28 AM
Surfeits of empathy are hott.
Posted by Kriston | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 11:45 AM
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?
Posted by Matthew Yglesias | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 11:52 AM
That's silly, Matt, everyone would eat baby food all the time if it didn't come in baby food containers.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 11:55 AM
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.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 11:59 AM
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.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 12:01 PM
18 to 16.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 12:01 PM
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?
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 12:04 PM
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.
Posted by Maynard Handley | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 12:07 PM
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...
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 12:11 PM
Fazed, not phased. Though I'm not phased by it, either.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 12:12 PM
18: Pshaw. Gjetost is delicious.
Posted by bza | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 12:23 PM
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?
Posted by Kriston | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 12:23 PM
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.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 12:24 PM
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.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 12:26 PM
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.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 12:28 PM
I can't think of one
Nougat mixed with bile would be grosser, but you can't get that just anywhere.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 12:29 PM
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.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 12:32 PM
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.
Posted by Kriston | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 12:39 PM
Considering you were the first one she saw, does she blame you for everything that's happened since?
Posted by mike d | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 12:39 PM
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.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 12:50 PM
Or just cheat instead of whining about it.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 12:56 PM
Or just cheat instead of blaming it on your wife.
/mood change
And Chopper, what a beautiful picture!
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 1:00 PM
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.
Posted by pjs | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 1:01 PM
I've changed my mind about the picture. Chopper has clearly had an epidural.
Posted by Kriston | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 1:01 PM
Thanks. You should see her now.
/threadjacking
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 1:03 PM
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.
Posted by Joe O | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 1:05 PM
Whoa. I know there's another name at the top of the flickr page and all, but Chopper is Josh Marshall.
Posted by JP | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 1:11 PM
Nah.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 1:15 PM
Nah.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 1:17 PM
/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.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 1:18 PM
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.
Posted by tom | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 1:29 PM
I'm reminded of this poem.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 1:30 PM
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.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 1:46 PM
What Tom said. The reaction here as basically been "Shut up and find her attractive." I don't think it works that way.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:05 PM
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.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:12 PM
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.
Posted by tom | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:15 PM
pretty princess shits
Coming soon to a ToysRUs near you!
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:15 PM
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.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:15 PM
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.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:18 PM
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.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:20 PM
To put it in slightly more palatable terms, we all admit that "clinical" and "sexy" don't often go together, right?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:20 PM
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.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:25 PM
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."
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:26 PM
Ok, I'm on a call for a while...
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:26 PM
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.
Posted by pjs | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:27 PM
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.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:28 PM
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.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:30 PM
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.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:31 PM
I don't see this as gender-specific advice, though I know it has been, traditionally.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:32 PM
And totally what pjs said. (And Tripp, Cala, and Ben.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:32 PM
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?
Posted by peter snees | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:32 PM
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.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:36 PM
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.
Posted by m | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:39 PM
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.
Posted by tom | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:39 PM
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.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:39 PM
"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.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:44 PM
59: exactly, exactly.
wolfson has some things figured out.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:45 PM
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.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:45 PM
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.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:46 PM
And Cala nailed the quote.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:47 PM
And silvana.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:47 PM
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.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:48 PM
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.
Posted by tom | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:49 PM
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.
Posted by Kriston | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:52 PM
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?
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:55 PM
78 to 76.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:56 PM
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.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:56 PM
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?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 2:58 PM
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.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 3:00 PM
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.
Posted by tom | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 3:06 PM
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.
Posted by Kriston | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 3:11 PM
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.
Posted by Kriston | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 3:14 PM
Your women are moving away, say what you want.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 3:16 PM
You know what, fuckers? I wouldn't even let Ex say "fart."
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 3:17 PM
so I guess you aren't one for Dutch Ovens then.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 3:18 PM
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?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 3:18 PM
Had her on a pretty short leash, eh ogged?
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 3:18 PM
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.
Posted by Sam K | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 3:19 PM
Everyone can insist on some things in a relationship, Joe.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 3:19 PM
Hygiene and decorum aside, I'm pretty easygoing.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 3:20 PM
That's not the way you put it last night.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 3:20 PM
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.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 3:20 PM
94 to 92.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 3:20 PM
95 to 89.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 3:21 PM
>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.
Posted by Joe O | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 3:22 PM
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.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 3:24 PM
"suck it up" is almost always good advice.
Posted by Joe O | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 3:24 PM
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.
Posted by Kriston | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 3:25 PM
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.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 3:25 PM
And "by the other side," I didn't mean the other breast.
Posted by Kriston | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 3:26 PM
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.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 3:27 PM
Fine, fine. The foregoing the masectomy thing was overdrawn. The rest of it wasn't.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 3:29 PM
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.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 3:30 PM
104
It doesn't have to be but that is what it currently means.
Posted by Joe O | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 3:30 PM
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.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-23-05 3:31 PM
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 mar