Childbirth as a Labor of Lust
Is labor and sexual arousal mutually exclusive?

This is a question for women who have experienced natural childbirth, and their husband who attended.. Was any part of the experience arousing? I once saw a video of a woman having her child while immersed in water. She must have been stimulating herself because at one point she grabbed her husband's hand and practically demanded he finish her off. He looked a bit sheepish with the presence of her mother but got right down to it and the woman seemed mightily pleased.

Also I read in a fiction story how the midwife attending a birth stimulated the mother's clit to make birthing more pleasurable. So I'm wondering, have other women experienced orgasmic pleasure during childbirth?    —Anonymous

Carol Burnett once told Bill Cosby what childbirth was like. "Take your bottom lip," she said, "pull it as far away from your face as you can, and now pull it over your head."

Here are paths to lust, without the labor:

• For the Girls - Ladies, stop trawling through male oriented sites and check out the real deal. For the Girls is a smart, sophisticated approach to women's sexuality. There's plenty of fiction, advice, articles, e-zines, audio clips, videos, and hot hardcore sex without all that 'cum sluts' and 'horny whore' jazz. For the Girls is empowering, hip, intelligent, and sizzling with heat. A must visit for women and couples.

• I Shoot Myself is an erotic, web-based, self-portraiture project, where women from around the world submit a series of digital photographs that they have shot of themselves naked. The resulting unique collection of images is amazingly diverse, exciting and refreshing raw. It's performance art (or is it porn? you decide), it's fun, it's hot, and it's Reality. And, it's updated every day. Don't miss the tour, it's a rare treat.

From Tam
I had my first child (a boy) naturally 14 years ago. I remember experiencing this intense need to push and every time I did I moaned with extreme pleasure. The harder I moaned the less pain I felt with contractions. It is still a feeling difficult to describe. I remember pushing my son out of me and feeling a huge orgasm of relief. It did not hurt it felt very pleasurable. My total labour from start to finish lasted four hours. 

As a matter fact there has been the odd occasion I feel somewhat of the intenseness when my G Spot is stimulated. However, I have never felt anything that intense or wonderful since his birth.

From Cat
I can say that the birth of my son 29 yrs ago didn't bring me anything even close to arousal. My labor was short and I had natural childbirth. I didn't find the pain that bad, though I was glad when it was over. But all through my pregnancy I was in a state of excitement. I couldn't get enough and my ex wouldn't touch me.

In my 9th month I began to masturbate a lot. I was 2 weeks overdue and my Dr told me if I didn't go into labor in a few days he would induce me. I had heard that this was hard on the woman. The night before this was to happen I let myself slip away to my favorite spot. I didn't think I could come that hard. I fell asleep and 2 hrs later I woke up to my son tapping me inside out on my big belly. 7 hrs later we met. It was love at first sight.

I think the masturbation brought on my labor. It was still the 'best' experience I've ever had.

From Anonymous
Both my children were born at home, sans drugs. I didn't experience any sensations of arousal or orgasm, as such, meaning I didn't interpret them as such, but I can imagine how some women could. (and know some who have).

It is true that pregnancy and birth ARE sexual experiences of the most basic nature. It is also true that the physiological changes mirror those of female arousal and climax.

I was more or less constantly aroused and multi-orgasmic while pregnant; everything was just constantly engorged, lubricated and hyper-sensitive. I wore my partner out! (and still engaged in more masturbation than usual for me, which is a lot). I was gratified to see Kate Hudson mention this in an interview a while back, how horny she was while pregnant and how no-one ever tells you about that! Well, of course not; our culture views pregnant women as asexual, sacred vessels, with only thoughts of their baby and motherhood, not highly sexual beings with even more powerful needs than usual!

Yes, the hormones and contractions which accompany labor and birth are virtually identical to those accompanying female arousal and orgasm, just on a MUCH larger scale.

I think if it was accepted that labor and birth ARE "sexual" experiences (meaning sexual in the sense associated with pleasure and not only with reproduction) more women, if not most women, would experiences them as such.

Because so much of how we perceive an experience, a sensation, is tied up with our expectations and mental conditioning of what it SHOULD be/feel like.

Instead, labor and birth in our culture is seen (and presented) as a MEDICAL experience, a PAINFUL process, an inherently DANGEROUS one to boot. How many of us could achieve any pleasure whatsoever from sex, much less say orgasm, if we'd been conditioned since childhood to see it as a medical, painful, dangerous event? We would tend to interpret the sensations as "painful" or unpleasantly strong rather than pleasurable.

Girls and women who are raised on "horror stories" of how terrible childbirth is can hardly be expected to experience it as anything BUT painful. (and when the use of drugs is so widespread, how many ever get the chance to experience it first-hand from beginning to end anyway?)

Also, another factor involved is where and how a woman labors and births; if she is stressed, immobilized, moved around a great deal, out of her element and in a strange place with strangers, otherwise uncomfortable, like any other mammal, her labor tends to slow. A woman tends to hold back until she feels more comfortable, safer. (imagine trying to ORGASM in a hospital with your feet in stirrups and needles in your arm and florescent lights in your eyes and people milling in and out of the room and the constant threat of surgical intervention if you didn't hurry up...might be some who'd get off on that, but probably not many)

I like the way a friend of mine put it, when asked (usually by young girls or women) if her natural labors and births were "painful" or "hurt a lot". She would quite honestly reply that they were "intense", the sensations very "strong" and "powerful". So true! That was my experience...I refuse to label the sensations I felt as "pain". I know pain, and this was a very different sensation from one associated with an injury or illness. The sensations of labor and birth are NOT, usually, associated with anything being wrong but with perfectly normal functions of the body. Yes, they were strong, intense, overwhelming at times, but so is orgasm.

And from a purely physical perspective, labor and birth are simply the ultimate female orgasm.

From Dangerous Bill
To quote my wife the Warrior Queen during her 17th hour of labor: "You did this to me you bastard. I'll kill you. Now give me drugs!"

From Serenity
I'm just weighing in with what I know from a medical standpoint and personally. Take it as you will.

During labor and childbirth female genitalia becomes quite swollen, which makes it much more sensitive. The uterine contractions experienced during orgasm aren't all that different than the ones during labor, though the ones during labor are more rhythmic. Sexual excitement and stimulation are normal on some level, even if it isn't acted upon because our minds are elsewhere.

Depending on where and how you labor and birth, orgasms are often encouraged. Sexual intercourse is okay unless your membranes have ruptured, then manual stimulation is about the only thing allowed. Sadly, too many women are too embarrassed to ask their partners for release if they're anywhere other than at home, if even then. As with the women who are in labor, sometimes even the medical professionals are too embarrassed to encourage it. However, we shouldn't be because in the long run it's more beneficial to all parties involved, not only from a pleasure perspective.

Women who are free enough to experiment with sexual pleasure ask for fewer pain control options and they are usually better prepared for the pushing stages.

Women and their partners should also be aware of the intimacy involved. Childbirth itself is very intimate, but sharing pleasure during this time can also make the difference between a positive birth experience and a negative one. For men, knowing it helps their partner is one motivating factor, but also they enjoy the connection that comes from knowing they conceived the child together, they relive the pleasure that they felt when the child was conceived and it carries over to the birth and after.

From Sandaidh
I've had three, all by natural (i.e. vaginal) childbirth. They're all seven years apart, so the "natural" changed with the times. None in the water though. And no, I don't recall being aroused by any of them. My middle child was the easiest. All the doctor had to do was catch her so she didn't land on the floor. And I was coherent enough to offer embroidery lessons when he was stitching up the episiotomy, but that's all.

I guess I can see where it might happen, depending on which nerves the baby's head is pressing on, but on the other hand it's called 'labor' for a reason. Having a baby is work, sometimes hard work, and it takes concentration. I just can't see being distracted from the business at hand by arousal. That said the contractions of an orgasm - especially a strong one - mirrors the contractions of giving birth, on a smaller scale. The same muscles are involved. Still, I just can't wrap my mind around being that distracted because for me, arousal is the last thing I'd be thinking about during childbirth.

From Cyndi Jo
As a mother, nurse, and pain slut I know a few things about this. First off, the pain of child birth is VERY different for each woman. So you will not have similar answers from any one person.

For me, it felt like really heavy period cramps. I have a high pain tolerance and didn't mind the discomfort until I was in the pushing stage (and at that point there's a primal drive that takes over).

Have you ever found that when you have bad period cramps if you masturbate and have orgasm after orgasm it strangely helps even though the cramps feel worse at first? Let me explain. The body has a natural response with an orgasm. The uterus tightens from the hormone oxytocin that the orgasm induces. (Doctors will also give IV drip of the synthetic form of oxytocin, called pitocin, to help induce or increase labor.) Nipple stimulation also induces this hormone. That is why you feel it in your belly when someone plays with your nipples. It's tightening that uterus. Birthing is the rhythmic tightening of the uterus to expel the baby slowly. If you're orgasming or nipple stimulating, you're helping the process along.

Also the orgasm itself floods the body with a warm fuzzy feeling. Endorphins are a great natural pain killer. Hence, back to the orgasming during period cramps, you feel better afterward.

From Helen
I have to agree with Carol Burnett on this one. Being in labor was like having my lower lip pulled up and over my entire head. My water broke several hours before I started having regular labor contractions. My doctor sent me to the hospital at 6 PM, told me to keep walking, and still expected to perform a C-section on me the next morning because I didn't have a labor pattern going. Four hours later, I couldn't walk anymore because the contractions were coming hard and fast. I felt like I was being turned inside out. The pain was so bad I couldn't think straight.

I think if my husband had tried to manually stimulate me then, I'd have instantly become a widow. Being in labor felt like having a freight train rip through me. To add insult to injury, or rather to add more injury to injury, when my daughter's head came out, I felt myself tear, not down the perineum like I was expecting, but up into the clitoris. It was not fun, to say the least. So no, labor was not at all arousing. Breastfeeding, on the other hand, is a very different story.

Page:   1
___________________

Interested in this topic? Share your thoughts with us.

  E-mail this page

Copyright © 1996 and on, Erotica Readers Association, Inc.
All Rights Reserved World Wide. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or
medium without express written permission is prohibited.