Here’s the Daily Mail trolling us again, this time with a first-person account of how one man was so “traumatized” by witnessing his wife give birth to their son that he was “turned off” from having sex with her for an entire year. He says the “memories of childbirth”—which, BTW, he only looked at, and didn’t actually, you know, feel—affected the way he viewed his wife, adding that, “There’s no denying that having a baby changes a woman’s body immeasurably. People don’t like to talk about scars from the Caesarean, saggy stomachs or greatly increased nipple size, but that’s the reality.” Grab your pitchforks and torches.
Sure, being face-to-episiotomy with a graphic vaginal birth is freaky. But even guys who get all “Ew!” will eventually want to stick their penises back in there once their boners override their feelings and emotional immaturity. Martin Daubney’s wife, however, had a C-section. He insists that watching her in pain during a three-day long, difficult labor and seeing the toll that it took on her body had a devastating impact on him. Poor baby!
Daubney claims that plenty of men experience this kind of turmoil but “suffer in silence.” He was brave enough to share his story of no longer wanting to fuck his wife, whose major abdominal surgery and pregnancy-related back pain left her a “hobbling shadow of herself.” So. Fucking. Courageous.
He also shares some stories of friends of his who were equally traumatized by how grossed out they became when their wives became mothers, like “Stephen,” a 41-year-old stockbroker who said that watching his wife breastfeed their baby made him never want to have sex with her again because. He explained it by saying, “I felt my wife’s body was no longer mine.” Guess what, Stephen. IT NEVER WAS YOURS. Oh, and then he started having an affair with one of his wife’s colleagues. And childbirth and breastfeeding are what’s gross to these people?
Daubney blames these problems on modernity:
Today’s dads see it as an intrinsic part of their role to accompany their partner through every step of childbirth. To suggest otherwise is seen as a dereliction of duty, an act of misogyny.
That’s because it is. Why the fuck would you think that creating a family wouldn’t be a group activity? And it’s not that husband are expected to be present during childbirth these days out of some kind of “duty.” Instead, it has to do with the fact that when you go through the most painful, difficult, and transformative experience of your life, you want your best friend there with you. Because that’s what spouses are supposed to be, right?
Still, he insists that “couples would have more chance of normal intimacy after a birth if men saw less of delivery.” Or maybe normal intimacy would be possible if men like Daubney could, you know, just get over themselves. Their wives already have one baby.
A husband confesses: ‘Seeing my wife give birth put me off sex for a YEAR!’ [Daily Mail]
—Tracie Egan Morrissey
