One lovely part of being active in the FMH Facebook group is you get links to gem like this.
Let's talk about sex, friends. Let's specifically talk about sex post-partum. Let's talk about how there is no way in hell my barely-pushed-a-freaking-human-out-of-my-vagina self is going to get on my hands and knees and mop the floor so Tim can objectify me. Let's talk about how my husbands' sexual "needs" are in no way a priority for me during these months, and that is the way our biology made us. There is an evolutionary reaon why the same hormones that produce and express milk suppress your sexual drive. There is a reason women do not want to have sex postpartum. It's because our bodies are not supposed to! So, why do we feel the need to buck our physiological signals and force ourselves to feel "sexy" during a time our libidos are non-existent. Heck, we're eight months postpartum and only having sex like once a month**. I've embraced my own needs as a mother of young children. I hate the rhetoric that I need to dress up and perform for my husband, that since he is a man he has these needs that must be fulfilled. He didn't have sex for the first 23 years of his life, so I think he can chill out until I start ovulating again and my libido returns from hibernation (and if can't, he knows what to do sans my body). It's natural birth control, and evolution's ways to keep mothers alive by spacing their babies out. I know some might argue it's also our biology for men to have sex all the time to spread their seed, but yeah, I think we can have more faith in our men and put a little less pressure on our women.
Is this lifestyle totally exhausting? Stay awake and go to bed with your husband? Make him baskets and buy special candy and freaking make Sharing Time activities to spice up your sex life? Maybe some peoples' relationships need these props. But I like Tim's brain and he likes mine, and though yeah, we fight over silly things like interest accruing on student loans and burning the pizza on pizza night, our marriage is doing pretty well and I love our open communication and understanding. These websites (which apparently are very popular and Mormon women LOOOOOVE them) just seem so immature and infantile. It makes these women's marriages seem like middle-school relationships where they have to work so hard to keep their boyfriends happy so they won't "break up" with them and "go out" with another girl. Yikes. Really.
** this post is several months old, we have sex AT LEAST twice a month now!
Let's talk about sex, friends. Let's specifically talk about sex post-partum. Let's talk about how there is no way in hell my barely-pushed-a-freaking-human-out-of-my-vagina self is going to get on my hands and knees and mop the floor so Tim can objectify me. Let's talk about how my husbands' sexual "needs" are in no way a priority for me during these months, and that is the way our biology made us. There is an evolutionary reaon why the same hormones that produce and express milk suppress your sexual drive. There is a reason women do not want to have sex postpartum. It's because our bodies are not supposed to! So, why do we feel the need to buck our physiological signals and force ourselves to feel "sexy" during a time our libidos are non-existent. Heck, we're eight months postpartum and only having sex like once a month**. I've embraced my own needs as a mother of young children. I hate the rhetoric that I need to dress up and perform for my husband, that since he is a man he has these needs that must be fulfilled. He didn't have sex for the first 23 years of his life, so I think he can chill out until I start ovulating again and my libido returns from hibernation (and if can't, he knows what to do sans my body). It's natural birth control, and evolution's ways to keep mothers alive by spacing their babies out. I know some might argue it's also our biology for men to have sex all the time to spread their seed, but yeah, I think we can have more faith in our men and put a little less pressure on our women.
Is this lifestyle totally exhausting? Stay awake and go to bed with your husband? Make him baskets and buy special candy and freaking make Sharing Time activities to spice up your sex life? Maybe some peoples' relationships need these props. But I like Tim's brain and he likes mine, and though yeah, we fight over silly things like interest accruing on student loans and burning the pizza on pizza night, our marriage is doing pretty well and I love our open communication and understanding. These websites (which apparently are very popular and Mormon women LOOOOOVE them) just seem so immature and infantile. It makes these women's marriages seem like middle-school relationships where they have to work so hard to keep their boyfriends happy so they won't "break up" with them and "go out" with another girl. Yikes. Really.
** this post is several months old, we have sex AT LEAST twice a month now!
Posted with Blogsy
"Sharing Time sex projects." Exactly. Reading over the blog post you linked to . . . ah man, poor women who buy into that crap.
ReplyDeleteI kind of feel like the popularity of those websites is due in part to the Church's culture and attitude toward sex before and after marriage. These girls spent 19+ years hearing sex is a dirty no-no and having no real exposure to healthy sexual attitudes and then BAM. Marriage! And they know they're supposed to do it but have no idea what's normal or expected and some of them feel dirty and weird. Those websites give them some direction and ideas of what's "expected" of them.
ReplyDeleteSeriously? Who even cares about intimacy during those 6 weeks? If you can get some sleep and take a shower you're doing pretty well.
That was about the stupidest thing ever on that link. Do they really treat their husbands like spoiled children that need extra attention? Ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteThat was one of the most preposterous things I've ever read. Wow.
ReplyDelete(The article you linked to, not your post, of course. Your post was spot-on.) :)
ReplyDeleteI couldn't take reading any more of that article so I jumped down to the comments, hoping at least one woman would have something sensible to say.... How sad that they think that's what life is really supposed to be like.
ReplyDeleteSo I only read the intimacy part but I have to say rather then focus on the negatives I saw some amazing positives. If you ignore the naughty maid and why does anyone need to dout on the new daddy, men who pout and feel displaced by new babies need to just buck up a bit what you have is a piece of work advocating oral sex and masturbation. I mean this is sort of a big deal. Eleven years ago when we got married we were forced to sit through a class with ten other couples and the stake president where he outlined all the things we weren't suppose to do sexually...and those both made the top of the list. Talk about awkward and honestly none of his dang business. But I may be biased. I've never wait more than three weeks. Sure ovulating sex is great but so is prenatal, postnatal, and maybe never ever going to be natal again. I say to each couple their own :-)
ReplyDeleteI read something interesting from an evolutionary biologist in a book about Paleo Fantasy about how maybe 'men spreading seed' may be fallacy - evolution pushes us to survive and simply spreading seed in a paleo world would just lead to more babies who could die. Survival would be a man being pretty sure a woman's baby was his, so he'd invest, and sharing duties to protect and feed it. Humans have a really long period of total vulnerability and one man couldn't do the hunter/gatherer thing with a million kids. I'm slaughtering a viable theory here, but it's worth looking up.
ReplyDeleteeeek... is all I have to say to that article. I get that you need to both be aware of each others needs and I know that when he is super busy and his libido is down that I don't like being completely ignored all together in terms of being even the tiniest bit intimate (ie a kiss or hug)... but eek. I've never liked the notion that men are like children needing your undivided attention right when they wanted it b/c its wrong. And to be honest, I feel like a lucky woman b/c my husband is pretty chillaxed about all this stuff so its not been a real source of conflict for us. I always say we are as "bad" as a 70 yr old couple when it comes to sex... and then I had a patient call the other day with questions about Sex during her Chemo treatment... she was 70 and let me know that they are quite active and going a few days without it would be too hard for them... I then texted the husband and I said, nevermind, we are worse :). Anyway, there's some comic relief for ya to make everyone feel better about their love lives (we have a good marriage, I promise). But yeah, that article was just plain silly even if I do think that women AND men should make equal and periodic effort to try sometimes even when they aren't feeling up to it (not necessarily sex, but at least some affection) and you have to communicate about what it is you are able and willing to do ... it should be an equal and mutual thing... If my husband isn't going to dress in a wife beater and tighty whiteys and mop the floor, why should I do something like that? Blah.
ReplyDeleteooops, Tyler's going to kill me, I just posted that under his google account, that was from me, Eliza.
ReplyDelete