Women's Sexual Passages and Orgasmic Birth

I just finished reading Elizabeth Davis and Debra Pascali-Bonaro's book titled "Orgasmic Birth." Davis and Pascali-Bonaro claim that pregnancy and childbirth parallel the experiences of foreplay and orgasm*.

Their perspective is refreshing because it is so different from the one popularly advertised: pregnancy as a medical "condition" ridden with unfortunate and embarrassing physiological changes or "symptoms" and childbirth as a painful, unbearable process (which, thanks to medical advancements, not all of us have to attempt, but which, for those of us who choose to endure it) is made worthwhile only by its result (i.e. the baby).

While I don't quite buy into the orgasmic birth concept** reading this book (and also having recently read Elizabeth Davis' other book titled "Women's Sexual Passages"***) has helped to quiet some of my original fears and anxiety around the task of giving birth. Having never personally witnessed a labor before and being the first among my friends to become pregnant, I had very little information on this topic 9 months ago. In fact, the only information I had on it was that which I had passively received from depictions of labor in the popular media (which, as I already stated, tend to be negative and SCARY).

Now, after having read a healthy collection of natural birth and obstetrics literature and viewed a number of birthing videos, I think I can say (without having personally experienced it) that I know (to some degree) what to expect. And what I expect is neither orgasmic (sorry Davis) nor scary (sorry everyone else); it is a natural, instinct-driven sensory experience that is physically challenging but not unbearable. And I am looking forward to it!

Any day now... :)


* Doing a bit of interpretation here: they never discuss foreplay, per se; however, their description of a woman's experience leading up to the labor and delivery of her baby bears resemblance (in my opinion) to some components of foreplay. For example, the authors suggest that the period of pregnancy is a time during which the woman must take care to become attuned to the sensations of her body and also to her emotions, turn off the analytic part of her brain, relax and open up, and prepare herself physically and emotionally for the experience of labor.

** I'll believe it when I feel it.

*** In this book, Davis claims pregnancy is a sexual "rite" of passage for a woman, in company with other rites such as menarche and menopause. She posits these are meaningful events in every woman's life and they must be celebrated to promote healthy self-esteem in women. Again, interesting stuff. Definitely hyper-feminist (not saying that there is anything wrong with that...), but a good read for its refreshing and different (I might go so far as to say empowering) perspective.