Yep, some people actually believe that.
Did you know that if your partner witnesses you giving birth they are never going to want to have sex with you again? That’s it for your love life. Over. Finito.
You are destined to spend the rest of your years frumpy, dowdy, a shell of the woman you once were.
Simply just a mother. And no one wants to bonk a mother? Right.
You think I am being tongue-in-cheek but the fact is that some men and women harbour these fears, concerned that a father-to-be viewing the business end of proceedings will then never want to venture that way south again.
The issue has come to light with a woman, Rachel Rounds who wrote in a British newspaper that the only reason her hubby still “fancies the pants” off her is because he went to the pub instead of witnessing the “absolute nightmare of gore and horror” that was the birth of their son.
THEIR SON.
The son that was created by their mess in the first place.
(Let’s face it. Sex itself it pretty damn messy, not just the birth.)
Three pints and a packet of crisps was more appealing than seeing that downy head appear, hearing his hearty cry.
Rachel writes, “When he hears about celebrities like Robbie Williams making a song and dance about being at their wives’ side during labour, he declares: ‘That’s it for them. It’s all over for their sex lives. No man should have to watch his wife give birth. It is just plain wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.”
She says despite some initial reservations, she agreed. “I couldn’t bear for him not to see me in the same way. I didn’t want to become nothing more to him than a saggy-bellied, milk-soaked, mummy-type, who had lost her sex appeal.”
(Face palm)
Yet I think most of us agree that however a woman chooses to give birth is completely up to them.
If you want to download an MP3 of chanting Georgian monks to pant along with or if you prefer to push it out in a bloody pool with seven of your siblings watching then goodie gumdrops to you.
But what seems to be unquestionable these days is the fact that somewhere along side you, perhaps playing Candy Crush on his phone or maybe massaging your feet in pure olive oil will be the father of the baby you are about to birth.
I’m sure some of them are actually quite helpful, the father of my kids managed to make “popping out for more juice and a paper” a priority just in case I was interested in the events occurring in the Middle East, but the fact was he was there.
Maybe not actively involved, and possibly a little horrified by what occurred, but there.
And isn’t that the point?
It is sad to read about how Rachel felt “far from being furious she was relieved."
“I felt exposed and vulnerable. Him seeing me like this would have made things even worse. At one point, I was violently sick all over my best friend; my hair was stuck to my head with sweat; I was angry, in pain, and had my legs stuck in stirrups. I felt embarrassed. I didn’t want my husband to have the memory of his ‘top totty’ (his nickname for me) behaving like a crazed farmyard animal.”
The fact is Rachel that birth isn’t pleasant, it is vulnerable and gory and messy.
But so is life. And it is a life these men have chosen, alongside us, to bring into the world so unless they have a damn good excuse (which doesn’t include future erections) I say it’s a like it or lump it kinda deal.
What do you think, is watching your partner giving birth a sex drive killer?
Want more? Try these:
The worst things men have said to women while they’ve been in labor.
This pregnant woman was caught having sex with her husband in her hospital bed.