While I'm all for alleviating labor pain I personally I don't think "orgasm" and "infant/child" should be associated with one another, beyond the child's conception.

Orgasm between two consenting adults is the way I prefer to keep it. (or in some cases one consenting adult and some sort of apparatus purchased at Babeland, but whatever, it doesn't involve a baby.)

Don't be so lazy. Go to You Tube and just look at some of the film available on the experience. How anyone could put the most intensive form of human effort together with orgasm, I'll never know.

@rustyspoons- So, experiencing euphoria from childbirth is inappropriate or abusive to the baby?

I'm just tickled by all the comments on that article that say things like, "but childbirth is a curse from God because Eve SINNED!!!!!!1"

I think an ACTUAL orgasm during childbirth must be extremely rare, and the Times blog post seems to acknowledge this. I wish we didn't have to focus on the freak phenomenon of an orgasm during childbirth, which most people are not going to attain. It sort of reminds me of Cosmo cover stories about the quadruple vaginal orgasm, or whatever new sexual heights we're supposed to be attaining.

Of course, I really like anything that helps women be a little less afraid of childbirth, creates positive images and experiences, and makes us more excited about the event, despite the very real prospect of pain. I just want to be sure it doesn't become a competitive sport, and we don't marginalize women who finish labor and say it was the worst pain of their lives.

The worst thing in that article is the OB-GYN - Jesus, the author of Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom!?!?! - saying that the baby could "cause an orgasm" because it's sort of like a penis going in, only, um, backwards? Man. I thought books like those were supposed to dispel the idea of PIV causing wonderful orgasms for everyone. Guess I was wrong. Can't wait for my "reverse penetration" baby. That'll feel so good ...

SIGH.

I think that it's great that some women can have orgasms in birth and that we're trying to get over the "birth must be painful" hurdle. The documentary does say that not all women may be able to have orgasms in childbirth, but childbirth doesn't have to be a traumatic as it's shown in the media.

This really isn't a "new" thing. Many midwives would suggest trying to bring about orgasm during labor because it opens the cervix, releases endorphines and generally makes for an easier, more pleasurable experience. I think it's a better solution than taking drugs to ease or numb the pain. It may seem weird to some, which I could understand. I also understand the programming that says birth is supposed to be painful. But if there's a natural way to make it better, I don't see how that's wrong. Our bodies are built a certain way for a reason.

I'm taking a "nice for them" attitude on this issue. If some women can get orgasms that relieve the pain of childbirth, then, you know, good for them! I don't think the vast majority of women feels it, but there certainly may be people that do. And good for them!

I don't think it's necessarily something that should be taught, since most women probably wont orgasm, it would give them a false sense of what childbirth is like. But if there's pregnant women interested in pursuing it, they certainly have my blessing!

(oh, and that whole "children shouldn't ever be near anything orgasmic-like"-argument is just incredibly stupid. it's an infant, people, it's not gonna make a lick of difference to the kid whether the mother orgasms or not. that's just moralizing BS. and if a woman doesn't fear the birth of her child, it might even make the baby healthier)

I can't deny how these women felt during their experiences. If that's how they felt, then that's how they felt; however, it shouldn't be a model that women hope to achieve during labor and delivery.

My experience of childbirth (with an epidural) was excruciating. I've never felt pain that intense, and that was with the painkiller!

(And I've lived an entire year with an inflamed gallbladder 5x it's size because my family wasn't financially able to have it removed.)

I hope this doesn't garner an underground following, because I have a feeling many, many women will be disappointed in themselves if it does.

All I can think about is porn-style banter between two people in the delivery room:

-You push that baby out; push it hard!
-Yeah, I am pushing out this fuckin' baby! OH MY GOD! etc.

More reasons why I am going to hell, I suppose:)

I haven't seen the film, but in skimming a bunch of commentary about it in the last week or two, I'm really struck by the immediate link between the idea of orgasm and the perception of pressure or inadequacy or performance expectation getting pushed on women. Which, of course, we've all seen before, in non-childbirth contexts.

Not to claim that this link isn't real and valid for a lot of people, of course -- but "Orgasm" has so much cultural baggage, unfortunately. I do wonder how the responses would be different if the title involved, say, the word "Ecstatic" or "Euphoric" rather than "Orgasmic."

I watched this documentary in a course I took on women's health, and I found it to be completely inspiring. I don't intend to have children for at least another 7 years, but yet this film took away a lot of the fear I used to have about childbirth, which was caused by the portrayal of birth on TV and in movies. No, it did not give me any false expectations about labor and birth, I'm sure it will still be just as painful as I have heard it is. But it did show me that childbirth does not have to be the traumatic experience that the media makes it out to be.

If I remember correctly, the title of the film is slightly misleading. Not all of the women shown actually had orgasms during birth (though some did), but they all did have these really beautiful and intimate experiences. Many of them had water births, which (though controversial), did seem to ease a lot of their pain. And the "kissing and caressing" described in the article was not so much sexual, but more comforting and spiritual if anything.

I highly recommend watching this documentary when it airs on 20/20. Though many women may not agree with its message, it is at least a new and intriguing perspective on childbirth.

I know it seems counter-intuitive at first, given the negativity that society and the media have shoved down our throats about childbirth for so long, but the idea of a birth orgasm actually makes a lot of sense. Same anatomy as sex, right? Same hormones? That means, potentially, same outcome. If a woman can get into the psychological space that allows for it, it can certainly happen, and there's nothing wrong with that. I think the whole PIV comparison was unfortunate, but the point the OB/GYN was making stands - pressure on the g-spot can lead to orgasm.

I don't think the article says anywhere that orgasmic birth is supposed to be a "model" for anyone. But why should women be ignorant of it? Why should they feel embarrassed or ashamed about it? Even if a woman doesn't end up having one, all the things she would do to try to have one would likely make her birth experience more comfortable and more pleasurable. We don't all orgasm during sex every time, but that's no reason not to enjoy sex.

Consider that however painful birth is naturally, that is probably exacerbated by the anxiety, lack of privacy, and countless "standard procedures" that are part of the unquestioned hospital birth culture, which is what most women in this country experience. I.e., it could be less painful and wouldn't that be great?

I've lain on my back in a hospital in labor - that sucked. This time I'm going to be riding a yoga ball with a Hitachi Magic Wand. It can't be any worse.

I agree with some other commenters here in finding the title off-putting on the grounds that emphasizing “orgasmic birth” may be setting the bar a bit high–-like, if a woman has a loving, passionate, meaningful, satisfying birth experience with a good dose of pain but no suffering and great support, she hasn’t had a really good birth because, after all, it wasn’t orgasmic. I haven't been able to see the film yet, but the trailer (at http://www.orgasmicbirth.com/) is amazing and doesn't raise these problems for me at all. Still, especially since “orgasmic” isn’t even the goal of many laboring mothers, the title seems to leave out the larger part of the possibility for amazing births. On the other hand, it's getting the film--and birth pleasure--a whole lot of much-deserved attention!

I am also ambivalent about anything that sexualizes birth. Doesn't our culture sexualize enough (more than enough) already, and doesn't it particularly harm women and girls in suggesting that virtually everything we do--especially everything we do from a position of power, or in a powerful spirit--is sexual? Not all pleasure is sexual. Of course, not all orgasms are sexual, either: many women have orgasms while breastfeeding, and there really are orgasmic births. After all, sex, breastfeeding, and childbirth all involve huge surges of the hormone oxytocin, and oxytocin is our friend! Still, for lots of pregnant women, the association of a sexualized word/experience like "orgasm" with the already-potentially-scary prospect of childbirth might make birth even scarier. I'm talking especially about those women who have had a traumatic experience such as rape or molestation and/or who associate sexuality with shame in some way, but also about those who view their sexuality as extremely private and shared only with their partner (as opposed to the midwife, doctor(s), and/or nurse(s) who are also at most births in the US). Before I had my son and was able to sort out on a concrete, experiential level all the pleasures and pains of birth, breastfeeding, and sex, these ideas would have freaked me out: Oh, God, they already told me I might pee or poop during birth, and now I might have a freakin' orgasm in front of these people, too? Great ...

Which makes it really interesting to me that when I watched the trailer for the film, I kept thinking Yeah, that's right; that's just like my birth. Can't wait to see the whole film ...

My first birth, I should have pulled a Susie Bright and brought in a vibrator, beacuse I could have had an orgasm. The sheer force of the sensations...I really wish I would have because maybe then I could have avoided the horrid epidural I was harassed into after beign induced.

Don't discount it-especially if you haven't been through a labour. Your body is capable of a lot more than initially thought. Despite reading about OB's in Ina Mya's Guide to Childbirth, I was still FREAKED, and refused to run with it because of the judgemental jerk of a nurse. I truly wish I would have. More people knowing it is a possibility can't be a bad thing.

Okay I get the whole reduce medicalization of childbirth, but orgasm Phuuuleeze. After having done it twice and feeling like someone was ripping my insides out trust me orgasm is not on the table. I see nothing wrong with honoring the pain and the experience but to say that you should have an orgasm is just being set up to fail. Why can we not just enjoy birth for the miracle that it is.

I've been working for the past three years with mothers researching women's infant feeding experiences (both breast and bottle feeding). I've become extremely interested in and passionate about the diverse ways in which women experience motherhood, their infants and themselves as women, so much so that I'm planning on switching for a career as a social scientist to one as a midwife.

A lot of the shock people react to the idea of orgasmic birth with is similar to reactions to the idea of pleasure while breastfeeding. In our culture we have this idea that any sort of body pleasure is private and largely sexual, especially when its related to breasts or vaginas. Women who say breastfeeding was pleasureful have had their children taken away from them while they were investigated for sexual assault. Of course breastfeeding can feel good, its your body working the way it should! Defecating feels good, peeing when you really have to feels good, scratching an itch, sneezing, eating, moving; these are things that are can be pleasureful. In the same way childbirth is the culmination of 9 plus months of your body working the way it is supposed to, and there has been great research and documentation of the way in which our understanding and presentation of birth as full of screaming blood and terror (have you seen an un freaked out husband or mother or calm or un-terrified woman giving birth on TV lately) actually affect womens experiences. While we shouldn't promise women an orgasm during birth, if you're told your whole life by media and medicine that birth is scary dangerous and painful, why would your experience be anything but scary dangerous and painful? Orgasms can't be promised, but women should know, have the right to know, that there is a large range of birth experiences, by talking about birth positively we have the power to create more positive births.

and T monster, being afraid of birth is not a feminist fail! I have lots of friends who are not comfortable with the idea, they often joke that I need to find more friends who aren't grossed out every time I talk about work. the fact that you are not comfortable with the idea of birth, but still respect other peoples comfort with it, and participate in discussion, is a HUGE feminist hell yeah!

I am actually writing a thesis relating to this topic, so it doesn't seem as "weird" to me as it did when I first heard it. It is rare, and the conditions have to be just right, but women do experience orgasmic births. Furthermore, I think women can just experience more pleasant births than the ones typically offered in hospital-situations.

Laying on your back to have a child is very counter-productive. Walking, standing upright, squatting, etc. all help open the pelvis and use gravity to bring the baby down (in a normal, healthy birth). If you consider that many women are told to lay on their backs, put on monitors, are in a hospital environment which is often associated with sickness and disease, it isn't surprising that childbirth is considered very painful and scary in our culture.

Also, I think it would be healthy to think of birth as a part of sexuality. Ina Mae Gaskin, as midwife, suggests getting the baby out the same way they got in... :)

I read the original blog when it came out and couldn't believe the disgust over the couple kissing and touching during the women's labor, or the disgust over women having orgasms.

I don't tend to think of kissing, touching, orgasm, etc, as all a type of sexuality. In my (queer) relationship, those are signs of affect and care.

I wonder how much of the medicalization of childbirth comes from the madonna-whore kind of complex, where you can't be a mother and a sexual being. So you can't experience childbirth or breastfeeding associated with anything slightly erotic.

I think it calls for a redefinition of sexuality, as some posters have mentioned. Sexuality isn't just heteronormative eroticism of domination PIV screaming orgasms. Does that make sense? I think everything we do does have an aspect of eroticism in it because we are inherently erotic creatures.

In my experience, childbirth IS painful and scary. I didn't imagine the pain, and it wasn't the result of me being programmed by Western culture to believe that childbirth is painful. Not all women experience the same level of pain during childbirth--a friend of mine had a baby around the same time I did and it was a cakewalk for her, she was barely in any pain at all. Lucky bitch! ;) My labor, however, was excruciating, and, trust me, I know pain, I have chronic pancreatitis and I've had acute pancreatitis a couple of times, both extremely painful conditions. The "orgasmic childbirth" thing concerns me because it's yet another pressure put on feminist pregnant women to have some sort of politically approved birthing experience. If you prefer to be in a hospital instead of at home in a birthing pool you're accused of buying into a "doctor-centric" view where laboring women are just looked at as revenue streams, as someone said upthread. Maybe that's true in some hospitals and doctor's offices, but it wasn't in mine. And, yes, I was hooked up to monitors, and I'm lucky that I was, as my daughter's heart rate twice dropped precipitously during my labor, likely because her cord was compressed due to the amniotic fluid being gone and the position I or the baby was in. The alarms went off, doctors and nurses ran in, I was made to roll from side to side and up and down until her heart rate recovered. If I had been at home, what would have happened there? I don't like to think about it.

If some women have orgasms during childbirth, that's wonderful for them. But how long do those orgasms last? Childbirth can last for days, and the average orgasm is counted in seconds. If it does happen, it's a just a tiny part of the childbirth experience. We should concentrate on making the entire experience better, not worrying about giving women orgasms.

I remember reading from one of Susie Bright's books (I think it was "Mommys Little Girl,"or "Sexual Reality)that she felt she was orgasming when she had her daughter. She wrote that she was begging her boyfriend to give her, her vibrator.

Many people also feel pain as pleasure so I wouldnt think that this couldnt happen. However, I think its highly rare and also as one commentor noted on the site, less often admitted to, which is a shame.

Okay I get the whole reduce medicalization of childbirth, but orgasm Phuuuleeze. After having done it twice and feeling like someone was ripping my insides out trust me orgasm is not on the table. I see nothing wrong with honoring the pain and the experience but to say that you should have an orgasm is just being set up to fail. Why can we not just enjoy birth for the miracle that it is.

I'm trained as a doula, and I've seen it with my own two eyes. I do mean literal orgasm at crowning.

I've also spoken to women who have had it happen. It's about a one in a hundred chance, but it does happen.

Different positioning of a baby's head (which is kinda random) can make a huge difference for the mom. I've heard women say that one birth was virtually painless, while the next hurt like hell. It really just depends on a million factors, from mood to the baby's position and size, to whether a woman eats a lot of spicy foods or is a redhead (really!), to the way an individual woman is shaped.

I mean, sometimes your period hurts and sometimes it doesn't, right? Some women have horrible, awful periods, and some women breeze right through them. It's kind of the same with childbirth, I think. It's not like the women who have easy periods did something right and the women who have difficult periods did something wrong. It's just that everyone's bodies are different.

Nobody objects to pregnant women having sex or masturbating before they go into labor. At least I hope nobody does. And obviously, it's okay to have an orgasm while you conceive the baby.

Unprotected intercourse at the very end of a pregnancy is a tried and true method for inducing labor.

It's already standard birthing practice to massage the perineum (t'aint) during labor, ostensibly with a view to preventing tears, but it's a kind of touching that would be unequivocally sexual in any other context.

So, what's so different about inducing orgasms during labor? The baby's not born yet.

Sorry, I didn't mean for the comment at 4:38pm to be anonymous. I changed my Typepad display name, but it doesn't seem to help--Lindsay Beyerstein.

I did non-medicated natural childbirth, and had an amazingly intense orgasm while pushing. I don't think telling women that birth can be orgasmic is a problem at all. I'd say that teaching women exclusively that childbirth is painful is more of a problem.

I did a three month series of partner-coached Bradley method childbirth classes, and the message we were continually given was that childbirth is hard work. Hard work has an element of pain and struggle to it, but is rewarding and worth it. That is so much better an image of childbirth than the idea that it has to be an excruciating experience, and that no woman could possibly make it through without drugs.

I went through 46 hours of labor, unmedicated, and came out of it with such respect for my body and for every woman who gives birth (medicated or not).

I don't see talking about orgasm during birth as setting a goal to strive for, but as giving a fuller picture of what birth can be like. It doesn't have to be scary, it doesn't have to be painful, it doesn't have to be orgasmic, because each woman's experience will be different. And like a lot of other aspects of life, we need to support each woman's individual experience of birth and her choices as to what she needs to get through it.

I know this point has already been hit home by now, but I really disliked how they compared a baby to a penis. One is an organ. One is your new child. Not really the same thing ...

I didn't find the baby/penis parallel offensive.

The author was trying to make the idea of orgasms during childbirth comprehensible to someone who assumes the two have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

The argument is that there are some anatomical parallels between giving birth and having intercourse. Some of the same structure get stretched, the same nerves get stimulated, some of the same muscles contract. The hormone oxytocin causes labor in large doses and orgasms in smaller doses.

So, it's not so weird that some women report feelings during labor that are similar to feelings we normally associate with sex. They're not weird or perverted or arbitrarily introducing sex into a non-sexual process.

Laboring women sometimes experience the urge to push as similar, or even identical to, to the feeling they get when they have to defecate. It makes sense--some of the same nerves are being stimulated. Nobody's likening babies to feces.--Lindsay

Sexualizing birth? LOL Birth IS sexual. It's about as sexual as it gets.

Is a woman going to have an organism in a hospital gown, under bright lights, with her legs in stirrups and 3 interns looking on? Not unless she has some kind of fetish.

But when birth happens as nature intended (check out the atmosphere other animals choose) in a comfortable, familiar environment, in the midst of intimate relationships, with low light and perhaps some music, all those very SEXUAL hormones floating around -- then yes, it can be very pleasurable. It may not always result in orgasm (sex doesn't always, either) but it can be very pleasurable.

Birth can also be very painful. Most births (if not over-medicalized) will be both pleasurable and painful, over the course of the labor and delivery.

This is how it should be. Watch animals birth sometime. (I grew up on a farm.) You'll see pleasure and pain, fear and euphoria, elation and relaxation. That's what's so amazing about birth... the juxtaposition of life and death.

It's a physiological occurrence -
It happens with natural childbirth.
Women who are in tune with their bodies to the degree that we felt conception, feel when we are ovulating, and feel our menses coming before we look at a calendar or the moon phase, experience this commonly.
It is not like a sexual orgasm-
it's hard to explain.

It goes way beyond for some of us and includes and incredibly overwhelming sense of universal compassion.
I suppose some would call it an out of body experience.

My son is 20, I learned that I was not alone in my experience when he was an infant. This is not new "news".

Wow. This was one interesting article, and interesting comments to follow.

It really does help though, reading these comments and knowing that it might not be the most horrible pain in the entire world. It makes me a bit less scared. I never thought of childbirth in any way except excruciating pain.

@ rustyspoons:
I still don't see why the woman can't celebrate the strength and power of her body in a non-sexual way though. I mean, we use a lot of strength and power in Goju-Ryu class, but if everyone their was orgasming over it I don't think a lot would be learned.

I think the sharp distinction between women's sexual activity and non-sexual activity is an artificial one that's left over from the Victorian era. The insistence that women be completely non-sexual insofar as they deal with children is a relic of that era, as well as the sense that any sexual behavior on the part of women is dirty and shameful.

And I'm not sure it's really accurate to characterize orgasmic childbirth as purely sexual. Orgasmic pleasure is something that we generally associate with intercourse or other sexual activity, but why does it have to be that way? (see Hara's comment above) In this case it seems to be a natural function that helps some women cope with the experience. I can see how it would help relax and open up the pelvic muscles, etc.

But I understand the urge to separate women's sexuality from childbirth - this is an old meme in our culture, and I really believe that it has a causal role in the hyper-medicalization of childbirth. Handling it this way takes it out of the "icky" world of female sexuality and into the "sterile" world of the hospital, thus making it less dangerous. But that's just a way to allow our culture to be in denial. As I said in my earlier comment, childbirth is a natural part of female sexuality. It is a sexual experience, whether we want to allow it to be or not. So I think the solution lies in re-evaluating our attitudes toward female sexuality and working to change these cultural attitudes, rather than asking women to learn how to divorce this naturally sexual experience from their sexuality or supress real portions of their life experience. I think feminism is about breaking free from this type of supression and embracing experiences that have been stigmatized by our culture.

From what I've read here, women sometimes have spontaneous orgasms while giving birth. That's hardly "being sexual with children."

As far as inducing orgasms during labor, I don't see how this counts as "being sexual with children" any more than inducing orgasms during conception or gestation. The baby's not born yet. The baby isn't being touched. There's no ethical problem here.--Lindsay

I wonder if a lot of people who are against this idea are confusing how things "should" be with "how we always remember them being".

Like...most (straight) girls I know, their first time have vaginal sex was awkward, painful and they were kind of glad to have it over with. Survey enough straight women, or even gay women who used to date men when they were young, you're likely to get a similar response. So, do we think that the first time having sex should be awkward and painful, just because it usually is that way? For the record, my first time was sweet, romantic and amazing. So, is that wrong?

Likewise, since we all know birth to be this horrible, painful experience, do we all just assume that it's how it should be? What if we're wrong? What if we're so detached from ourselves and so sterilized everything supposedly natural, that we've forgotten what we instinctively should know? Or even worse, what if we were just manipulated and lied to? Most of this "should" stuff comes from religious fundamentalism, right?