[quote name="girlcarrot" id="0"]
Breastfeeding and Sex: Is Latching On a Turn-Off?
By JAMES BRALYExtended
breastfeeding, the current scientific thinking goes, offers significant
health benefits for the child, and probably for the mother. But what
about for the father? Is what’s good for the gosling and the goose, also
good for the gander? And why does it matter?
I know, most women
think their breasts are theirs. I’ve been hearing this since I was a
toddler being cautioned, “Don’t touch!” But most guys just want to
touch. Most girls, thank God, eventually make some guys lucky. One thing
leads to another. And here we are, discussing the consequences of a
touch too much: children. So to everyone chanting “My Body! My Choice!” I
say, “Your Body! Our Nookie!” We are in this together, women and
children, men — and breasts.
So any conclusions about extended
breast-feeding must consider the impact on the whole family. And I would
argue, based both on anecdotal evidence and personal experience, that
the impact on the man in the family, eventually, is negative. A recent
(if highly dubious) study of Brooklyn families linked helicopter mothering with philandering.
The argument: a mother who hovers over her little prince or princess
too long leaves the former king of the castle feeling increasingly
powerless, and likelier to seek a queen on the side.
Other men —
me, for example — might be driven to engage in something even worse:
sexless fidelity. Mine crystallized in Central Park one evening, while
watching my wife sit under a tree with my older son, a
five-and-a-half-year-old young man with a full set of teeth and chores,
stretched out to roughly the size of a foal, suckling. By the time they
strolled back to me and my already-nursed toddler son on the picnic
blanket, I had lost my appetite — and not just for the smoked salmon.
There are some things in life most men cannot share with first-graders,
and two of them used to be called breasts. Now, my first grader called
them boobalies, and history is written by the victors.
The
complicating factor for me was, I loved my children. And the most
challenging part of love, for me, is empathy. Seeing my wife’s breasts
through my boys’ eyes…given the choice, I knew I’d do what they were
doing. Before they came along, I did. Which at that heartbreaking moment
made it impossible not to support their mother’s choice to breastfeed —
as their father. As their mother’s husband, however, I was dry-heaving —
and bile is not an aphrodisiac.
Lest you think sex is a private
matter, I would argue that the decline of a couple’s sex life can have
significant social consequences. A man’s loss of appetite for his
companion can undermine his partnership, his family and ultimately the
society of families. Even the environment takes a hit: suddenly, the
divorcing couple needs a second house, an extra car, another set of
Ziploc lunch bags off-gassing plastic fumes into the ozone, and on and
on.
To those of you who believe breast-feeding a child who can
blow out all five of his birthday candles is a totally natural behavior
to be regulated only by the mother without considering the effects on
the father, I would ask, should sex, a totally natural behavior, be
regulated only by the father without considering the effects on the
mother? For what man in a committed relationship has not considered
having sex with someone other than his breast-feeding partner? Someone
he knows or — if he’s a sports star or a politician — a waitress at the
diner or a videographer who tells him he’s hot. Considering such
liaisons is biology for most men. Considering breast-feeding a toddler
may be biology for increasing numbers of women.
But a family man
who wants to keep his family knows to say no. The positive effects of a
sexual encounter on an otherwise monogamous man are outweighed by the
negative effects on his companion, and consequently on them. Similarly,
the positive effects of extended breast-feeding should be considered in
light of the negative effects on the marriage. In other words, sex and
its consequences are a family affair.
So to all nursing moms,
except perhaps those who used a lab technician, I say that the
foundation of the parent-child bond is the parent-parent bond. Unlike
the baby chicken or the fertilized egg conundrum, partnership precedes
parenthood. That’s how you got into this position to begin with: by
attracting a man who liked what he saw, and wanted to see more of what
even the scientists researching extended breast-feeding call mammaries,
not Mommaries.
From the new york times, published yesterday.
]
And you are entitled to your opinion. My opinion.. I think it is wonderful!
Quoting AubreeGrace17: I think that breastfeeding a five year old is a bit extreme...
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I would like to think that my husband and I wouldn't have the same issues that this man is portraying within his relationship, but I have never nursed a 5 year old... So I have no idea. I nursed my son until he was 8 months, and then I went back to work and he decided that he was angry with me (that's my story and I'm sticking to it!) and wanted his newly discovered bottle and not my breasts. My DD, however, seems like she might be an addict, and as I'm home with the kids for the most part these days, I will probably just let her self wean/go until the spring of 2013/whatever happens happens! My husband has never expressed any feelings like the ones that man who wrote this article has, and I would hope that he wouldn't HAVE those feelings. Idk, though, because I do agree that harmony within the relationship is a huge part of family success...
Just another instance where breasts are sexualized.
Quoting silka08:
While I do think both parents should agree on most parenting choices, it soubds as though they hsve a co-parent issue not bfing issue. A mom can bfed w/o neglecting their husband. What is t he difference between sharing with 5 month old and 3yr old? Its still sharing. Their relationship has paremting and intimacy issues and hes choosing bfing to blame but its really juat a symptom.
Quoting mostlymaydays:
He makes way too many comparisons to his relationship with breasts and a child's relationship with breasts. He just doesn't get it. Hence why he's not "getting it."
What do you while nursing your lil one?
- SAHM927
on Jul. 16, 2012 at 1:28 PM