Birth IS sexual.  

BIRTH is sexual.  

Birth is SEXUAL. 

 I know that a lot of you shiver when seeing those words together. Some even don’t want to read them together. Because they unravel something that sounds shameful, disgusting, sinful, inappropriate. The sacred birth with the dirty sex. Or the sacred sex with the bloody birth. 

Though it is a fact, Birth is sexual.

Every pointer leads there and we (as society) spend sooo much energy to ignore and hide this. 

• If your baby is growing in you in the first place, it is because -in most cases- you made love. Wether it was passionate, slow, daily, routine, erotical sex, still it was sex.
• The major hormones playing a role in birth ARE THE SAME than the one involving pleasure, or disconnection with pleasure : Oxytocine, Endorphine, Adrenaline. I won’t go deep here because hormones are a whole topic on their own. But the main thread is easy : When you have pleasurable sex you are producing Oxytocin, an orgasm, you are producing the highest peak of Oxytocine, when you’re giving birth, you are producing Oxytocine continously and increasingly to drive the contraction process.
• Ever again, some midwives and Doulas encourage couples to kiss, snuggle, caress, stimulate breast & nipples when labour is slowing down. Why that ? Because they observed that contractions are then resuming stronger. (see Spiritual midwifery or Ina May’s guide to childbirth from Ina May Gaskin, Orgasmic Birth from Debra Pascali Bonaro, for example).
• Finally, your baby comes out through your sexual organs : uterus, vagina and vulva. How to get more sexual than that ?

So what if birth was made to be pleasurable ? 

What if birth is, in its essence, a deep intimate moment between lovers from which a newborn comes, bathed in this blissful energy ?
Just let this simmer for a moment, regardless of what you know to be true, of doubts, suspicions. Let yourself, just for 1 min, totally be absorbed by this vision : 

Envision this with curiosity. Feel what it does to your body and mind. What you can touch, hear, see, taste, smell ? Go one, for one minute, do it ! 

And now, open the gates and see what’s coming :

Disbelief, shame, disgust, rules, stories and more… We are so used to separating birth and sexuality. We carry so much injonctions, rules, shame about how to behave with our bodies. Feminine sexuality is so repressed and at the same time set in an unreachable orgasmic goal. There are so many performative rules about our bodies : How not to be too fridgide, too sensual, too fat or too skinny, too hairy, too loud, too unapologetic. How not to ask for what we want.  

Because all of this is too dangerous for us. We might be physically threatened, ridiculed, judged for having no morals, of being a slut, shamed by the whole society. Locked in an asylum. Raped. 

All of this is deep in our skin, our flesh. It is 5000 years of conditioning and patriarchy. 

I am not saying it is the Men’s fault. Because from what I see, they are impacted by it too. They have no transmission about birth, they have to step in a women’s world where they are judged for their performance, how they care, protect, how they can be emotional… Not knowing what are the rules and what they are supposed to do. For centuries they have been told to wait outside for the birth of their child. 

So it is really not surprising that we are so afraid to mix sacred sexuality with sacred birth. The good news is that it is our choice. That we can dip into this vision, little by little, to make it less scary (read this article on how to reprogram our brain). We can read and watch birth stories that are telling this truth. We can find our own path there and do so much healing. 

At least, that where I want to guide you.

Claire.