Thread: Tocophobia - Fear of Childbirth

That's interesting! I have always felt the same way too. But when I talk about it, people tend to judge me in a bad way. Also, I get free lectures from random people about why it is important to reproduce and why one should conceive in early twenties. All this attached to a warning that it's a sin to think otherwise. Ugh!

can i vent?

ahh! holy fuck man. even though you wrote this from your viewpoint [woman's] it still brought up my own fears on the matter. i could not comprehend what its like being the one capable of birthing a person [uuughh!] but it still makes me feel nauseous to the core when i think about it. however, when i look at a pregnant woman who i have nothing to do with, i see her beauty is amplified in ways that describe serenity, and that is attractive. but if it was my baby inside, it feels scary as fuck ok, like not just that but after birth... i do not want to be responsible or attached to a whole second wave of the realities and dualities of life hitting a helpless human, with my genes.. and then having to stay with this offspring as it grows so it can essentially just kill me. [what worries me though is the thought that, you need a child to surpass you, so it can wash your ego and bring you into the later part of your life, otherwise you lose touch with reality etc.]
what you said about women who have gone through childbirth or maybe women ok with it- and the ways they may think of you translates to men to [imo].
i have had the feeling that i'm not as strong as other men who pursue women with such blind lust, but lust nonetheless, and sex is powerful. what i mean is, men who pursue women heart and mind- pursue life.. women who receive men heart and mind- receive life. for some that's always been too straight forward and so before we really even set out to do stuff with our lives, a "physiological labyrinth" is waiting for us, waiting to be solved.
in the pit of are despair where the vision of our path in life is obfuscated, we quietly hope for an open heart and mind and to have it without charity from anyone, yet not willing to work for it when we're not as comfortable with the law of attraction nature had waiting for us, because that takes energy.. strength, self-actualization... it never seemed fair, so NO, i would rather freeze in a familiar place which i can control, than be pulled away and jump through hoops to a point where i may be bearing a child later in the future and/or responsible for one. with that in mind we [i, lol] feel our dreams of "being something" in life will crumble if and when a child is present. i wonder, do we have the choice of giving our sanity to the work we love [and will it give back?].. instead of giving our sanity to our offspring?

when we're not pursuing or receiving life in the traditional/straightforward way what are we doing for human contact? [yes alternate sexual preferences, could be] personally, the fact that i cannot get a male pregnant is on its own a great attraction for me and that gives me peace of mind, for a mind that is racing non stop.
i don't really believe i am gay, just maybe bi haha [female beauty is too amazing for full gay].. and thats ok with me because if i need extra time to work out my life and i find a males company more relaxing/ less demanding- when working on my inner self- then i'll say fuck off to any thoughts that i have to remain "strong" in the eyes of purely straight men [if there are any] who pursue life so avidly... its just not me.

maybe dianeva, you don't represent the part of the population who seem to just jump right in and get wet without considering the oddities and lasting effects... and if so, i know for a fact you're not the only one

woa.. didn't expect to rave so much, hope i sorta made sense lol.

long live.

I don't know what you are talking about, tacos are delicious.


But seriously though even though I'm a guy I don't think I would be afraid of child birth. Sometimes I kind of like pain anyways. I would be more worried about being capable of taking care of the child.

Even more- death will probably hurt just as much but probably even more than child birth.

Also anyone who should expect all girls to want to have kids is an idiot, if you haven't noticed there are more than enough people on earth already and if someone doesn't want to have kids then let them not have kids. But you see the issue is that most people who get pregnant didn't do it on purpose. Then you have the issue of abortion and killing defenseless unborn babies and stuff.

Originally Posted by Raswalt

.....

Thanks for the reply, it did make sense (mostly). It almost sounds like you have a slight fear of having sex with a woman because you feel like it's for the purpose of reproduction instead of pleasure. In a way I feel similarly, just a slight feeling. Sometimes the thought will occur to me for a split second during actual sex that "this act would lead to reproduction if we weren't using contraception" and that thought ruins it a bit. Other sex acts can be a bit more appealing for that reason, so I understand why the thought of being with another man may be enticing for a similar reason. You could focus on the pleasure completely, knowing you aren't just being 'tricked by nature' into reproducing.

Not that it should be thought of in that way anyway. I try to remember that those things are separate. Even the idea of falling in love with someone of the opposite sex can be viewed to be for the purpose of reproduction. And it's true that the feelings of attraction evolved because they led to a higher likelihood to reproduce. But the evolutionary reason and the psychological reason are separate. Love is still love and the good feeling of sex is still what it is. It's not like there needs to be some subconscious 'desire to reproduce' at all.

Originally Posted by Dianeva

I'm glad that I don't want to have kids for entirely separate reasons, because even if I did want them, I would never be able to endure the pregnancy required.

I doubt it. Hormones and genetic imperative would probably completely change your view on it.

Childbirth is the most overblown goddamn thing in the developed world. People always exaggerating about the horrors of it, the pain.... people getting c-sections just coz they don't wanna go through the pain even though it's proven harmful, irrational fear about post-natal depression, playing up of "cravings", epidurals....

List goes on.

There are some people who have caught on to the massive.... stigma (almost) of childbirth, it's been so overblown, institutionalised and made to seem like anything could go wrong and probably will, so you have to be super careful etc. etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum. And EVERYONE has advice to give of course, coz they've been through it all and know everything coz they're so special. (sarcasm, in case that wasn't obvious). Anyway, some people realised this and decided to go in the opposite direction.
I think it started with a doctor who realised that really it doesn't have to be so bad, and most women especially will furiously defend their privilege to suffer when you tell them this, but birth can be the total OPPOSITE of pain. When giving birth, all the right spots are stimulated to cause orgasm (which makes sense, you need arousal to lubricate the vagina to stop tearing etc. And if you have any experience with intense stimulation, you'll know it can either be really pleasurable, or really painful, it almost entirely depends on how you think about it. Our culture has caused everyone to look at it in a bad way.

It probably came out of (heh ) the feminist movement, coz women wanted to show that they suffer and are strong and all that kind of bullshit. Turns out there are far more painful things than childbirth anyway, like being kicked in the nuts, and even that doesn't compare to kidney stones or cluster headaches.
But tv shows and movies would have you believe that childbirth is the most traumatic and painful thing you could possibly experience.
It just reinforces the idea and makes women fear it and therefore interpret the stimulation as pain.

Seriously, you can go watch videos on youtube of this, just search "orgasmic birth". You can tell what they're feeling is the opposite of pain.

Originally Posted by Dianeva

...

it may be that i do have that fear in some way. i often think it is only for reproduction, it's what the animal world, human history, and the anatomy of opposite sexes says to me. then again, i've never really trusted my thoughts or actions too much so consequently female advances have always been mistrusted and/or avoided in such a "decided" way [it was bad..like killing a persons presence without catharsis,] and so i never really understood how sex could be for fun and not just a survival instinct. with men or trans people, yea thats pretty much the thing that keeps my mind at peace, but the other reasons... ha ha well... maybe another time.

i'm out of the loop anyway so i tend to worry too much about things like babymaking and future stuff. still young so wow yes keeping things separate is a good idea. kind of an eyeopener there- thanks.

Fascinating subject. I always love to learn of new psychological ailments.

Yeah, it never is easy to grow up suffering from a mental condition you do not know plagues you whilst being judged and stigmatised by others for it. Not only does it affect one's self-esteem, it can also make the condition even harder to cope with.

But anyhow, good thread. I have found this data to be quite useful.

I hated every aspect of pregnancy and childbirth. And I'm one of those who thinks it's kinda "gross" when I see pictures of pregnant women, and we're all supposed to go "awwwwwwwwwwwwwww". It just seems like a massive, grotesque violation of our bodies, from which we never recover.

Don't get me wrong, I love my son. But that's just it, I love HIM, not the process of getting him here. Ok wait, the first part of the process was ok hehe. But I took no pride in not being able to eat for 3 months (how is my kid going to be ok if I vomit even if I drink water!?), being pregnant fat is horrible, body pains all over is horrible, and not being able to get an epidural because I have a neural tube disorder made childbirth even more intolerable than necessary. Once that was done, the breast-feeding part was actually nice. Just literally that moment of barf-fest, all the way to broken vagina, was HORRIBLE. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. One of my coworkers I guess has this fear, because she decided day one she'd never have a baby, and her husband wakes her up from nightmares where she's "having a baby" and can't stop it.

I don't know if I have this phobia or not, but I can say this for sure: if I ever decided I wanted another baby, it's 100% adoption city. And anyway, there's tons of babies already out there that need good homes.

I had fear of labor....all through out my pregnancy i was thinking omg no i don't want it to happen....but i had decision for anesthetics so i won't feel any pain....but still...the thought of having yourself almost half ripped open ....urrrrrgh.

Originally Posted by tommo

I doubt it. Hormones and genetic imperative would probably completely change your view on it.

Childbirth is the most overblown goddamn thing in the developed world. People always exaggerating about the horrors of it, the pain.... people getting c-sections just coz they don't wanna go through the pain even though it's proven harmful, irrational fear about post-natal depression, playing up of "cravings", epidurals....

List goes on.

There are some people who have caught on to the massive.... stigma (almost) of childbirth, it's been so overblown, institutionalised and made to seem like anything could go wrong and probably will, so you have to be super careful etc. etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum. And EVERYONE has advice to give of course, coz they've been through it all and know everything coz they're so special. (sarcasm, in case that wasn't obvious). Anyway, some people realised this and decided to go in the opposite direction.
I think it started with a doctor who realised that really it doesn't have to be so bad, and most women especially will furiously defend their privilege to suffer when you tell them this, but birth can be the total OPPOSITE of pain. When giving birth, all the right spots are stimulated to cause orgasm (which makes sense, you need arousal to lubricate the vagina to stop tearing etc. And if you have any experience with intense stimulation, you'll know it can either be really pleasurable, or really painful, it almost entirely depends on how you think about it. Our culture has caused everyone to look at it in a bad way.

It probably came out of (heh ) the feminist movement, coz women wanted to show that they suffer and are strong and all that kind of bullshit. Turns out there are far more painful things than childbirth anyway, like being kicked in the nuts, and even that doesn't compare to kidney stones or cluster headaches.
But tv shows and movies would have you believe that childbirth is the most traumatic and painful thing you could possibly experience.
It just reinforces the idea and makes women fear it and therefore interpret the stimulation as pain.

Seriously, you can go watch videos on youtube of this, just search "orgasmic birth". You can tell what they're feeling is the opposite of pain.

First of all, you're a male. You can't say jack shit on what childbirth is like.

Second, I'd imagine that many women would find it rather disturbing to have an orgasm while giving birth.

Lastly, being kicked in the testes is not proven to be more painful (I doubt kidney stones and headaches have either). For one thing, pain is subjective. Furthermore, childbirth can potentially last for over 24 hours.

Do you understand this? Some women have to endure the stress and pain of pushing a 6-10lb human being out of a coin-sized hole for over 24 hours. And that's to say nothing of twins, triplets, etc.

Originally Posted by TimeDragon97

First of all, you're a male. You can't say jack shit on what childbirth is like.

Second, I'd imagine that many women would find it rather disturbing to have an orgasm while giving birth.

Lastly, being kicked in the testes is not proven to be more painful (I doubt kidney stones and headaches have either). For one thing, pain is subjective. Furthermore, childbirth can potentially last for over 24 hours.

Do you understand this? Some women have to endure the stress and pain of pushing a 6-10lb human being out of a coin-sized hole for over 24 hours. And that's to say nothing of twins, triplets, etc.

To set an absolute standard (that leads to a double-standard on your end) that just because he's a male and labeling any of his attempts to give his opinions on it as nonsense because he's not a female is just as narrow-minded as what you presume he's doing. And it's even doubly ironic and bit hypocritical while you try to be the white knight towards empathizing childbirth (pay attention to how your double-standard initiates because of your white-knighting that masks it), and also stating your logic with males can't talk about anything in terms of childbirth, you automatically set yourself up for a major contradiction.

It's one thing to know there are limits and parameters gender (male/female) has in terms of experiencing something like this, but it's another to discredit simple competence for humans to create models of reality to build some empathy or a type of perspective ability. Although the way he presented his post wouldn't cater to the minds of all females AND males, to say a person can't say anything when you've contributed your own opinion makes your post self-stultifying.
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ ___

Now, as for OP's intention with the thread to give a message across, just like with any phobia, there are many underlying reasons that stack onto a person channeling more attention towards the irrational fear that comes with childbirth. Especially when the more a person's experiential totality with being around other people (especially childhood) can create and mold predispositions towards having a phobia, such as (but not limited to):

• Especially when younger children will at some point create some scale and contrast themselves to other children on their competency level (i.e. Children going around calling some other kid "retarded" and using the term loosely because of their own naivete)
  
  
• The pain that comes with childbirth as a woman actually going through it or a female that hasn't experienced it and is using experiential truths from others who went through it
  
  
• How one theorizes and expresses themselves (sexuality, gender, belief systems etc.)
  

All of these things and much more definitely becomes a challenge because there's a myriad of ways to analyzing and discussing about this particular Phobia, from both realms of Male and Female. It's basic logic to gravitate towards applying this phobia for females, because it's more direct and obviously because they have certain reproductive organs for childbirth, and other reasons I don't really need to state.


However, with phobias, I could see this particular phobia applying towards males as well, since it is an irrational fear, and with any fear, there's anxiety involved. And with how people can easily imagine and try to be empathetic to those who go through childbirth, it's not really something improbable that males would have (in terms of an irrational fear they can visual and imagine). Especially with how certain aspects of society have their own schemata of childbirth and how they sustain ideas that comes with the initial expectation of having healthy and competent children.

China, Italy, India, and all sorts of regions in the world have their own standards that comes with childbirth and just having a child in general. For females, there's more ways for them to channel more attention towards harboring irrational fear with childbirth, but phobias are a type of anxiety in general, and because the person has exponential worrying towards these phobias, it makes their life miserable and makes it harder for them to function in varying ways because the fear built from childhood and the rest of their life stacks on.

For males, they can easily have psychological, biological, and other types of predispositions towards harboring irrational fear of childbirth as well. Especially if they have certain values with wanting to make careful decisions before contributing their "half" of their genes with another female. Especially when they would have to prepare themselves with the responsibilities of raising a child just as a female would. This phobia can be common for both sexes, they just have their own definitions and experiences with it.

Phobias can be more easy to tolerate or even get out of IF a person goes through ways of finding the core of the problem, and not many people will have the willpower or competence to seek help in medical, therapy, and even in a forum thread like this that's a basis for people to give their thoughts out and provide some insight in whatever way they can. The fear that comes with childbirth is practical to have for both male and female, such as:

- Hoping that the child will be able to function correctly based on standards that fits the model of a healthy child

- Being able to raise the child properly and having less liabilities that comes if the child develops a disorder/disease etc. (Anyone would want a healthy child that has little to no ailments, but if the situation arises, it's up to how the person takes action towards this)

- Wanting to have a child that has potential to reproduce and extend familial roots

- And many more reasons

Any human being can have this type of fear, if they have the competencies for being able to have sensory awareness and applying it with the situations that comes before them of course. This phobia doesn't need to be applied linearly just for females, there's just different approaches for both male and female.

Also, anyone can have a certain scale of anxiety towards this, but it's those who have consistent and active exponential worrying to where they can't function decently to have a decent life that fits into the criterion that comes with having a phobia. People can have many phobias, but it gets to the point where having to channel attention towards the worrying where it's just mild anxiety rather than abnormal and exaggerated anxiety.

Originally Posted by Dianeva

Not that it should be thought of in that way anyway. I try to remember that those things are separate. Even the idea of falling in love with someone of the opposite sex can be viewed to be for the purpose of reproduction. And it's true that the feelings of attraction evolved because they led to a higher likelihood to reproduce. But the evolutionary reason and the psychological reason are separate. Love is still love and the good feeling of sex is still what it is. It's not like there needs to be some subconscious 'desire to reproduce' at all.

When trying to define evolutionary reasons (mostly through Darwinian theory application) vs. Psychological reason, each have their own limits before aspects need to be carried on to the other spectrum. Because Darwinian logic goes by natural selection and other evolutionary aspects, when things that are built from the human mind (the presumptions with phobias and anything that involves with human introspection), that's where Darwinian application has its limits, since it's not concerned AS much with societal knowledge or anything that is formulated from gregarious activity to solve problems or explain certain phenomenon derived from that social interaction.

When you go about saying "love is still love," combined with your logic of how there doesn't need to be some subconscious "desire to reproduce," it's just a perfect recipe for a person to stultify themselves. When it comes to having opinions that don't typically require biological predispositions to be a major influential factor towards their reasoning and justification, to presume there can be an actual dichotomy towards "subconscious" desires (or just unconscious for better comprehension) and conscious desires, the logic becomes impractical.

The unconscious (note, I'm using the term for a concept) makes neurological connections and many processes that are done partially on the experiential totality, belief systems, values, knowledge, etc. that a person has, it's an automatic set of processes. When it comes to biological predispositions that comes with reproduction, things like love, empathy, sexuality, etc. are obviously going to intertwine with all other thoughts. There isn't a dichotomy between conscious and unconscious, they are just terms to conceptualize how the mind works in general, and love is clearly subjective, and even just focusing on the pleasure aspect of sex also ties into the totality of biological, psychological, and other types of predispositions within the unconscious mind.

Can we just stick to the title of this post? This isn't about how being in labor can cause orgasm...which i didn't feel anything of the kind...just enormous pressure on my vaginal walls...nothing stimulating about that, and this isn't about how falling in love leading to reproduction.
This is about fear of childbirth. WTF does these other topics come from??

Originally Posted by hathor28

Can we just stick to the title of this post? This isn't about how being in labor can cause orgasm...which i didn't feel anything of the kind...just enormous pressure on my vaginal walls...nothing stimulating about that, and this isn't about how falling in love leading to reproduction.
This is about fear of childbirth. WTF does these other topics come from??

You are right that people mentioning "orgasmic" birth don't really have much merit in a serious thread like this, but again, to say other topics don't have some relation with Tocophobia (i.e falling in love when it's usually a precedent towards leading to reproduction, but not in absolute standards when applying it to other sexualities, etc.) is either incompetence on your end or maybe you're too indolent to see how other topics can interrelate to this, ESPECIALLY since OP is trying to give an open-mind towards approaching this phobia in varied ways. I swear, sometimes the potential for threads like these that can provide a chance for some interesting perspectives from others becomes derailed when people aren't capable of understanding that anything deemed as a psychological disorder will obviously have science, theories on gender and sexualities, and such to connect with it.

Note, I'm not trying to attack you, it's just when any individual that stifles other probabilities becomes disheartening in making this thread shine a bit more on letting people gain more insight into this.

It's like I'm taking crazy pills in this forum, and I'm running out of prescriptions for them.

Originally Posted by Linkzelda

To set an absolute standard (that leads to a double-standard on your end) that just because he's a male and labeling any of his attempts to give his opinions on it as nonsense because he's not a female is just as narrow-minded as what you presume he's doing. And it's even doubly ironic and bit hypocritical while you try to be the white knight towards empathizing childbirth (pay attention to how your double-standard initiates because of your white-knighting that masks it), and also stating your logic with males can't talk about anything in terms of childbirth, you automatically set yourself up for a major contradiction.

I meant he can't just say it's "overblown" because he'll never experience it. And I'm not white-knighting. I just don't like ignorance.

That said, I'm outta here.

Originally Posted by Linkzelda

You are right that people mentioning "orgasmic" birth don't really have much merit in a serious thread like this, but again, to say other topics don't have some relation with Tocophobia (i.e falling in love when it's usually a precedent towards leading to reproduction, but not in absolute standards when applying it to other sexualities, etc.) is either incompetence on your end or maybe you're too indolent to see how other topics can interrelate to this, ESPECIALLY since OP is trying to give an open-mind towards approaching this phobia in varied ways. I swear, sometimes the potential for threads like these that can provide a chance for some interesting perspectives from others becomes derailed when people aren't capable of understanding that anything deemed as a psychological disorder will obviously have science, theories on gender and sexualities, and such to connect with it.

Note, I'm not trying to attack you, it's just when any individual that stifles other probabilities becomes disheartening in making this thread shine a bit more on letting people gain more insight into this.

It's like I'm taking crazy pills in this forum, and I'm running out of prescriptions for them.

No but at least make a thread where people think child birth is sexual or w/e.....it doesn't make sense here. If you or anyone else want to "Open-mind" this subject maybe it's better to consider a new thread about it? And see where it goes.

Alright hathor28, if you think me or anyone else that's trying to be open-minded about this should make a new thread about associating with things about Tocophobia, the irrational fear of Childbirth because it doesn't make sense to you...I guess I can only have pity for you.

Forgive me OP, I apologize for any attempts for being open-minded about this, I always thought forums were made to give some basis for gathering solutions, suggestions, insight, etc. from others (which means the person is attempting to gain insight and being open-minded to them), but I guess in hathor28's case, it's best to just promote narrow-minded views and create echo chambers. Silly me! All this time I had a skewed perception on how discussions on forums worked!

You want to know where it would go hathor28? It will just be shifted into this thread. I'll make sure to stick to the title of the thread by not associating how phobias work and how this certain phobia can occur.

Sorry for the writing of this, very tired, about to fall asleep. =(

I keep meaning to respond to stuff in this thread and never getting to it, starting with tommo's post (only skimmed the rest so far). Just posting this because I see discussions happening now and want to actually participate so I will read thoroughly and respond tomorrow.

Basically, about this topic, when I first found out I got rather excited since I'd never heard of it before and had thought previously that no one could relate. I still think I could be said to have tocophobia, because my reaction is, I think, pretty bad compared to most women's. However, I don't know if I consider it a 'condition' like there's something in our genes or brain that's just 'off' which gives some people a special aversion to childbirth. It's probably just that it's a disgusting thing anyway. I don't think anyone doesn't find childbirth at least a bit disturbing. And I'm sure some people just find it more disturbing than others, for various reasons, and I'm one of them.

And I have a problem with what tommo said and will argue about it later, but I don't think it's because he's male. Even if you're male you can probably at least try to imagine what it would be like. And even as a female I don't know what it's like since I've never given birth, although I guess I could imagine it better than a man could because I have the parts involved. I agree with everything else timedragon said though. And I'll just say that I don't know what tommo means by the media/society hyping up the pain of childbirth. All I've seen is the opposite. In the media it's viewed as normal to have babies. Mothers on tv, etc. and even in real life just seem too happy about the baby to even care or think about giving birth. If anything, it seems like it's shown to be rather painless, with the woman on so many drugs she can barely feel it, with just a couple minutes of pain while it's actually coming out, which seems to happen pretty quickly in shows and movies. Then the next scene she's smiling and nursing the baby. It seems to me that I'm horrified by the whole process despite how positive the media and society have made it seem.

I guess I posted more than I thought I would, but still have stuff to say to link I"m sure and others even though I haven't read it yet.

Oh and the orgasm thing is really rare, and the fact that a woman could get an orgasm is completely irrelevant. You're missing the point. It isn't even the 'pain' itself that I care about, it's more just the type of pain and the knowledge of a living thing being inside you and coming out of you. Bein gstretched open and stuff. It's a similar disturbing/painful feeling I get when I see pictures of those people who mutilate themselves by stretching their nostrils or necks or mouths out. It's not just that I think it would hurt, it's that seeing it happening feels so wrong and disturbing. Or like, the feeling you might get if you imagine a tube being put up your urethra... but worse. It feels disturbing in a way similar to that.

Yes....so i can think of having an orgasmic experience while i give birth and or is pregnant at the time? I want to see yours or someone else's thread about this and see how many women will attack this stupid thought or a certain stupid trend for pregnant women....Link....i want to see how it will go.
Never tell a woman she will feel an orgasm while she gives birth, while in the end it isn't that at all....but just pain. Quit being in trends because it's bogus.

Originally Posted by Linkzelda

Alright hathor28, if you think me or anyone else that's trying to be open-minded about this should make a new thread about associating with things about Tocophobia, the irrational fear of Childbirth because it doesn't make sense to you...I guess I can only have pity for you.

Forgive me OP, I apologize for any attempts for being open-minded about this, I always thought forums were made to give some basis for gathering solutions, suggestions, insight, etc. from others (which means the person is attempting to gain insight and being open-minded to them), but I guess in hathor28's case, it's best to just promote narrow-minded views and create echo chambers. Silly me! All this time I had a skewed perception on how discussions on forums worked!

You want to know where it would go hathor28? It will just be shifted into this thread. I'll make sure to stick to the title of the thread by not associating how phobias work and how this certain phobia can occur.

What i MEAN is go and do a thread and call it "Orgasmic child birth".....trust me it won't go here nice try.

Originally Posted by Dianeva

Sorry for the writing of this, very tired, about to fall asleep. =(

I keep meaning to respond to stuff in this thread and never getting to it, starting with tommo's post (only skimmed the rest so far). Just posting this because I see discussions happening now and want to actually participate so I will read thoroughly and respond tomorrow.

Basically, about this topic, when I first found out I got rather excited since I'd never heard of it before and had thought previously that no one could relate. I still think I could be said to have tocophobia, because my reaction is, I think, pretty bad compared to most women's. However, I don't know if I consider it a 'condition' like there's something in our genes or brain that's just 'off' which gives some people a special aversion to childbirth. It's probably just that it's a disgusting thing anyway. I don't think anyone doesn't find childbirth at least a bit disturbing. And I'm sure some people just find it more disturbing than others, for various reasons, and I'm one of them.

And I have a problem with what tommo said and will argue about it later, but I don't think it's because he's male. Even if you're male you can probably at least try to imagine what it would be like. And even as a female I don't know what it's like since I've never given birth, although I guess I could imagine it better than a man could because I have the parts involved. I agree with everything else timedragon said though. And I'll just say that I don't know what tommo means by the media/society hyping up the pain of childbirth. All I've seen is the opposite. In the media it's viewed as normal to have babies. Mothers on tv, etc. and even in real life just seem too happy about the baby to even care or think about giving birth. If anything, it seems like it's shown to be rather painless, with the woman on so many drugs she can barely feel it, with just a couple minutes of pain while it's actually coming out, which seems to happen pretty quickly in shows and movies. Then the next scene she's smiling and nursing the baby. It seems to me that I'm horrified by the whole process despite how positive the media and society have made it seem.

I guess I posted more than I thought I would, but still have stuff to say to link I"m sure and others even though I haven't read it yet.

Oh and the orgasm thing is really rare, and the fact that a woman could get an orgasm is completely irrelevant. You're missing the point. It isn't even the 'pain' itself that I care about, it's more just the type of pain and the knowledge of a living thing being inside you and coming out of you. Bein gstretched open and stuff. It's a similar disturbing/painful feeling I get when I see pictures of those people who mutilate themselves by stretching their nostrils or necks or mouths out. It's not just that I think it would hurt, it's that seeing it happening feels so wrong and disturbing. Or like, the feeling you might get if you imagine a tube being put up your urethra... but worse. It feels disturbing in a way similar to that.

It's called a trend, on tv and youtube etc....making women think that child birth is so awesome....when in reality? nope. it's painful.

Originally Posted by hathor28

Yes....so i can think of having an orgasmic experience while i give birth and or is pregnant at the time? I want to see yours or someone else's thread about this and see how many women will attack this stupid thought or a certain stupid trend for pregnant women....Link....i want to see how it will go.
Never tell a woman she will feel an orgasm while she gives birth, while in the end it isn't that at all....but just pain. Quit being in trends because it's bogus.

Originally Posted by hathor28

What i MEAN is go and do a thread and call it "Orgasmic child birth".....trust me it won't go here nice try.

Again, another misunderstanding between me and you. I was not agreeing with tommo's mentioning of Orgasmic child birth, in fact, I even stated specifically in the previous post (it was right there on the top) that his posting would not cater to the minds of men and women on this thread.

There's no need for anyone to make another thread when it's clear the original poster for that thread will receive tremendous backlash from other users. That's why doing so makes the endeavor of having a new thread useless, and what's needed is for people to filter out what doesn't make sense, and just talk about things that DO make sense.

When I said being open-minded, I did not mean adding "orgasmic childbirth" into that equation, that would just be downright sick and miserable. I meant adding what stacks onto having this phobia and other phobias in general. I don't know how you thought I was thinking that orgasmic childbirth is a good thing, or something that I condone, or even something I would want to make a thread on. I don't know how in the hell you made a deduction like that. You either just wanted to shift the blame on someone (me) who wasn't even condoning the idea, or again, simple lack of reading the intentions of my post and making skewed perceptions on what I do and don't agree on.

This is how people don't pay attention to what other people are saying, they stop at 1% of what that person says and make horrible deductions.

> People who don't read the person's post sees the shorter post of another user making horrible deductions on what a person says
>Person that makes the post that was wrongly interpreted from the person reading it gets insulted, picked on, etc. because of the horrible deduction
>Person realizes previous poster wasn't agreeing on something they thought they were agreeing on
>Doesn't want to admit they made a mistake in them reading that person's post
>Remains silent or grabs a straw man (or whatever logical fallacy) to make their horrible deductions plausible

Originally Posted by Linkzelda

You are right that people mentioning "orgasmic" birth don't really have much merit in a serious thread like this, but again, to say other topics don't have some relation with Tocophobia (i.e falling in love when it's usually a precedent towards leading to reproduction, but not in absolute standards when applying it to other sexualities, etc.) is either incompetence on your end or maybe you're too indolent to see how other topics can interrelate to this, ESPECIALLY since OP is trying to give an open-mind towards approaching this phobia in varied ways. I swear, sometimes the potential for threads like these that can provide a chance for some interesting perspectives from others becomes derailed when people aren't capable of understanding that anything deemed as a psychological disorder will obviously have science, theories on gender and sexualities, and such to connect with it.

Note, I'm not trying to attack you, it's just when any individual that stifles other probabilities becomes disheartening in making this thread shine a bit more on letting people gain more insight into this.

It's like I'm taking crazy pills in this forum, and I'm running out of prescriptions for them.

Read this again....no i didn't misunderstand the way you responded here.

Originally Posted by hathor28

Read this again....no i didn't misunderstand the way you responded here.

You're making this worse for yourself hathor28, how far do you want to extend this abysmal delusion you're portraying in not seeing what I've stated there?

Please hathor, tell me what was wrong in my posting, please tell me how agreeing with you that anyone talking about the topic of orgasmic childbirth does not have much merit (worth or value) in this thread was something bad. Please, tell me, don't tell me to read what I've formulated and read constantly before even posting it.

Originally Posted by hathor28

Yes....so i can think of having an orgasmic experience while i give birth and or is pregnant at the time? I want to see yours or someone else's thread about this and see how many women will attack this stupid thought or a certain stupid trend for pregnant women....Link....i want to see how it will go.
Never tell a woman she will feel an orgasm while she gives birth, while in the end it isn't that at all....but just pain. Quit being in trends because it's bogus.

I want to know why you included me into this. Either you were responding to Dianeva, and somehow added me into this, or whatever, but the thing is, I need you to show me where there's some contradiction in my post. If you were just mentioning me as a means to say "Pay attention to what these people are saying with orgasmic childbirth," then yes, I am paying attention.

If that's the case hathor, I apologize if I interpreted that some other way, but if that's not the case, explain.

Haha ok I hope this lightens the mood a little bit. Today at work I said to my co-workers, "Hey, I learned a new word yesterday!" And when I told them, I guess I said it wrong because they thought I said "Taco-phobia"

So you can imagine the jokes that followed, once I explained the actual definition