The only birth I have attended aside from my own births was that of a friend who wished me to videotape her in what was to be a loving and gentle homebirth after an unnecessary and traumatic cesarean. I was honored and very excited. I had not yet begun to understand birth as being an act of intimacy, however, so I was surprised at my reaction to my viewing of a birth in real time — I was struck by the beauty of it and wept, as I had on occasion while watching a birth on video — but also felt keenly the wrongness of my being there. The husband put his head close to his wife’s, murmuring his love and support, and she hid her face in his shoulder, as if to retreat from all that was going on around her — the midwives talking amongst themselves, their instructions, their hands on her. I was upset by this, but just as much by my own part in it. Standing there quietly, hardly even moving, trying to be as unintrusive as possible, the words formed in my mind: I am not supposed to be here. This is not for me. The sense of my presence in itself violating this holy space was so strong that I felt ashamed.

I didn’t talk to my friend about it. I was embarrassed about my reaction and worried that she wouldn’t understand. Women have had women attend them in birth for eons, after all. That’s the way it’s supposed to be, isn’t it?

It was more than a year later that my friend broached the subject. As it often does for mothers, it had taken her that long to process the experience. She shyly asked me how I had felt about the events of her birth, and I haltingly told her what I had seen and felt. She nodded and confessed that she had been uncomfortable with having others present, and that if she was ever to give birth again she would do so in privacy.

It makes me wonder how many women do feel a sense of violation at having others observe them in such a primal act, and why some might not. If making love was a phenomenon largely unknown in our culture, would women feel violated at a purely mechanical means of conception? Do women usually feel violated when having in-vitro fertilization by their choice? My guess is not. And perhaps that’s an analogy to the kind of birth in which the mother can feel completely removed from the primal aspect of it.

But what about half-way? What if it was convention for the mother to be impregnated in a semi-private setting with those she loved around her, fully or partly naturally (i.e., involving sexual acts)? It seems that the sense of violation in such a situation would grow in two ways: the more as choice and power was denied her, and the more naturally a sexual act was attempted without a corresponding increase in privacy.

In the birth stories I’ve read where a mother finds herself grieving even though she has a live, healthy baby, it’s nearly always one or the other. Our culture denies the validity of both, but most extremely the latter. Why? I think because it conflicts the most with moral pressure to avoid the risks we know about or fear most: we may not comprehend the long-reaching effects of a disturbed birth on self, family, and society, but even when we do, even stronger is the fear of death and the belief that birth more than life itself puts us on that threshold. We can recognize the absurdity of a semi-private natural impregnation, but feel we can’t afford to acknowledge the same about semi-private birth. So as a culture we make up myths to protect the individual’s emotional well-being from the exposure and outward handling of what wants to be an act of intimacy and intuition. Myths like: Birth just is about sisterhood. Women don’t instinctively know how to give birth so they must be told. Human physiology makes birth inherently difficult, so birth needs mechanical assistance. Birth is not on the sexual continuum.

Unfortunately the protection these myths mean to give isn’t guaranteed. After my first assisted birth I felt badly, but I desperately wanted to feel good and normal about this most wondrous, important, sacred event, so I suppressed the bad feelings. I thanked the midwife “for all you do for women”. And then I found out that none of the things she insisted I needed — the control over my sounds and movements, the vaginal exams, the perineal massage, the sitting between my legs and peering at my genitals, the intent watchfulness, the exhortations to push — were necessary. Only then was I able to let go of the charade. It hadn’t felt good, any of it — it felt like a trespass, strange and unsettling — and my body carried that memory with it in spite of my initial obligated gratitude, and manifested in depression and difficulty bonding with my baby.

In stark contrast was the birth that only my husband attended. It was fully spontaneous, instinctive, uninhibited, and emotionally gratifying. I was at peace in the hours and days following the birth, and I cannot begin to express how profoundly this affected the postpartum and my ability to mother my baby. There is some controversy over whether the presence of the mother’s mate in birth disturbs her hormonal process, and whether it affects their sexual relationship adversely. Neither was true for us, and I believe that it was because he was able to enter into a very primal place with me, neither as assistant nor as observer, but as lover. The key is intimacy, and the ability to be unselfconscious. The mother may not be able to achieve this with her mate, especially if their relationship is not one of mutual respect and trust or if he is fearful or cannot enter into an altered state of consciousness with her, and likely not in a non- or semi-private setting in any case. Given privacy, though, he may be the only person she can do this with. Midwives are fond of proclaiming that birth is a sexual process: “What gets the baby in, gets the baby out.” This is very true. The hormonal process of birth is nearly identical to that of sex, and the normal unfolding of it is dependent on many of the same conditions that are necessary for sexual arousal and orgasm.

Michel Odent writes, “during the birth process and any kind of sexual experience, any stimulation of the neocortex tends to have an inhibitory effect: logical words, feeling observed, bright lights, etc.”, and that certain instinctive, normal birthing behaviors do not take place “if another person takes on the role of “coach,” “guide,” “helper,” “support person,” or “observer”.”

Sarah Buckley writes, “Undisturbed birth is exceedingly rare in our culture, even in birth centers and homebirths. Two factors that disturb birth in all mammals are firstly being in an unfamiliar place and secondly the presence of an observer. Feelings of safety and privacy thus seem to be fundamental. […] Some writers have observed that, for a woman, having a baby has a lot of parallels with making a baby: same hormones, same parts of the body, same sounds, and the same needs for feelings of safety and privacy. How would it be to attempt to make love in the conditions under which we expect women to give birth?”