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Erotic Maternity

in Erotic Attunement: Parenthood and the Ethics of Sensuality between Unequals

This chapter concentrates on mothers nursing infants to whom they have given birth. The breastfeeding relationship appeared the safest place to begin working out the distinctions between healthy and ... More

This chapter concentrates on mothers nursing infants to whom they have given birth. The breastfeeding relationship appeared the safest place to begin working out the distinctions between healthy and perverse maternal eroticism. It discusses physiological links among overtly sexual maternal experiences: pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding. It then investigates four alternative modes of relating women's experiences of breastfeeding and sexuality. It shows the tendency of accounts of maternal sexual pleasure to be tied to visions of eroticism that pattern sex on male orgasm and approach the breast through the male erotic gaze and touch. Women's accounts of breastfeeding showed that women's erotic experience is potentially polymorphic, polyamorous, and fluid, tinged to varying degrees by what is thought of as orgasmic satisfaction and by more diffuse sensual pleasure, but also shaded by boredom, pain, and irritation and often colored by several of these qualities simultaneously.Less

Introduction

in Erotic Attunement: Parenthood and the Ethics of Sensuality between Unequals

Contemporary Western women—especially nursing mothers—inevitably at times experienced their contact with their children as sexually pleasurable. Maternity's destabilization of sexuality and sensual ... More

Contemporary Western women—especially nursing mothers—inevitably at times experienced their contact with their children as sexually pleasurable. Maternity's destabilization of sexuality and sensual pleasure opened endless questions beyond mother-infant relations. This book presents reflection on what children learn about sexuality and physical affection from relationships with their parents and caregivers. It illustrates why the obvious reaction to abuse, forbidding sensual nurture, is as destructive as abuse itself. Exploration of maternal sensuality and women's sexuality indicated that male pedophilia is only partly about the perversion of sexuality. Western liberal culture as a whole, and not merely the ostensibly archaic sexual culture of Roman Catholicism, must bear the blame for the Roman Catholic pedophilia crisis. Finally, an overview of the chapters included in this book is given.Less

What Can Be Done by Individuals, Associations, and Governments: Time to End the Pied Piper Scenario

Barbara Demeneix

in Losing Our Minds: Effects of Chemical Pollution on the Intellectual Capacity and Mental Health of Future Generations

The tale of the Pied Piper of Hamelin is well known for its final imagery of a town losing its children as they are led away by a musician clad in multicolored clothes. What is less often recalled is ... More

The tale of the Pied Piper of Hamelin is well known for its final imagery of a town losing its children as they are led away by a musician clad in multicolored clothes. What is less often recalled is that the cause was the council’s attempts to save money. Children were sacrificed for financial gain. This final chapter argues that actions by individuals in their daily lives, but also within associations and as electors, can be significant and worthwhile. Individual action and lifestyle choices can, to some extent, limit exposure to certain chemical categories. Clearly, pregnant women and nursing mothers need to be informed of potential risks so they can take precautionary action, and the medical profession needs to be trained to help. Ensuring that women do not enter pregnancy in a state of even mild iodine lack is a first inexpensive requirement with immense cost benefit.Less