I wouldn't know a photo of "Britney Spears" if I saw one. But I'm left wondering what positions the women were in in the births the writer HAS seen. I gave birth to my first son on my hands and knees at home, and pushing that kid out was a mountaintop experience--awesome. My second son was breech, so I went to a hospital. Declined a C-section, and gave birth vaginally to a 9-pounder who came butt first with his legs crossed.

I worked like a draft horse, but the only PAIN involved was when the ob-gyn made me climb on the frigging gurney so they could take the baby's heartbeat in between contractions. If I'd had to deliver on my back on that thing, I would have opted for the C-section. My spine was beyond misery when they asked me to be in a position that has a baby working against gravity to be born. (The nurses finally figured out that they could take the heartbeat by holding the monitor against my stomach while I stood on the floor and leaned over the bed. Hallelujah.) The implication that giving birth in a fashion other than the "traditional" delivery bed scenario drives me nuts. Especially in a column that's ostensibly "woman-focused."

what's the deal with the bearskin rug? That's what I want to know.

jf

After following the link to the gallery website, and despite a firewall and farely good anti spyware and internet security software, i immediately found my computer infected with adware programs which have taken be over thirty minutes to root out. Salon should post a warning or disable the link immediately.

Hi ybf272,

Thanks for calling attention to the sentence that bugged you. I'm glad to hear your deliveries went well! Just to clarify, though, I wasn't trying to suggest that the only appropriate way for a woman to labor or give birth is lying on her back. The deliveries I've been fortunate enough to witness have indeed involved all kinds of positions, and I strongly agree that the "traditional" delivery bed is not the only or necessarily the best way. What surprised me about the Spears scuplture is that it's quite a sexualized depiction of birth. While I think there are probably as many different birth experiences as there are mothers in the world, the births I've seen and the descriptions of birth that I've heard haven't had quite that quality. (Though I'm thrilled for any mothers who have found the experience sexy.) Regardless, I'm in agreement with your suggestion that the right way to give birth is the way that feels right to the mother.

I've seen it--its not birth, its porn...or, a pornographic birth. Its a man's objectification and utter-misunderstanding of the birth process, which is pornographic in the sense that it reduces what is sexual (childbirth is sexual; sex is not all about pleasure, but also about processes of the reproductive system) to the owning male gaze. The birth position is ridiculous. The face, the hands, the isolation of the event--these are all not only unrealistic, but harmful images to the male psyche. Why the male psyche? Because it further mystifies the birthing process and works to separate men from the reality of the human birth. Women in childbirth are in need of community--medical, family, partner, etc...birth is NOT an isolated event and nor should it be. Child-rearing, like birth, should involve a community and the false nuclear family of contemporary society is resulting in staggering levels of post-partum depression and overwhelmed parents (esp. mothers). This statue is representative of the right-wings ultimate message: women alone give-birth, raise, and nurture children and in exchange for that, right wing men will take away their rights to determine when to give birth, but yet idealize motherhood. Pushing women into isolation, these men can "regain" in a mythic return to origins, a sense of manly control and sense of providing (yet, this is economically no longer possible except to the highest eschelons of society, but hey, they're in charge, what do they care about on the ground facts and figures? Evil ideals is their purview)

That's one ugly sculpture.

...based on my brief browsings of the tabloids in the supermarket checkout lines lately, isn't Ms. Spears planning to resume her singing career soon? So much for "choosing motherhoood over career!"

There's something downright creepy about that sculpture! And no, it does not look like she's giving birth. It would have looked more real if she were on an operating table with a surgeon standing over her - didn't she choose a cesarean for convenience?

I must apologize for the pop under advertisements that we had been briefly running on our website. We began the advertising program after the stir of our forthcoming exhibition caused a spike in our monthly traffic, thereby crashing our server and incurring additional expenses for our online presentation.

Thanks to one of our patrons, we now have funding to maintain a stream of steady traffic to our website without depending on an advertising program.

I assure you that we are a very real gallery, and this exhibition and its including artworks are very real as well. I am certain anyone who visits our gallery to view the exhibit, which opens to the public on Saturday April 7 and will run until April 23, will not be disappointed.

David Kesting and Lincoln Capla

Proprietors

Capla Kesting Fine Art

121 Roebling St

Brooklyn NY 11211

http://www.caplakesting.com

...she's giving birth (been to 300+ as an RN, had 2 myself) ...as far as the position goes (she's pushing out an occiput-posterior baby)... it just doesn't look like it as far as the lack of sweat and the neat bun of hair. (If you think that sweaty tousledness would make the birth image more sexual, well, the two concepts are pretty linked.)

What it DOESN'T look like is Britney Spears.

Which brings me to the blankness of the face... What's up with the lack of feeling in the sculpture? Do anti-choicers just not really feel, do they just not empathize with women's pain?

Oh.