Letters to the Editor
-
Gimme a break!
Sparky the Wonder Pony - how you were able to come to all of your conclusions from this article is beyond me or anyone with any comprehension of logic. BTW, you might be surprised to learn that there are quite a few women already enjoying sex by their 6 week postpartum visit - but that wouldn't fit into your view of "female postpartum physiology and sexuality".
It's amazing how people can turn anything they want into an argument that suits their agenda.
As far as the article itself is concerned, is IS, in fact, whiny. What's so remarkable that after childbirth, sex can be painful for a while? I bet running marathons right after knee surgery won't feel that great either. But hey, there must be nothing else important happening in the world today....
-
Seriously. I don't care.
I will have to agree with the 23-year old reader who wonders whence all the mommy articles. Not like I'm one inclined to childbirth anyway, but this piece pretty much nailed (pardon the pun) the coffin shut on whatever miniscule desire I might have had.
This article certainly isn't worth space headlining the Salon page. It wouldn't even qualify for Best Post in Table Talk. It's like reading somebody's Livejournal. It doesn't even pretend to tie in to any larger trends or new discoveries about sexuality. This is more on par with that dreadful Ayelet Waldman, and Salon can do better.
Not that I don't enjoy a sex story for purely entertainment's sake, but the ones I do hear generally aren't published on the front page of what is ostensibly a reputable online news journal.
Enough with the personal, oh-so-bourgeois, sinfully dull "women's interest" pieces. Most of the women I know aren't interested in baby blogs.
-
Did someone say "Suburbia"?
I really like this criticism of the piece and other recent articles about women and parenting:
None of them have been powerful or engaging, just a bunch of narrissistic and very spoiled suburban women feeling the need to lament the sudden changes they have to make after childbirth.
First, I'll admit, I live in the suburbs. But what the hell makes you think that is true of Ms. Williams? And what is "spoiled" about life in the 'burbs -- except that we can't get decent takeout. Most of us live here because the cost of living is too high for a family in the cities we live near. That doesn't make us brain dead or spoiled or self-absorbed. I could make the same claims about immature 23 year olds, by the way.
I thought the piece was amusing -- not laugh-out-loud funny, but amusing -- and entertaining. I knew what it would be about from the headline. If I didn't want to read it,I would have passed it right by. What's the problem??
-
Amusing
I glossed over this article and then read the letters. Needless to say, I had to go back and reread the article. It was not whiny or self-absorbed, and was, in fact very funny. The letter writers here have said an anormous amount about themselves in the responses I've read.
Keep up the good work Mary!!
-
Williams isn't whining, but a lot of readers are . . .
Williams experience pretty much reflects the experience of every mother I know. It's *standard*, not substandard or inadequate, medical practice to tell women they can have sex at the six-week post-partum check-up after a normal delivery. It's also normal, thanks to the major hormonal drop, the lack of sleep and the endless nursing to have no libido. In other words, it's *safe* to have sex, but it's not likely you'll want to.
Having been there, I didn't read Williams as being whiny, but as being honest and funny. I've got to wonder if the complaints have less to do with Williams writing or attitude than the fact that a lot of people don't deal with anything that so frankly links mommies and sex.
-
Just Misplaced?
OK, so it seems as if editors at Salon are trying to have more provocative content of late. It certainly needs more viewers/hits to stick around. Readers have commented before on the appropriateness of certain articles as lead stories and I must admit that some of the choices have made me question the integrity of the magazine. I often feel played. Is this like Edward R. Murrow's "paying the bills" situation in Good Night, And Good Luck, where we go from a hard-hitting cover story to a sensational or controversial article that generates buzz? I recall the "Mothers Who Think" column, which this would have been perfect for. Putting this as a lead article just doesn't make sense to me. Is it a horrible article? Do I want my 5 minutes back? No and no. I think we've all seen worse recently. Williams may be a tad narcissistic, but that seems to be the writing trend these days. I chose to read it and I could have ignored it. I wanted it (and other lead stories) to go further than it did, which I feel is my main quibble. Isn't that a reasonable expectation for a lead story? I think the editors at Salon should be taking the heat, not Mary.
-
I liked the story, but. . .
I'm a mom. This story made me chuckle. I think the author had a lot of courage writing this, in part because she can expect an avalanche of letters from the usual suspects with these messages:
-- "I hate breeders and their mini-vans and their strollers and their snotty kids!! Why must Salon FORCE us to read about them and their travails?"
-- "Stay-at-home mothers are scum. Working mothers are scum. They should all be in jail or somewhere out of my sight, along with their spawn, which are nothing but an annoying hobby, after all."
-- "I'm a pert young thing; why do I have to read about parenthood? It's soooo boring, and it's just such a drag to spend my time reading these articles and then writing letters saying how boring they are."
-- "I despise all women. How come they don't love me?"
-
Breaking News: New Mom Lacks Interest in Sex (and World Burns)
(sigh)
Possibly "The Onion" could've done something interesting with this?
~
But you know what's annoying about this article? It starts here:
When it comes to sex, I've always been an overachiever. From the moment I crossed "lose virginity" off a youthful to-do list like it was taking the SATs, I relished the challenge of being good in bed. In my adventures I've experienced earth-shaking lust and utter abandon.
That is bragging. It can be summed up as:
"I fucked a lot. A whole lot. Since the first time I felt like it. And it was just so good."
So right there, you lost all of us who didn't get laid the first time we got the urge, and all the rest who never got the Big O when they did. Then the rest of the article can be boiled down to:
"But after the baby, it sucked."
Gee.
You know what my sister did the second time? She adopted. So the kids don't match. So what?
~
I wonder, do the women who write these whiny little ditties ever think about anything other than their own self-satisfaction?
Reading Salon, one would never know we've got a Supreme Court going to the dogs, a brewing disaster in Israel/Palestine, an environmental nightmare --
Wait!
Oh, baby... Hold On!!
Yeah, stroke it just like that. Just like that...
(never mind)