One of the biggest fears
that expectant fathers have is that there sex life is going to
change forever. And here is an email straight and right to the
point.
Dear Mr. Dad: Help! I’m
an expectant father and something has happened to my sex drive.
Well for some men sex
during pregnancy is an incredible turn-on, for others it kind of
borders on revolting, I hate to use that word but that’s a word that
I hear a lot from guys. Where you stand on intercourse depends on a
lot of factors but one thing is pretty much guaranteed - When your
partner is pregnant your sex life is going to change.
In the first trimester
the pregnancy might make you a little bit hornier than you were
before. For a lot of guys getting a woman pregnant is kind of a
confirmation of their masculinity before becoming expectant
fathers. In fact a lot guys secretly fear that they are sterile and
there is really nothing like getting a women pregnant to make you
feel like a fully functional guy.
In addition a lot of
expectant fathers feel closer to their wives than ever before and
that closeness is often expressed erotically. I should mention here
because I get a lot of email from guys that are not the biological
father their wives conceived through artificial insemination and I
don’t mean to suggest at all that a guy that is not the biological
father, who was involved in an artificial insemination is anything
less than a fully functional man, I’m using that kind of language
that I hear from expectant fathers.
For a lot of guys the
first trimester and maybe even the entire pregnancy is a time of
decreased sexual desire. Before your partner got pregnant for
example she was your wife, beautiful sexy woman that you loved and
her breasts and vagina were fun but now that she is pregnant her
body is really a lot less fun and more functional.
Even worse when the
pregnancy is over you know she is going to be a mother and mother’s
are not always seen as sexy and if you believe that sex is purely
for procreation now that she is pregnant some people feel that there
is just no sense in doing it anymore. As the pregnancy progresses
the differences between the guys who want to have sex and the guys
who don’t want to have sex continues.
Most men for example find
their partners growing body to kind of be the essence of femininity
and they are really excited and they find it quite attractive,
others don’t though. Their partners growing abdomen, leaking
breasts might seem a bit more messy than enticing but perhaps the
most common reason that men and women cut back on their sex life
during pregnancy is the fear that they are going to hurt the baby.
If you are concerned
about this stop worrying right now. The baby is safely cushioned
inside a whole big bag full of amniotic fluid. Unless you are
having very rough sex you have almost no chance of injuring anyone.
Your partner’s ideas about sex during pregnancy can also run the
gamut like yours. She may feel more connected to you than before
and she may be much less inhibited now that you don’t have to use
birth control.
She may find the idea of
having created life with you to be wildly erotic and she may be
delighted to with her swelling and more feminine body. On the other
hand she may be spending a lot of the first trimester vomiting from
morning sickness which is hardly an aphrodisiac; she may also be
thinking that mothers aren’t supposed to have sex.
She may be worried about
hurting the baby as I said or she may just be feeling fat and
unattractive. When it comes to sex for many couples the expectant
mothers changing body is really an interesting source of conflict
and misunderstanding and confusion. You may find a pregnant form
arousing but you might not want to do anything sexual because you
are worried that she is feeling unattractive.
On the other hand she
might be feeling sexier than ever but she may not want to start
anything with you because she is afraid that you don’t like her body
anymore. A solution here is you might guess is to talk to each
other openly about how you feel about your desires. Chances are you
are going to be pleasantly surprised at how similar the two of you
feel.
You’ll also really need
to start thinking right now about expanding your sexual horizons
especially during the last couple of months during the pregnancy
when your partner may find the missionary position uncomfortable and
maybe even impossible. So if you haven’t thought of them already
you’ve got to plan ahead and get a couple of other sexual positions
in mind and try them out now.
And if those don’t do the
job there is always oral sex or mutual masturbation or vibrators,
those are all perfectly acceptable and really quite wonderful ways
of pleasuring each other sometimes.
If you’ve got a comment
or question that you would like to get the dad’s perspective about
you can drop me a line through the Baby talk Radio.com website or
you can visit my website,
http://www.mrdad.com. You can send me email from there and you
can find out about the various books that I’ve written starting with
the Expectant Father going onto the first year and the toddler
years. I’ve got a podcast for dads, a daily podcast called The
Daddy Cast and a brand new DVD that’s called Toolbox for New Dads.
You can also subscribe to my monthly newsletter, the Mister Dad.com
newsletter. You can do all of that at
http://www.mr.dad.com.
