Radiant Motherhood: A Book for Those Who are Creating the Future

by Marie Carmichael Stopes

This view of mine, in the present crude state of scientific knowledge must, of course, be stated as an hypothesis, but it will be proved later on when science is sufficiently subtle to detect the actual microscopic exchange of particles which takes place during proper and prolonged physical contact in the sex union.

Light on my thesis is also shown by the converse: For instance, an interesting suggestion was made by a distinguished medical specialist as a result of his observation of two or three of his own patients, where the prospective mother had desired unions and the husband had denied them thinking it in her interest: the doctor observed that the children seemed to grow up restless and uncontrollable, with a marked tendency to self-abuse. To these two or three instances I have added some which have come under my own observation and, although as yet the evidence is insufficient to support a dogmatic attitude, I incline to think that not only the deprivation of the mother of proper union during pregnancy, but also the after effects of some years of the use of coitus interruptus tends to have a similar effect upon later children. That is to say that mothers whose natural desire for union has been denied, and mothers who are congenitally frigid rather tend to produce children with unbalanced sex-feeling liable to yield to self-abuse. Immoderate and excessive desire for sex union during pregnancy so far as I am aware is rare, and where it occurs it should of course be treated as an abnormality.

The mother of the higher type, such as I have indicated in the paragraphs above who does desire unions, will probably only require them infrequently during these months.

It should be obvious, but as the general public often lacks a visualizing imagination, I ought to add, that for the proper consummation of the act of union, particularly during the later months of coming parenthood, the ordinary position with the man above the woman is not suitable and may be harmful. The pair should either lie side by side, or should lie so that they are almost at right angles to each other, so that there is no pressure upon the woman. Or the man should lie on his side behind the woman, which makes penetration easy and safe and free from pressure. I might point out here a fact which is of general importance in all true consummations of the sex union, and that is that all the preliminaries and even the final act of ejaculation itself do not constitute the whole of the truest union. A truth on which I lay great stress, although I have not yet dealt with it fully in any publications, is the fact that an extremely important phase of each union is the close and prolonged contact after the culmination takes place. The benefit to both of the pair of remaining in the closest possible physical contact for as long a time as is possible after the crisis is almost incalculable.

A whole chapter could be written upon this theme, and indeed it should be written. In the union during pregnancy, a woman is by nature debarred from the complete and intense muscular orgasm and for her, indeed, the union must essentially consist almost solely of the close contact of skin with skin and of the absorption of molecular particles as well as the resolution of nervous tension as the result of so close and prolonged a contact.

Among the children known to me personally, several of the most beautiful were the children of mothers and fathers who had unions during the months of their development. The following quotation from a young husband may be of interest in this connection:—

The day before the birth of our baby, we went for a six-mile walk over country ground, and I slept with my wife the very night before he was born.... We had unions, but not in the ordinary position; she would be on her side with her back to me, and after union would quietly go off to sleep in my arms, and in the morning would wake with a joyful and passionate kiss. Now our baby is one of the finest of babies from all points of view.

As I have seen photographs of the child, I can endorse the parent’s opinions.

Tolstoy’s condemnation of any sex contact while the wife was pregnant or nursing may have influenced some serious men, but, as in many other respects, Tolstoy’s teaching is so widely contradictory, and depends so much upon his own age and state at the time, one cannot but regret the unbalanced influence his literary power has given him.

While this chapter may be taken as an indication that sex union is, in my opinion, not only allowable but advisable for certain types during the time they are carrying a child, nevertheless I do not wish it to be misinterpreted in such a way that a single act of union which is repugnant to the prospective mother should be urged upon her “for her good.”