...except for one dad
Women are all in an uproar about the fact that James Braly, a brave, albeit a little dumb, husband and dad who wrote an essay lamenting the fact that his wife’s decision to continue breastfeeding their 5-year-old is interfering with his sexy times with his wife. I figured I’d live blog my reaction to the article’s main WTFreak moments. Let’s begin.
NY Times quotes in italics, my thoughts in bold.
I know, most women think their breasts are theirs. I’ve been hearing this since I was a toddler being cautioned, “Don’t touch!” But most guys just want to touch.
Sir, this is not the way to start an article. Good God. *puts arms over my chest*
So any conclusions about extended breast-feeding must consider the impact on the whole family. And I would argue, based both on anecdotal evidence and personal experience, that the impact on the man in the family, eventually, is negative. A recent (if highly dubious) study of Brooklyn families linked helicopter mothering with philandering. The argument: a mother who hovers over her little prince or princess too long leaves the former king of the castle feeling increasingly powerless, and likelier to seek a queen on the side.
Seek a queen on the side? Because your wife loves your kids too much? Sir, how old are you?
There are some things in life most men cannot share with first-graders, and two of them used to be called breasts.
What are these other things you can’t share with a five-year-old? Do tell.
Seeing my wife’s breasts through my boys’ eyes…given the choice, I knew I’d do what they were doing. Before they came along, I did.
Sir!!! (You see, I keep calling you “sir” to signify that I respect you, but you’re pushing it.) All I hear is you whining about how you used to suck on your wife’s boobs, and now you can’t ’cause your kid is in the way. Is this not a conversation you need to have with your wife? And not with this obnoxious tone of “You don’t care about me anymore!”
For what man in a committed relationship has not considered having sex with someone other than his breast-feeding partner?…Considering such liaisons is biology for most men.
Dude (I had to drop the “sir”), you’re ridiculous. So damn ridiculous. You’ve considered having sex with someone other than your breastfeeding wife because she’s…breastfeeding and you consider it to be pretty normal for men to think this way?
But a family man who wants to keep his family knows to say no. The positive effects of a sexual encounter on an otherwise monogamous man are outweighed by the negative effects on his companion, and consequently on them.
Gee, you don’t say! Extramarital affairs have a negative consequence?
I am disappointed in this article for a number of reasons. One – where is the communication in this relationship or at the very least, in this article? What does his wife have to say about this? Let’s hope this article is not the first time she’s heard of how he feels.
And really, being a woman and having “been there” if the marriage’s sexual frequency isn’t that high, it’s a common problem related to the fact that you have two young kids and you have to work at keeping things spicy. Blaming everything on breastfeeding doesn’t help matters any.
How did breastfeeding affect your relationship with your significant other? Did he get jealous? Was he supportive?
I have to call him dude – dude’s article is stupid! How hold is he? I guess I find a mature pov missing from this article. If i were his wife I’d smack him, unless she’s in on the joke also.
To answer your questions – while i did not breastfeed any longer than 6 mos for each child, my husband was not jealous; he was supportive. childbirth affects your time together – its just a fact of life, but it doesn’t stay that way.
I’m sure what this man’s problem with breastfeeding is. And I feel for his poor wife. Having three years of breastfeeding experience, I can say that breastfeeding is hard enough without having your husband bash you in public for it because he doesn’t want to “share.” I hope she’s getting support from other family members.
I can’t say that breastfeeding has had a negative effect on my sex life with my husband. I can say that it’s helped it though!
I don’t know what to say about this “dude.” Is he serious? I really hope not. Sadly, some men do go though the jealousy stage when a woman is breastfeeding, at some point my husband did the same thing. Nipped that in the butt.
Honestly, this day in age, women’s breasts are only sexualized and not really tooted for what their function really is–feeding our offspring. It’s going to take a long time as a society to move away from that notion.
A 5 yr old being breastfed?? please stop the madness. That child is 1/2 of the way to being 10 years old!! c’mon. Since my husband and I are one, I have to be considerate of his needs just as he should be considerate of mine, those needs include sexual, emotional, spiritual, etc. Anything that interrupts those needs, especially for an abnormal or prolonged (and not agreed upon) period of time, has now become an endangerment to my marriage.
It goes without saying that, there’s no excuse for committing adultery. However, the wife and husband should decide and agree on the length of time breastfeeding will continue.
By the way, breasts are indeed for feeding babies and they’re also for arousal purposes for both the woman and man. It is possible to have multifunctional body parts ya know? just like your hands can coddle a baby or stroke your man — but in marriage its all about balance. Too much of anything is not beneficial, and 5 yrs is too much breastfeeding especially if it’s not a family decision.
I believe this marriage is suffering from some communication issues, whether on his side or her’s I’m not sure.
Dude was retarded for this article, so I’ll just cosign with the above commenter:
“Too much of anything is not beneficial, and 5 yrs is too much breastfeeding especially if it’s not a family decision.”