I never went through a sex ed class. It was rural Wisconsin. My parents would barely admit that such a thing as sex existed.

On the other hand, my class had two anti-drug units in school in three years (4th and 6th grades, maybe). I saw the Art Linkletter and Sonny Bono anti-drug movies at least twice.

Our drug curriculum was called Here's Looking At You 2000. The stated goal was to eliminate illegal drug use by the year 2000. We started the program in elementary school, around 1997. The second grade curriculum had a puppet bird named Miranda, and we all loved Miranda. At the end of the year, when we saw the box that all the materials were being put away in, a few kids started crying that it was Miranda's coffin. Then in third grade, we were supposed to have a puppet fox, but everyone loved Miranda so much that we all refused to do anything where that fox was involved, so the fox stayed put away for most of the year.

My point is that it can be achieved in a simpler, humane way (biologically speaking). I'm a utilitarian to the core on this issue: there are way too many people on Earth and children who can't be raised by their own families for various reasons (not that I'm claiming I know better than those families, but there are many people who aren't apt to raise children). On the top of that, I don't want another living thing to spring out of me in labor.

That's cool. I'm in all favor of bodily/reproductive autonomy. All I was really responding to was your description of, specifically, women calling the labor/delivery process "romantic" as suspicious. I figure if they pushed out a bowling ball, if they want to call it "romantic," I'm not going to challenge them on it, since I have not experienced it. I try very hard to not tell people their own lived experience is not what they think it is, especially when I haven't undergone that experience. (I don't always succeed, but I do try to do better and better.)

That's understood and I'm not gonna question anyone who gave birth (for they're very, very brave, for God's sake).

I try very hard to not tell people their own lived experience is not what they think it is, especially when I haven't undergone that experience

On the one side, I'm all "yes, that's reasonable". On the other side, I'm all "but I study sociology and anthropology, FFS! It's like, the description of it!". On the third side... hold on.

"...we're Buffistas. We have opinions on shows we've never watched, food we've never eaten, people we've never fucked. It's what we do."

Ahem. I'll take that corner, thank you. I've got this theory about why giving birth is seen as romantic, aside of hormones: I think it was necessary for survival of the human kind before over population and in an age where 1 of 3 women died at giving birth. We had to develop a myth to keep us alive. Which is very, very cool, because that's what people do: we make up stories because life isn't all sweet and peachy. It's the human thing, and that what counts for "reality" and all. And I'm cool with that.

(Tell me if my opinions of reproduction scare you too much, people. I know they're young and extreme).

And you know what's really frustrating? I wrote most of this post in Hebrew because I didn't look at the screen and had to retype it in English. Pffft.

Edit: 3 edits. I hope I'm done.

Keith Olbermann got targeted by a Smug Married on Twitter yesterday. I guess we can amend the quote to "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man, whatever the size of his...demographic, must be in want of a wife and some rugrats." So, you know, it's not just you. That was embarrassing but it actually took some nerve...KO has no problem tweeting that somebody is an idiot or didn't get enough oxygen to their brain(Although so far, not to anyone like myself, for whom that is literally true.)

And now I'm all "humm. I could just be overreacting to stuff I experience by RL people and family about future kids and taking it out on Buffitas".

So, yeah. Sorry if I do that.

I try very hard to not tell people their own lived experience is not what they think it is, especially when I haven't undergone that experience

I'm all "but I study sociology and anthropology, FFS! It's like, the description of it!".

I have to admit it's been a long time since I was in college -- you you mean that sociology and anthropology are about defining other peoples' lived experiences for them, rather than letting them define the experiences themselves, since they -- and not the sociologist/anthropologist -- lived it?

(I was a journalism major. We just wrote down what people told us. And drank A LOT.)

Giving birth to my two kids definitely hurt but it was also the greatest high I have ever experienced. I know that part was hormones but I still felt like I ruled the entire fucking world. Part of it also was conquering that fear of what was about to happen. I know I am weird but I would happily give birth again (although I don't really want to be pregnant.).

We learned about illegal drugs in our high school health class. I remember telling my girlfriend about all the drugs I'd learned about, and she said, "Yeah, I did all those." Including PCP. In retrospect, I'm pretty sure she was a pathological liar....

I'm wary of defining an experience as "mythical" just because we understand the biological underpinnings. Especially when we're talking about emotions - how people feel about their own experiences isn't something that can be usefully defined in those terms.

It's like saying, well, the Mona Lisa didn't do much for me personally so it must not really be art.