All I said was:
"...when women are not injured in the course of giving birth it is not
abnormal for them to resume their usual sex practices much sooner."

'Not abnormal' is not the same as 'it should be the norm for all women to be
ready and come hithering as soon as the lochia turns lighter'!

Sexual behavior, like all behavior, including birth, takes place in a
cultural context.  Cultures are different.  I live in a culture where it is
far from taboo for women to take the initiative, and some do so, even very
shortly after giving birth, and even when they are exclusively
breastfeeding.  Many do not.  Many women (and men) wonder whether their own
sexual desire is 'normal' post partum, and this includes those with no
desire as well as those with heightened desire.  I find that 'normal' covers
a broad range of levels of interest, from none at all, to very.

But in a society where there is near equality of the sexes, the sexual
relationship between men and women is less prone to the power plays that can
arise where women are dependent on men for legal or economic or social
status.  More than half of children in Norway are born to parents who are
not legally married.  They co-habit, or not, and there is really no stigma
at all any more to being a mother without even being part of a couple.  In
such a context I don't find it troubling that some couples will want to be
together sexually before 6 weeks have passed since the birth of a baby, any
more than it troubles me that some will prefer to wait until the children
have moved out.

We differ in the amount of interest we have in sex when we are not pregnant
or lactating too.  Normal is a very wide category.

Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway

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