This study from the Guttmacher, says:
Half of respondents had experienced at least one unintended pregnancy. Respondents described three categories of pleasure related to pregnancy ambivalence: active eroticization of risk, in which pregnancy fantasies heightened the charge of the sexual encounter; passive romanticization of pregnancy, in which people neither actively sought nor prevented conception; and an escapist pleasure in imagining that a pregnancy would sweep one away from hardship. All three categories were associated with misuse or nonuse of coitus-dependent methods.
Now I have not read the Guttmacher study in full. But my translation on the “scientificese” above is this: Pregnancy is linked–strongly–to sex and sometimes women get pregnant the result of having sex. Furthermore, oftentimes unintended pregnancies are not unintended at all.
You know, I don’t like the idea that everything we do, including pregnancy, ought to be fully and completely planned. All it nurtures is a sense of failure if you can’t get pregnant the very moment you so desire, and a sense of failure if you get pregnant when you did not so desire. (If life is aaaaaalllll about planning, I might add that I’m way off track as per the official Andrea Mrozek 1995 high school graduation power point. See graph four, slide 15 for more information…)
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Suzanne A. says
September 12, 2008 at 11:01 amGee…who knew that pregnancy – and the psychology of getting pregnant – could be such a layered issue?
Over the years when I announced a pregnancy to a neighbour or acquaintance, invariably the question came – “Was it a surprise?” I always chuckled at this question, since in my mind, well, having sex meant the possibility of – gasp – pregnancy. So no, actually, my pregnancies were never true “surprises”.
Tash says
September 12, 2008 at 3:20 pmLOL, who would have ever thought? Great article.