There’s a nice little article on Weird Universe about sympathetic pregnancy, also called Couvade Syndrome. In our culture men sometimes experience some of the symptoms of their partner’s pregnancy, such as labor pains.

At this point I’d like to ask all obstetricians, midwives, and doulas to stop reading. For that matter, women who are pregnant, who plan to become pregnant, who are of childbearing potential, or who know another woman of childbearing potential, should also stop reading. I don’t want you to get any ideas.

Other cultures don’t wait for the man to develop a psychosomatic condition. In some places in Brazil, for example, the man’s skin is cut with animal teeth, and then tobacco juice or pepper juice is rubbed into his wounds.

The Huichol Indians of western Mexico take this just a bit farther. As depicted in this yarn painting, the man is placed on the roof of his hut as his wife is in labor below. His friends tie ropes around his testicles, and the wife holds the other end. Every time she feels a labor pain she pulls on the ropes.

It may be my imagination, but through that series of tubes that make up the Internet I seem to be hearing cheers and shouts of “Right on!” “Give it to him, sister,” and “You go, girl!” Some of you didn’t stop reading.

—Bob Finn

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Posted in Ewww, Sex, weird medical conditions