So How Did Abe Lincoln Wind Up With Younger Siblings?
Photo by Flickr user rexheer. Used under a Creative Commons license.
[Note: I'm on vacation in what may be is very limited internet service so this is a pre-recorded and (I very much hope!) a self-publishing post. I may not have won't have much opportunity to reply to comments but you're comments are still very welcome. I'll reply as soon as I can. You're some of the best commenters in the blogsphere so you're always welcome to respond spiritedly but respectfully to each other's comments while I'm away. --fl]
So I'm starting to wonder how much of modern Western sexual progress has coincided with modern Western "bourgeoise" trends in housing. We're staying in a little summer-use ski condominium/time-share thingie that was arranged for us by friends. Unbeknownst to us it's a seriously one-room plus bathroom affair. That's fine as far as it goes, and it's a perfectly pleasant place, but while there's enough room for an adult and two children once you fold up the hide-a-bed couch there just isn't any privacy at all!
And I'm *still* being spoiled! We have only two children. The room is still quite a bit bigger than a lot of much larger and much more affluent families have in Japan to name just one other country. Neither nor both of our parents, nor any of our brothers or sisters live here either, as is often the case in, say, Moscow. And still being spoiled because even when I was very poor (nutritional-deficience poor, sleeping under interstate overpass or culvert poor, hitch-hiked from somewhere-on-the-Hudson New York to Philadelphia and back in a day because I couldn't afford a long-distance call for a correct address poor) I at least had the privacy of being on someone's couch, or porch, or back yard while they were in their bedrooms.
The idea, though, of ever being able to play a real adult disclosure/conversation-starter sex game with a partner is out of the question, however, even with all this one-room room. For that matter (at least to my sensibilities) sex of *any* sort is out of the question unless we sent the children off to the little rec center (oops, at least one parent must accompany...) or playground (oops, at least one parent must...) or... or...
I don't know how people do it. Which isn't, incidentally, a judgment call of any sort. I just, literally, don't know how it's done. If you know from first, second, or third-hand I'd love to hear it.
The first thing I can think of would be long showers together. What about you?
Well, I'm sure you are well aware that historically most families have all slept in the same room and even the same bed. They just *did* it and the kids kept quiet or kept sleeping.
[Yup. I agree they just did it. I just think it explains why we have such a huge tradition of men's indifference to their partner's sexual interests. Thanks, Ellie. --fl]
The answer, of course, is that they didn't have your sensibilities.
Hmm. I started writing a reply and it turned into a post of my own.
So I'll just say two things here: 1) it's an interesting historical irony that the apparently uptight bourgeois reformers created conditions where people could actually explore their sexuality, and 2) you'd better come back from this trip *very* clean. :-)
People from primitive tribes, who didn't really even have beds (a pile of straw or furs, or maybe a hammock, if anything) usually had sex outdoors.
Plus, people had large extended families living nearby for most of history. If they really wanted privacy from the kids, then they would send them off to see the relatives for a few hours, or a few days. But a lot of the time, they didn't bother.
"Privacy" (all kinds, not just for sex) in the modern sense didn't really exist until the 18th or 19th century and still doesn't in some parts of the world. For that matter, "sex education" is a fairly modern invention too. Most kids learned about sex from watching their parents and listening to their slightly older peers.
Though oddly, condoms are *not* a modern invention, they've been around at least since the days of the Roman Empire (perhaps even earlier), and were made of animal parts (such as sheep intestines). They were less effective and generally not used among Christians, however.
I don't know how people do it. Which isn't, incidentally, a judgment call of any sort. I just, literally, don't know how it's done. If you know from first, second, or third-hand I'd love to hear it.
Visual privacy could be provided by dividing the living space by means of a curtain, a screen or a piece of furniture. More importantly, privacy is a social ritual which is "learned," i.e., the art of not seeing or not hearing what you can physically see or hear.
To varying degrees we practice this social ritual of not seeing or not hearing when we share office space with coworkers. Which is why sitcoms focus on the egregious behavior that makes it impossible for the fictional characters to maintain the facade of privacy.
One of the only two times I have ever turned down sex with my husband was because one of our children was in the bed with us. He (my husband, not the child!) suggested that we just be quiet, but I know my child and he wakes up at the slightest movement or sound. I offered to move to another room (perhaps the boy's, since he wasn't using it), but that didn't work for my husband. It was right then, right there or not at all. So not at all it was.
Our children are big proponents of the "family bed" movement. They don't know that that is what it is called, but they are ardent supporters nonetheless. Our biggest problem with it (besides being kicked by little people all night) is the lack of privacy for mom and dad. But at least we do have the option of attempting to sneak away to another room.
As some one who has experience with communal camping and living conditions well you just get the hang of tunning out the sights and sounds of others having sex and you get so used to it that it looses its ability to be arousing in yourself. Seeing or hearing others having sex is not much of a turn on when it is no longer taboo and an everyday background activity. About as hot as the farm animals having sex around you.
You learn to have quick sex on spur of the moment opportunities.
Keep in mind in past eras how close together the pregnancies were. By the time your oldest is at an age that it matters them noticing you having sex there are couple of younger siblings already around. It's amazing what kids can ignore if you don't draw attention to it in the first place.
I honestly don't know, either, except that that situation has been the norm for pretty much all of human history (and still is, really, in most of the rest of the world) and I guess all those billions of other people just didn't have the same sensibilities as us.
For instance, my maternal grandmother managed to have 12 kids with my grandfather over the course of 20 years while he worked nights and she worked days. On top of that, the largest house they lived in (moved there a couple years before my mom was born--she's #10) is a pretty small two bedroom number. He slept in the boys' room and she slept with the girls' and I still don't know how they found the time for that sort of thing, much less the privacy for it.
I have nothing really to add to the insightful comments thus far but I had to react to this:
Ah! Stuff that. That made me actually lol but seriously, even thinking about it makes me exhausted. 12 kids... day-am!
Having said that, my partner's best friend is mormon, and while they only have 3 kids (first kid was 11lbs so they weren't having any more immediately, and this is from someone who doesn't drink alcohol or caffiene 'cause the book of mormon said not to) John's parents had 8 kids and a friend of his had 10! The woman with 10 is in great condition too, which just reinforces my idea that some people are naturally into parenting/childbirth and yay for those people, unlike people like me for whom the idea of 1 child is unappealing, let alone the physical reality of it. Haha
I suspect that people leverage the fact that kids (usually) sleep really deeply, for example, they often don't awake for fire alarms.
On the other hand, some people are simply not shy! I've heard stories of people just getting on with things without even asking the strangers around them if they mind!
....I've found that the joy of having kids around completely swamps the frustration of not being able to have sex....