“I always had bodies that were donated – otherwise it would have been against my aim of democratising anatomy. But my reputation suffered. I had to go to court [when the allegations surfaced in Der Spiegel] and I won. I was fed up with being mixed up with the copycat exhibitors. You cannot know where a Chinese corpse comes from. There are no Chinese bodies in any of my exhibitions. [emphasis mine]“

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/gunther-von-hagens-under-the-skin-of-doctor-death-395556.html

Compare it with this:

The controversial German anatomist Gunther von Hagens last night agreed to return seven corpses to China after admitting that the bodies used in his exhibitions might have come from executed prisoners.

Professor Von Hagens, whose show Body Worlds provoked fascination and disgust when it opened in London two years ago, said the corpses would now be buried. His statement follows a damning exposé this week by the German magazine Der Spiegel.

It revealed that at least two corpses out of some 647 stored by the anatomist at his centre in China had bullet holes in their skulls. Splashing the story on its cover under the headline Dr Death, the magazine this week produced damning email correspondence from Prof Von Hagens’ Chinese manager, Sui Hongjin.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,2763,1129261,00.html

What a hypocrite!

And what can you expect from someone anyway who says things like, “[I] enjoyed operating in a Communist country.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/gunther-von-hagens-under-the-skin-of-doctor-death-395556.html

Say a prayer, a spell, or a demonic incantation for Halloween. This October, as in past Octobers, many schools are refusing to celebrate the holiday. Others have recast it as “Fall-o-Ween” or “Orange and Black Day” or, in words carefully calibrated to be as generic as possible, the “Fall Festival.”

http://www.reason.com/news/show/123222.html

Much of what I have written here is quite germane to the “social behavior” topic, including my very first observation, which was drawn from sociolinguistics, and which you apparently chose to perceive as a personal attack. Your “pregnancy is not brain surgery” line is not going to convince anyone that you have much insight into the social dynamics of the human animal. Here’s a hint: not all communicative acts that humans engage in have the purpose of exchanging information about a technical topic.

The work you have done sounds very valuable and you are evidently quite intelligent. But please realize that your initial comment was not stating your perspective, but instead a claim to *objectively* know which category of experience pregnancy belongs to, and a value judgment that women talk too much (endlessly) about this subject. Both your category assignment and the “endlessly” comment reflect your subjective opinion. Do you think that if you had stated your initial observation more clearly as your subjective opinion, you would have gotten the reaction you did?

Yes, I have quite strong feelings on this subject. That, my dear, is the point. Perhaps I wouldn’t need to be so passionate about this subject if I lived in Sweden or some country with good family leave and maternal health policies and an open, healthy attitude toward sexuality and reproductive issues. But I don’t. In the kind of society I want to live in, every child is born into a welcoming community and all parents have access to the supportive services they need. Until that day, hurrah for all the uppity women who talk and agitate so endlessly to bring about change and better outcomes for pregnant women and babies.

Perhaps, if you want others to see your perspective, you might model this behavior?

Perhaps my own perspective on this subject would help you to better see my point of view. I spent a large percentage of my career working in the medical device manufacturing industry, making very complex devices for monitoring the function of the central and peripheral nervous system. Among other things, these devices were used to monitor the functioning of the brain and spinal cord during extremely high-risk neurosurgeries; e.g., 12+ hour operations where a bad outcome would almost certainly leave the patient paralyzed, brain dead, or just plain dead. Accordingly, based on *my* experience with surgical matters, pregnancy is just not a big deal. Perhaps it is, or perhaps it is to you, given your experience, but, from my perspective, well, it’s not brain surgery, at least not in most cases.

I have given you several good reasons and suggestions for thought, drawing on personal experience as well as study of anthropology and history, why conversation and social bonding around childbearing is not only natural but necessary. You haven’t acknowledged any of them. Until your brain is ready to absorb new information, I guess the question of why women “seem so interested in discussing pregnancy” is destined to be forever a mystery to you. And my time is better spent elsewhere.

Gatomjp - I guess I just assumed that Grumpy was childless. My bad. About Edgar, I have no idea. It’s generally true that most men don’t become interested in the topic of childbearing until they are involved in their child’s birth. It’s not always true though - I had several single men come to my pre-birth party (not really a conventional shower) and also sign up to do errands and whatnot after the birth on the sign-up sheet my friend passed around.

By the way, I don’t want at all to imply that anyone needs to have children to live a full life or anything like that. I know a few people who have decided not to have kids out of personal conviction, but who go out of their way to be supportive of families with young kids as a way of being involved with the next generation. Even if someone doesn’t want to do that, it’s OK - they just might want to do a little more observation and reflection before making normative pronouncements.

In one post it was implied that grumpy and Edgar were “childless” males. Is that true? If so, that could help explain grumpy’s somewhat skewed “outsider” viewpoint of the process. Once you’ve been a part of it all the yucky stuff takes a back seat to the coolness of it.