The nipple-areola complex is rich in sensory nerve endings—Meissner’s corpuscles and free nerve endings identical to those in the clitoris and glans penis. Suckling triggers the same hypothalamic response as genital stimulation.
This had direct implications for the couple’s sexual relationship. The 1981 sex therapists noted that couples who birthed together (with the father as a calm, informed coach) reported re-establishing intercourse faster than those from whom the father was excluded. The shared trauma-to-triumph of birth became a form of "limbic bonding" that deepened marital sex. In the anatomy of love, the breast is the most polyvalent organ. In 1981, the debate over breastfeeding was at its most politicized (the first WHO code on marketing breast-milk substitutes was adopted that year). But the anatomy was clear. Birth - Anatomy of Love and Sex -1981-
To understand birth is to understand sex. To heal birth trauma is to heal sexual trauma. To celebrate the anatomy of love is to honor the uterus that contracts, the cervix that opens, the vagina that stretches, the perineum that yields, and the breast that nourishes. The nipple-areola complex is rich in sensory nerve