ABSTRACT
A few months after Bryn was born, I lay in lithotomy position, the conventional birthing posture used in hospitals. If the truth be told, it is identical with the missionary position. Staring up at the ceiling, I lay on the operating table with my legs spread. The reserved British-Canadian doctor and his cheery Pentecostal, Caribbean-Canadian nurse had just covered my nakedness with a surgical sheet that had a large hole in the front of it. I almost made a joke about the size of the hole. I was going to protest that no man could possibly fill it. But other impulses welled up and took over. I felt humiliation, a rare sensation. I quickly transposed it into anger. Then I imagined I knew what women felt like in this position. For them, it is a repeated experience; for me, this was my one and only time.
