The Argonauts

Nelson criticizes philosophers like Baudrillard for portraying IVF as “the suicide of our species, insofar as [it] detach[es] reproduction from sex, thus turning us from ‘mortal, sexed beings’ into clone-like messengers of an impossible immortality” (78). Nelson argues that this view is rooted in an outdated understanding of gender as binary, but also describes the frustrations of her own experiences with IVF.

By the time Nelson finally became pregnant, Dodge had begun taking testosterone. His mastectomy took place when Nelson was four months pregnant, and thus while her own body was changing as well. One “principal feature” (83) of Nelson’s pregnancy was constipation, and she discusses the fact that many women worry about their partners seeing them defecate during labor: “[The] description of labor did not strike me as exceedingly distinct from what happens during sex, or at least some sex, or at least much of the sex I had heretofore taken to be good” (84). Nelson explains that she wants a more candid discussion of “women’s anal eroticism” (85) but notes that pregnancy and childbirth did change her experience of sexual pleasure: “[E]ven now—two years out—my insides feel more quivery than lush” (86).

Another unexpected effect of pregnancy was Nelson’s discovery that carrying a male child made the “difference between male and female body melt even further away” (87).