Women's Health Class

by Zenith Sorbet, physician

This week's session is on women's care and as usual it is an informal discussion based type class so you can stop and interrupt me at anytime with questions or comments.

I'm sure you know that many people in SL go through pregnancies and deliveries. Obviously, our avatars representatives can't just go out and get pregnant from sex in the usual way. So for those of you out there busy trying and trying the way Mother Nature designed real humans and getting absolutely nowhere, let me give you a hint. Just as sex requires a lot of roleplay and imagination, and few special attachments, so too, does pregnancy. So I will begin with a few of the common questions I get.

1) Who decides if someone gets pregnant?
Bluntly, only the potential mother can decide. There are simply no accidental pregnancies in SL Gor because pregnancy has to be role played. So your patient makes a decision to get pregnant. It is always nice if they come to see you before hand for a prenatal check up. At that point you can help them by asking a few important questions. Most important of these is likely has the father consented to this. As in real life an unplanned role play pregnancy, sprung on an unsuspecting father can be disasterous for a relationship.

2) How long does pregnancy last?
There is a general standard of six weeks real life time.

This comes from a specific card widely distributed by the various Green Caste group. This card states the following. "On Earth, a normal pregnancy is approximately 40 weeks, give or take a solid month. However, babies can be born healthy much sooner than this, given recent developments in neonatal medicine. Knowing that medicine on Gor is even more advanced than our own, and allowing for the exceptionally good health of the Gorean Free Woman, and the effects of the stabilization serums on prenatal development, in addition to the altered gravity and multiple lunar cycles of Gor, it is estimated that a successful Gorean pregnancy, at full term, might run about the length of a successful premature delivery on Earth. Coincidentally, since there are only 5 days in the Gorean week, or hand, this works out to be about 40 hands gestation time" From Gorean Childbirthing by Jenna Harley.

Many of the By the Book Purists argue that we should really be role playing a pregnancy for nine weeks. I tend to agree but there is a problem with that. Most pregnancy supplies that are available to be purchased work an assumption of six weeks real time role playing. However this is role play. So your patient can role the pregnancy much faster or much longer as they wish. So you could potentially in role play announce you are pregnant, change your shape and deliver a baby in five minutes if you role play it correctly. Or you could be pregnant all the time.

So your patient arrives and wish to be diagnosed as pregnant. I have a pregnancy test I use in role play that is very effective. I will rezz you can both try it. It is made by Hulapop Mahoney. Now touch it.

Pregnancy Test: The results are negative, Student #1 is not pregnant.
Student #1: phew
Pregnancy Test: The results are negative, Student #2 is not pregnant.

You saw how you get a private menu asking you if you want the answer to be positive negative or random. So your patient is now confirmed as pregnant.

3) How do I change my shape?
The cheapest way is to change shape by going to appearance, shape torso belly size. Also as the breasts and hips also enlarge in pregnancy and broaden I recommend adjusting those as well. Many of the freebie stores and Green Caste of Gor and Physician's Caste of Gor have free pregnancy shapes. I have included a set in my supplies box. I find the pregnancy shapes alone are not that good at representing a pregnancy. That package contains a full set of shape changes and landmarks to various stores which sell pregnany supplies. Most recently we have a Gorean specific one. In addition a woman can add a prim belly. The disadvantage to the prim belly is then clothing doesn't fit whereas with the shapes, most clothing will continue to fit, except possibly for prim skirt adjustments. So I warn new mothers of this.

In addition, there are many stores in SL that have supplies for role playing pregnancy. Some can be very expensive and some are very cheap. It pays to shop around. It also pays to compare features. I have included landmarks to some stores I have found. I am not recommending anyone go and purchase these items just that these are places to go look.

4) Should your patient purchase a scripted talking pregnancy?
I will put on the one I have which is the least obnoxious one.  In a word NO! Strongly discourage these. They are expensive, they are annoying, and they interrrupt role play.

Let me give the worst example.
I had a woman who had hers set to talk every couple of minutes and in the middle a raid her belly said "Mommy sits down to eat a cracker because she is hungry." Pregnant bellies don't talk in real life so why should role pay ones? These things can be so obnoxious and annoying some sims including Vonda ban them.

I also get a lot of questions about prim babies. There are free prim babies readily available and many that can be purchased, I will demonstrate with the one I happen to like. The package I've given you also has some free prim babies. There is no need to purchase a prim baby. You can role play everything.

sh2 Birthing Cuddle Baby v1.5: (c)2008 sh2 Creations, All Rights Reserved. Use is governed by our Terms of Service (http://www.sh2creations.com/heavensent/legal/TOS/).

This is heaven sent birthing baby. It is about 600L if I recall correctly. It is naked and I use it in delivery. It's adjustable and you can change hair, skin tone whatever ...and it cries the newborn cry when you touch it. I prefer to have mothers contact me in advance of their delivery so I can set the newborn correctly. I once pulled out my baby and it was black with dark brown skin and the parents were both fair blue eyed blonds and the father got a bit upset. I rp'd the baby looked dark from birthing fluid and changed everything.

They also have a cuddle baby. It has clothes on. I tell the mother we can use my naked baby for birthing and then switch to theirs to save some lindens. The only thing with this one is finding Gorean appropriate clothing. For example this outfit with little airplanes is not Gorean appropriate. It is a very good product. Maybe if enough people ask they will make a Gorean baby

The other thing to warn mothers about is depending on where their clothing is attached they may find that their skirt comes off when they pick up the baby. Most women who rp pregnancy kind of know what to expect, morning sickness, dizzy spells crazy cravings. They have either been pregnant themselves already or a close family friend has. Some don't know and want the whole scoop. So I have to describe to them about what to expect. An easy way to do this is while you are talking to the mother type into your browser common pregnancy symptoms and then you have it all clearly laid out. First month expect this, second month expect that... etc. The pregnancy issue is the really common one. You rarely get other strictly female issues.Gorean women are all very healthy. They have young strong bodies due to the stabilization serum.

There is no mention of them menstruating either so I think the slave wine suppresses menstruation. Free woman have access to a version of so called "slave wine" but it supposedly has no bitter flavor. I have no idea if that is true to the books or not. (Note: it is true) It simply doesn't come up. It makes sense that Free Women would take advantage of the effects of slave wine. So you will not get women coming in with dysmenorhea.

The only other female issue specifically mentioned in the book is frigidity. Do you know the recommended cure? The recommended treatment is to learn to dance like a slave girl. You will get collared for that if you do it public. I tell women You don't do it in public. I also say You probably don't even do it for your Free Companion in case it gets him thinking about collaring you. The recommendation of learning slave dancing is in the books and it supposedly teaches a Free Woman to discover her sexuality and learn how to enjoy sex. In the books women are all really slaves, just some have collars and some don't. Free Woman are referred to as women who haven't yet been collared. And Free Women are only Free because Men wish them to be so.

Now I read a neat analysis about the populations in Gor and the estimate I saw was 60% of women are free. I suspect because Free Women seem to be the ones who do the most nonmenial labor.

So I guess that is all I planned to cover today.