husband stitch

plural husband stitches · alternative husband's stitch

1. An extra stitch made by a doctor after an episiotomy in order to make the opening of the vagina smaller, supposedly to increase the pleasure of a male partner during sex.

   2 more examples

   Dr. Geo. Cupples was called upon to explain the "Husband Stitch," which he did as follows: He said that when he was stitching up a ruptured perineum, of a married lady, the husband was an anxious and interested observer, and when he had taken all the stitches necessary, the husband peeped over his shoulders and said, "Dr., can't you take another stitch?" and he did, and called it the "Husband Stitch."

   1885, Transactions of the Texas State Medical Association

   The preference for tightness during intercourse is so well known in Western culture that U.S. obstetricians even have a term for the extra stitch they often perform when doing episiotomy repairs following childbirth: the "husband's stitch." The husband's stitch is intended to produce a smaller vaginal opening, to counteract the natural stretching of the tissues from sexual activity and childbirth and even to make the opening more constricted than it might have been before.

   2001, Ellen Gruenbaum, The Female Circumcision Controversy: An Anthropological Perspective

   Synonyms: daddy stitch