SuttaCentral
I find the difference in perspective fascinating. My own experience from such practice is that it is beneficial, because it is practicing looking at the female body not as an object of desire.
E.g. contemplating the vagina’s role in childbirth drives home the point that it does not exist for my pleasure, freeing both myself and the person attached to it.
In any case, thank you for explaining your perspective. I will try to be mindful of this from now on.
Thanks! 
It’s explicitly stated in the relevant passage of the Vissudhimagga. There are also a couple of times in the Vinaya where a monk entered a charnel ground and seeing a female corpse had lust and proceed to have intercourse with it.
I don’t recall the EBT making distinctions other than internal vs. external (bodies of other living beings). Te commentary makes the suggestions of same gender, but that’s because to people with strong lust, a corpse of the opposite gender, animals, etc, would still be tempting. That advice obviously would not work for homosexuals. For some practitioners with really strong samadhi, they walk around in real time seeing people, animals, whatever gender as bags of flesh, blood, and bones.
Hmm, this is gendered as well, I guess that wouldn’t work so much for a female monastic and a male corpse.
I don’t know what you mean. Probably same for nuns but I don’t know because we don’t have Bhikkhuni vibhanga yet.
But I’m not sure if there’s a point to answering you seriously as it seems you are trying to troll me with this and above comments.
Not trying to troll, I just see some PC stuff as going too far to the point of being ridiculous and worthy of ridicule. Just trying to bring some balance.
There’s another passage in the vinaya I think which has a monk napping when the wind blows and he gets an erection, some women walk by, climb on top, and rape him while he sleeps. The whole thing I find rather unbelievable, not that women aren’t capable of sexual assault (which I think is actually of greater concern than most people realize) — just the whole situation.
Trying not to troll ain’t the same thing as not trolling.
Sarcastic comments, mocking memes and not responding to my actual points and diverting into irrelevant points does not make me feel very comfortable.
To start with a quick mod aside for relevant parties: please re-/read the guidelines before continuing to participate.
I can very easily understand the value in this, and (with certain qualification) can most happily chalk it up to skilful means. I further think it’s quite possible to do these kinds of reflections in more of a neutral, removed way than a hateful one. I heartily cheer the benefit you have and will take/n from this practice.
I have to note, though, that when I say this, I’m coming from more of an abstract, or isolated consideration of the practice, and I think it’s also good to think about things in a broader context (particularly given the fairly crude – of course, one person’s “plain” is another’s “vulgar” language – way they were first presented).
I remember a former workmate of mine in a job I used to have once commenting, out loud in the workplace, in a light-spirited, ‘there’s nothing remotely wrong with what I’m saying’ kind of way: “women are just receptacles for my semen”. Of course, no-one here is promoting anything like this sort of view, but it probably is worth recognising that we inhabit a world in which someone is comfortable articulating such an idea because it fits in happily enough with wider norms.
The man-centric viewpoint presented earlier on, I think can reasonably enough be taken as an indicator that similar, subtle underline values still prevail and that it’s easy enough not to find it especially problematic to entirely discard women’s (by considering it as an irritating, pointless extension of PC to have bother to write them into) existence save for the small and dubious function they serve as vagina holders.
There are yet other contextual factors I might bring into the consideration of how appropriate the presented material and ideas are, but I think this is already sufficient enough to make the point intended point attempting to encourage open-hearted reflection of different perspectives.
Indeed, as ever, Erik, you’ve exemplified this principle beautifully and I have such high regard for your capacity for both eloquently articulating your own point of view and also, respectfully and sincerely listening to others.
Even though these weren’t directed at me, these feel like attacks.
“demonizing”, “disgusted”, “disappointed”
It’s absurd to think that there’s some agenda of hatred behind a video of childbirth. Some people see it as beautiful. There’s even some people who have a fetish for pregnancy. To use your same logic that it’s more about the mind than the image, couldn’t that be applied to you seeing it as intending hate and disgust?
I’ve heard women make similarly crude joking remarks towards men’s penises and dildos/vibrators.
I realize I’m probably skirting the boundaries of what is appropriate on this forum, so feel free to delete my posts or moderate me as you see fit.
the demonization of vaginas
Sure banana’s, of course, it happens. If this is enough to satisfy you that everything is square and equal and that no more reflection is necessary, I’m certainly not going to argue against you. 
I think whatever perception that is applied to females’ external anatomy can be applied to males’ or whatever form of external anatomy someone has. After all, they develop from the same tissue in utero. So it’s easy to be equal opportunity here. Personally, I don’t meditatively reflect on genitalia as they are not mentioned in the Satipatthana Sutta’s list of parts and at this point in my practice could just as easily arouse lust and comparison as dispassion and equanimity.
The purpose of reflecting on the parts of the body is not to demonize anything or anybody. This would be taking up the practice wrongly, leading to unwholesome aversion and the kind of situation found in the Vesali Sutta (SN 54.9) where some monks committed suicide because of their mishandling of this contemplation. The Buddha taught mindfulness of breathing to those who remained.
The purpose is to see the body as asubha, as “not beautiful,” and in line with the three characteristics of anicca, dukkha, anatta. The simile given in the Satipatthana Sutta (MN 10) is that of a person looking into an open-ended bag filled with various kinds of grains and beans and discriminating between one kind and another. We should no more develop aversion to body parts as we would develop aversion to a bag full of grains and beans. Grains and beans are not beautiful just as the parts of the body are not beautiful. I don’t like the translation of “repulsive” or anything with similar aversive connotations. Perhaps one may come to see it all as repulsive when the practice has developed more, but this would arise from a place of wisdom, as a fruit of cultivation not from cultivation itself.
To repeat again, none of these practices are to be used to develop aversion which is always an unwholesome state.
Some of the comments in this thread strike me as far too harsh and unrealistic about sexual desire. The most fundamental of all animal functions is reproduction. Everything that is alive has descended from a long line of ancestors that had at least this in common: they all successfully reproduced. All living things have a drive to reproduce, and if they are sexually reproducing beings, those drives impel them toward identifying and coupling with suitable mates. This is no big deal, in itself. If one wants to live a life in which sexual desire and other cravings have been overcome, that’s great. But I don’t think it makes sense to stigmatize the process as something evil or disgusting.
Not sure what this means, I just think it’s a little lobsided to only portray men in such a way. I wouldn’t say it’s a demonization of men, just that if we’re being that sensitive let’s be balanced in our sensitivity.
btw,
lol
Exactly my experience, and it was heart warming to read comments like this:, “I love my mom” (same feeling I got) underneath the vdo - I took the time to watch another one, where the Health care personnel was male, and there were a difference in style that got me pondering on different aspect of life changing moments like this - haven’t finished pondering yet …
Further down there were many more or less scared women responding negative to the vdo, and who didn’t seam to get the same feelings, and why should them … It is a bit scary, but then again is it so scary because it’s painful, or is it our way of presenting child birth as something very painful, and therefore it becomes more agonizing then it could be if we all took time to watch and try to see this for what it really is …
We even hire mothers to do the job nowadays … !?!
I love all moms!
It seems to me that any practice that aims at cultivating aversion toward physical forms can only be, at best, a temporary crutch, since aversion itself is a hindrance.
Quite agree, the point is very central to my original comment - totally writing women out of a consideration of celibacy (apart from their role as vagina carriers) doesn’t strike me as balanced.
I didn’t say anything about demonization.
It attempts to gently point towards the feeling that the objection originally raised that kicked this whole bit off the thread off (in perhaps a little too feisty way for my own tastes) might have too quickly been met with the instinct to rebut, dismiss or argue down rather than pause and ask “is there any kind of valid point being highlighted here?”
Agree, because I notice this quite easy in my mind when certain forms hit’s the eye “without” my permission - it happens so quickly that it’s almost magic, but it ain’t according to some of the research I’ve seen. But when one ask other male’s, they often don’t have the same impression or experience, but I wonder a bit about that … Had a female boss, that I saw with my own eyes doing the same thing when there was a suitable male “Hunk” around us, and I told her about it just after the incident, and she laughed and said; yes, but did you really see it …!?