breasts again

Repeat after me: Women’s breasts are designed for breastfeeding babies. They are not simply sex toys.

Apparently, the idea that women’s breasts are more—much more—than sex toys is news to many people. According to this article, the sight of a baby nursing is offensive and even “gross” to lots of people. I say, get over it.

If you don’t want to see a nursing breast, don’t look. Mothers who nurse their babies in public are almost always very discreet. If you get a glimpse of a nursing breast, chances are it’s because you were trying to get that glimpse, not because the nursing mother was flashing you. When Lily was small enough for me to nurse in public without being harassed about how she was “too old” for nursing (not according to her pediatrician, she wasn’t!), I was too tired and preoccupied with my baby to ever think about flashing the public.

Why do people consider breastfeeding in public “inappropriate”? What is inappropriate about feeding your child in public? Until a child is six months old—if they are lucky—the only thing they consume is breast milk, meaning that to avoid breastfeeding in public, a nursing mother would need to arrange to be at home or in some other private place with her baby about every 2-3 hours. It’s just not possible for most people. For me to do that, I would have needed to find someone else to buy my groceries and run my errands, and I would have needed to isolate myself from my friends and family. Is that appropriate?

One woman interviewed in the MSNBC story said, “"I'm totally supportive of [breastfeeding] — I just don't like the flashing. I don't want my son or husband to accidentally see a breast they didn't want to see." Oh, “the flashing.” Of course. She must mean when the breastfeeding woman tosses her baby aside, throws her blouse open and her shoulders back, and. . . . Sorry, but that just doesn’t happen. When a mother is breastfeeding her baby, it's all about the intimacy with the baby, not the sexuality assigned to the breasts. The woman quoted in the MSBC story is afraid for her son and husband? Her son or husband could, I suppose, accidentally see a breast “they didn’t want to see,” but so what? Would they need counseling because of a split second glimpse of a breast? Did all the people who saw Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” become traumatized by the sight of it? We see things all the time we didn’t want to see and we survive. I hate to see roadkill, but when I do see it, I look away as quickly as I can and move on with my life.

OK, prepare to be traumatized. Here’s that offensive and gross magazine cover that kicked off the brouhaha:

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