Bioethics, healthcare policy, and related issues.
Brace yourselves:
If you’re anything like the American public, some of you can’t handle this. AP notes some of the reactions to this cover shot on a magazine devoted to caring for new babies:
“I was SHOCKED to see a giant breast on the cover of your magazine,” one person wrote. “I immediately turned the magazine face down,” wrote another. “Gross,” said a third. . . .
Babytalk is a free magazine whose readership is overwhelmingly mothers of babies. Yet in a poll of more than 4,000 readers, a quarter of responses to the cover were negative, calling the photo — a baby and part of a woman’s breast, in profile — inappropriate.
One mother who didn’t like the cover explains she was concerned about her 13-year-old son seeing it.
“I shredded it,” said Gayle Ash, of Belton, Texas, in a telephone interview. “A breast is a breast — it’s a sexual thing. He didn’t need to see that.” . . .
“I’m totally supportive of [breastfeeding] — I just don’t like the flashing,” she says. “I don’t want my son or husband to accidentally see a breast they didn’t want to see.”
Look, you nutcase – unless your husband or son are crazier than you are, there isn’t a breast they don’t want to see. (Gay husbands or sons perhaps excepted – and I admit I harbor a hope that Ash’s family includes at least one of the above, just for the sake of imagining her reaction.)
Voices of reason don’t help:
Babytalk editor Susan Kane says the mixed response to the cover clearly echoes the larger debate over breast-feeding in public. “There’s a huge Puritanical streak in Americans,” she says, “and there’s a squeamishness about seeing a body part — even part of a body part.”
“It’s not like women are whipping them out with tassels on them!” she adds. “Mostly, they are trying to be discreet.”
Kane says that since the August issue came out last week, the magazine has received more than 700 letters — more than for any article in years.
“Gross, I am sick of seeing a baby attached to a boob,” wrote Lauren, a mother of a 4-month-old.
The evidence of public discomfort isn’t just anecdotal. In a survey published in 2004 by the American Dietetic Association, less than half — 43 percent — of 3,719 respondents said women should have the right to breast-feed in public places.
Oh, god. It’s not like we haven’t seen this before.
Personally, I favor the tassels.
5 Responses to “The Horror! The Horror!”
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July 28th, 2006 at 4:10 PM
Boy, you have to be a breastphobiac to be sure the baby is actually latched on to a breast. The fleshy curve the baby is osculating could be the back of a chubby person’s arm. It could be another baby’s tushie (from the side). It could even be a rather well-faked balloon.
July 29th, 2006 at 2:57 AM
This:
““Gross, I am sick of seeing a baby attached to a boob,” wrote Lauren, a mother of a 4-month-old.”
is just extraordinarily sad.
July 31st, 2006 at 4:37 PM
My wife, a nutritionist in training, was saddened and angered by this story. There’s enough of a negative stigma attached to breast feeding (why, I’ll never understand), even though in most cases it’s by far the best thing to do for your baby. Crap like this only makes that worse.
Personally, I’m in favor of more women displaying their breasts in public, but this has nothing whatsoever to do with health, breastfeeding, etc., and lots to do with the fact that my own bottle-fed upbringing left me with a nasty fetish.
Seriously, though, it’s possible to discreetly breast feed in public without hiding in a nasty restroom, and without giving a free show, either. I’ve seen it done.
I’ll never understand what all the fuss is about.
August 2nd, 2006 at 11:07 PM
“A breast is a breast — it’s a sexual thing. He didn’t need to see that.”
Shoot me. Just. Shoot me now.
How is it sexual? It’s a body part adapted for feeding babies.
June 4th, 2007 at 11:20 PM
i’m 17 years old, and i’ve seen breasts plenty of times. in equivalent to the magazine cover, about 90 percent of the females in my school show that much of their breasts walking around the school.
To the mother of the 13 year old boy, no, your son doesn’t have to see that if you don’t want him to, but sooner or later, he’s going to see it, even before he gets married. when your boy grows up and gets married, and marries a beautiful woman, are you gonna keep your hands over his wife’s breasts when he wants to make his first child? are you going to make sure he doesn’t see his wife breastfeeding his firstborn son? did you cover your breasts when he was feeding on you so your husband wouldn’t see it?
and for the person who’s sick of seeing a baby attached to a boob…too bad. Unless you can discover a way to get milk out of your boob and
into your baby’s mouth without anyone seeing it, then you’re on your own.
And to everyone else who thinks breasts are sexual…the whole body is sexual. legs, face, hair, belly, and yet when you go to the beach, does that bother you when a woman in her 20s strolls by in a tight string bikini, showing off her tanned, smooth legs? does it bother you when you see the butterfly tattoo on her nearly bare back? and if you’re in public, this is for the males who’ve read this far, i bet you stare at hot female faces as they walk by. does that bother you?
Talk about discrimination.
If it were up to me,