Many Outraged by Breast-Feeding Magazine Cover

[Skywarp! 0]

Many Outraged by Breast-Feeding Magazine Cover

By JOCELYN NOVECK, AP

 

 

APBabytalk editor Susan Kane says the mixed response to the cover clearly echoes the larger debate over breast-feeding in public.

 

 

NEW YORK (July 27) - "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.

 

These readers weren't complaining about a sexually explicit cover, but rather one of a baby nursing, on a wholesome parenting magazine - yet another sign that Americans are squeamish over the sight of a nursing breast, even as breast-feeding itself gains more support from the government and medical community.

 

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."

 

It's the same reason that Ash, 41, who nursed all three of her children, is cautious about breast-feeding in public - a subject of enormous debate among women, which has even spawned a new term: "lactivists," meaning those who advocate for a woman's right to nurse wherever she needs to.

 

"I'm totally supportive of it - 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." [KANE: Someone doesn't know the men in their life too well.]

 

Another mother, Kelly Wheatley, wrote Babytalk to applaud the cover, precisely because, she says, it helps educate people that breasts are more than sex objects. And yet Wheatley, 40, who's still nursing her 3-year-old daughter, rarely breast-feeds in public, partly because it's more comfortable in the car, and partly because her husband is uncomfortable with other men seeing her breast.

 

"Men are very visual," says Wheatley, 40, of Amarillo, Texas. "When they see a woman's breast, they see a breast - regardless of what it's being used for."

 

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.

 

The debate rages at a time when the celebrity-mom phenomenon has made breast-feeding perhaps more public than ever. Gwyneth Paltrow, Brooke Shields, Kate Hudson and Kate Beckinsale are only a few of the stars who've talked openly about their nursing experiences.

 

The celeb factor has even brought a measure of chic to that unsexiest of garments: the nursing bra. Gwen Stefani can be seen on babyrazzi.com - a site with a self-explanatory name - sporting a leopard-print version from lingerie line Agent Provocateur. And fellow moms recognized a white one under Angelina Jolie's tank top on the cover of People. (Katie Holmes, meanwhile, suffered a maternity wardrobe malfunction when cameras caught her, nursing bra open and peeking out of her shirt, while on the town with fiance Tom Cruise.)

 

More seriously, the social and medical debate has intensified. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently concluded a two-year breast-feeding awareness campaign including a TV ad - criticized as over-the-top even by some breast-feeding advocates - in which NOT breast-feeding was equated with the recklessness of a pregnant woman riding a mechanical bull.

 

There have been other measures to promote breast-feeding: in December, for example, Massachusetts banned hospitals from giving new mothers gift bags with free infant formula, a practice opponents said swayed some women away from nursing.

 

Most states now have laws guaranteeing the right to breast-feed where one chooses, and when a store or restaurant employee denies a woman that right, it has often resulted in public protests known as "nurse-ins": at a Starbucks in Miami, at Victoria's Secret stores in Racine, Wis., and Boston, and, last year, outside ABC headquarters in New York, when Barbara Walters made comments on "The View" seen by some women to denigrate breast-feeding in public.

 

"It's a new age," says Melinda Johnson, a registered dietitian and spokesperson for ADA. "With the government really getting behind breast-feeding, it's been a jumping-off point for mothers to be politically active. Mommies are organizing. It's a new trend to be a mommy activist."

 

Ultimately, it seems to be a highly personal matter. Caly Wood says she's "all for breast-feeding in public." She recalls with a shudder the time she sat nursing in a restaurant booth, and another woman walked by, glanced over and said, "Ugh, gross."

 

"My kid needed to eat," says the 29-year-old from South Abingdon, Mass. And she wasn't going to go hide in a not-so-clean restroom: "I don't send people to the bathroom when THEY want to eat," she says.

 

But Rebekah Kreutz thinks differently. One of six women who author SisterhoodSix, a blog on mothering issues, Kreutz didn't nurse her two daughters in public, and doesn't really feel comfortable seeing others do it.

 

"I respect it and think women have the right," says Kreutz, 34, of Bozeman, Mont. "But personally, it makes me really uncomfortable."

 

"I just think it's one of those moments that should stay between a mother and her child."

 

Here's the boob.

[Slayer 0]

We've come a long way*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*We haven't come a long way at all

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

Hawt.

 

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.

 

If women are allowed to whip out a tit and feed their kid in public, then I'm allowed to watch the event, which I did one time, freaking out the mom.

[spman 0]

There was a big long debate about this on Fark. I personally am of the mindframe that, While I like to see boobies and all, lastation is disgusting, and if you absolutely feel compelled to do it in public at least be discreet about it. Any woman with any regard for the rest of society would already be doing this, but too many women feel the need to just be blatent about it and do it right out in public, just in an attempt to make some sort of misguided statement. No one wants to see me pee and poop in public, so why should we have to see women lactating?

[Guest DRH 502]

You are totally missing their point dude. I'm not taking the side of the "Lactators" but you aren't peeing or pooping to nurse an infant child.

 

At least I hope not.

[Guest Felonies!]

I have nothing against this, but geez, don't stare, Cakey, ya creep.

[EricMM 0]

YOU SEE what sexual conservatism does to this country?

 

GOD!

 

Fuck you and your taboos and squeamishness, that's YOUR problem, scared-of-boobs-person!

[Guest wildpegasus]

Anybody who has a problem with mothers feeding their babies in public have severe problems that have to be dealt with.

 

End of story.

[bob_barron 0]

Too easy

[Guest wildpegasus]

Too easy

 

WAAAY too easy.

[Damaramu 0]

I don't see the big deal about the magazine cover. No nipple then no nudity. You see more than that with a girl in a bikni!

[Guest DRH 502]

Color me odd, or just as a dude who has saw his fair share of boobies, but I just don't feel the need to stare at every boob I see...no matter how inappropriate or akward it may be.

[Damaramu 0]

Many Outraged by Breast-Feeding Magazine Cover

By JOCELYN NOVECK, AP

 

 

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."

 

Umm.....no it's not. People make it a sexual thing but it's not. It's there to feed babies......nothing sexual about that.

[Guest DRH 502]

Society doesn't want to see it that way. That would be admitting we are merely animals with natural animalistic instincts...

[The Amazing Rando 0]

That kid could easily be sucking on a fat elbow.

[Art Sandusky 0]

Next time I see a mother dog nursing her puppies I'm going to kick them apart and demand they do it somewhere else.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

Next time I see a mother dog nursing her puppies I'm going to kick them apart and demand they do it somewhere else.

 

I stare at those, too, but the bitch doesn't mind (as long as I don't get too close to her pups).

 

I have nothing against this, but geez, don't stare, Cakey, ya creep.

 

If a woman deems this to be appropriate behavior in the public domain, then it certainly is appropriate to look at this act; the freedom to do things in public is a two-way street. I'd say the same regarding going to the bathroom in public, but most of the people I've seen do this are homeless people, so I turn the other way out of choice. Besides, I have a solution to avoiding watching people use buildings as urinals; I don't go into the city.

[Richard 0]

Many Outraged by Breast-Feeding Magazine Cover

By JOCELYN NOVECK, AP

 

 

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."

 

Umm.....no it's not. People make it a sexual thing but it's not. It's there to feed babies......nothing sexual about that.

 

There's nothing sexual about the ass either.

[The Amazing Rando 0]

Oh yes there is.

[Guest Hotbutter Spoontoaster]

Some guy up there compared breast feeding to him pissing or shitting. That's the end of me in this thread. Moron.

[PLAGIARISM! 0]

I genuinely don't understand the arguments against breast feeding in public. If the kid's hungry in public, why the hell should you have to use a bottle if you don't normally? I don't think it's particuarly a good idea to use both anyway. People just get offended for the sake of it sometimes.

[JangoFett4Hire 0]

For a super-power, America sure is stuck in the 19th century.

[spman 0]

I genuinely don't understand the arguments against breast feeding in public. If the kid's hungry in public, why the hell should you have to use a bottle if you don't normally? I don't think it's particuarly a good idea to use both anyway. People just get offended for the sake of it sometimes.

 

Lactation is disgusting, and I have no interest in seeing it.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

For a super-power, America sure is stuck in the 19th century.

 

N*gga plz. It's like cell phones. If you're trying to be somewhat discreet I normally won't care. If you want the world to see your actions, then I'll be a prick. (It's fun talking loud next to some idiot screaming on his/her cell phone.)

[EricMM 0]

spman do you understand that breastfeeding is as natural a thing and as sanitary and as... safe a thing as a person can do?

 

What, do you feel that the breasts are somehow debased or desexualized be seeing them used for their TRUE purpose? Get over it, get over it now. Deal with your humanity or suffer in silence because your freaking out over something that people have been doing before we were doing ANYTHING else you might call "human" is ridiculous.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

I got your back, spman. I don't want your tit, though.

[spman 0]

spman do you understand that breastfeeding is as natural a thing and as sanitary and as... safe a thing as a person can do?

 

What, do you feel that the breasts are somehow debased or desexualized be seeing them used for their TRUE purpose? Get over it, get over it now. Deal with your humanity or suffer in silence because your freaking out over something that people have been doing before we were doing ANYTHING else you might call "human" is ridiculous.

 

Again, it has NOTHING to do with Sex or breasts or anything, it has to do with me, and many others, jut not wanting to see women lactating in public! The true purpose of my penis is to be inserted in a females vagina in order to replicate the species, and to expel liquid waste from my body. Sex and urination are BOTH perfectly natural activities but I understand that no one is interested in seeing me engage in either activity, so therefore I am respectful of the wishes of the rest of society and do both in my own privacy.

[Twisted Intestine 0]

Because it's so difficult to just not look, if you don't want to see it. And I'm sure if you catch a glance, it will ruin your day. I don't want to see fat women wearing tight pants. BAN IT!!

[EricMM 0]

Procreation and feeding are two different things, spman.

[spman 0]

Procreation and feeding are two different things, spman.

 

But the 2 main arguments in support of Breast Feeding are normally

 

1. It's perfectly natural, in which case procreation and urination are too

 

and 2. I have to feed my kid and this is the only way to do it.

 

The point is, most women who are blatently just breast feeding their children in front of other people are no different then any other inconsiderate people in society. Sure, there's no law against me cursing in public, laying on my horn when I'm in the car, pushing my way to the front of a line, and so fourth, but you don't do these things becasue we have respect and common courtesy for other people. There are other ways for women to feed their children in public ranging from discreet breast feeding out of the view of others, to bottling the milk and giving it to them that way, but some women choose to just make a scene and do it in front of everyone for whatever radical feminist statement it is they're trying to make.