Magazine cover blasted by public squeamish over sight of nursing breast
SuzannePjam
Posts: 411
I'm shocked that so many people had such a negative reaction to something I wouldn't even have looked twice at. I think Gayle Ash of Belton Texas could use a little therapy.
"A breast is a breast — it's a sexual thing."--Gayle Ash, of Belton, Texas
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14065706/
(click on link to see cover in question)
Eyeful of breast-feeding mom sparks outrage
Magazine cover blasted by public squeamish over sight of nursing breast
"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 greater 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."
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.
"A breast is a breast — it's a sexual thing."--Gayle Ash, of Belton, Texas
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14065706/
(click on link to see cover in question)
Eyeful of breast-feeding mom sparks outrage
Magazine cover blasted by public squeamish over sight of nursing breast
"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 greater 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."
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.
"Where there is sacrifice there is someone collecting the sacrificial offerings."-- Ayn Rand
"Some of my friends sit around every evening and they worry about the times ahead,
But everybody else is overwhelmed by indifference and the promise of an early bed..."-- Elvis Costello
"Some of my friends sit around every evening and they worry about the times ahead,
But everybody else is overwhelmed by indifference and the promise of an early bed..."-- Elvis Costello
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
No man really cares about seeing this at all...trust me. So it's some freaked out bunch of women who keep raving about this? Geez you'd think other women would understand the most :rolleyes:
frightening...
Sexual innuendo aside, the retards that get "oh so god awful offended" when mothers feed their babies naturally "in public" or outside of the bathroom/living room have a serious problem. The problem of liking to hear themselves talk.
Sure I look at a mom boob feeding an infant, but then there really isnt anything to look at. Get over it.
I remember when I lived in England there was a "protest" or something in Bury St. Edmunds (i think) w/ ALOT of moms boob feeding there kids in the park near the Abby. Thats happened alot in the US too.
I was once a 13 year old boy - that's all I wanted see
Talk about marrying the most sexless person ever. Did they adopt their son?
Unless there's baby hang it off of it. We're not all creepy.
This is true though.
I see a half boob hangin' out i look, because...well..its a boob in my perifial (sp) vision. But I dont stare just outta 'respect' (for lack of a better word) for the mom. Not respect outta privacy. But respect for mom doing whats free of charge and completely natural. If she did want privacy, the she wouldn' t do it in public. But privacy isnt the issue here. The issue is ppl whining, complaining and bitching cause they saw a "boob". Shit, just look at a Cosmopolitan, a bikini orrrrrr.............
just dont look at all. Its that easy ppl.
these people need to get a life
Kills a pound of pain
hahahaha! EXACTLY what i was thinking! it could be an elbow! people are ridiculous. it's a breast, being used as nature intended, and yet it STILL is uncomfortable to see? the fact that something so natural, so innocent....can be viewed in any way a negative light...shows you some serious issues within our culture, and ANY form of undress/nudity. crazy.
Let's just breathe...
I am myself like you somehow
....still nursing her 3 year old?
not a 3 month old....a 3 year old who is walking, talking, and has teeth.
i find this to be a little disconcerting. it's her choice but once
the child can eat solid foods, around 6-9 months, breastfeeding is usually stopped. not usually done after 12 months.....
we have that magazine on our check out counter at the ob/gyn office where i work. there haven't been many comments made about it....it goes with the territory and the clientele.
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln
I did laugh out loud at that one.
me also
at 13 i was flicking through the Grattans catalogue at the womens lingerie section... i should have been looking at Pregnancy Monthly instead though :(
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
This is a ridiculous reaction to nothing. What a bunch of over-reactionary, overly-sensitive PC assholes.
Some Americans make me sick to my stomach.
Someone needs to remove that HUGE stick from their collective asses.
Yeah, a breast with a baby suckling is obscene to these people, but video games and movies where they depict the shootings and bloody, graphic body parts being hacked off or blown off; is okay:rolleyes:
And someone needs to realize that generalizations aren't real intelligent.
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
It should be every where.
Only a moron interprets a woman breast-feeding as a "sexual" thing. What kind of nutjob do you have to be to think such a thing?
In fact, woman should be allowed to walk around topless if they so choose to.
The human body is a beautiful thing. It is not a sin, bad thing or repulsive.
It's the minds of these idiots and their negative, over-reactions to such things; that upset and disturb children.
If they simply behaved uneffected as if it was simply a natural, non-issue; no children would get the notion that the human body or breast-feeding is a dirty, naughty....evil thing.
It reminds me the animated video clip for "Paranoid Android" by Radiohead. For a long time, the mermaid's breasts were censored by MTV, but all the violent parts (for example, the man cutting his limbs off) remaind untouched.
About the original topic: I can understand if someone gets embarrassed by this sort of action (in my opinion, women who want to nurse in public need to ask "would you mind if I..."), but I really don't understand that weird over the top reaction of these people.
no they fucking dont.... just as you dont need to ask permission to eat a sandwich in the middle of a town square...
they are feeding the baby... what if you said "well yes i do mind actually"??? the baby keeps crying its head off and the mother has to find a 'suitable' spot to do the thing that is wholly natural!!!
Its a rhetorical question... you know, to be polite and inform you're gonna nurse your baby.
A leg can be a sexual thing to some for Christ sake. Its a picture of a mother feeding her child. What is sexy or sexual about that?
Since having a baby 2mos ago, it is obviously on my mind.
Then I hear the other day some states are thinking of banning breastfeeding in public.
Women have been having "feed-ins" at thier government grounds in protest.
I personally try to cover up. But its hard the blanket slips off my t-shirt is over her head.
Babies squirm.
Im not trying to flash the world.
In north america health providers are in the same breath trying to get women
to breastfeed and for longer. While public is saying "put that away! Its gross!"
Would we look at a momma dog feed ing her pups and say Ewwww...?
No way! Its natural. So why are we so above feeding our own children?
I have friends who are very sqeemish about people seeing even an inch of their
breasts. Personally I try to cover up but if a bit of boob is showing Im not gonna stress.
...
If you get a chubby from looking at a bronze breast on a fucking statue... I don't really think it's society that has the problem.
Hail, Hail!!!
Oh... ummm... nevermind.
I do not understand this odd obsession this country has with tits. "Oh my gosh!!! A breast!!! Let's kill it!!!". 1/100th of a second of Janet Jackson's tit and the fucking country has a tizzy fit. Draping over a statue in a Hall of Justice... a mother breast feeding her infant on a magazine cover... They're tits, people. No big deal. If you think that a breast feeding mother is sexual... YOU'VE got the problem.
...
and this is a General YOU, as in the puritan self-righteous wankers... not directed at 'Don't Gimme No'... who I know is a good guy.
Hail, Hail!!!
For the record, I've never gotten tight pants over a nude statue or a breast-feeding mother. Nor have I ever been offended by breast-feeding in public. My feeling is that if people are offended by it, they're either people who recognize the sick fucks that might get off on that or they're idiots. Either way, there's clearly nothing wrong with it. And as for this being on the cover of a magazine. Who really cares about this shit? I cannot believe I'm even posting on this thread.
I was at a wedding once and we were sitting at the same table as our hippy co-worker. They has a little baby and during the dinner it was feeding time so... **THWUMMMMPPP!!!** out comes this gigantic tit that was way bigger than my head, crashing down on the table!!! There was no way to avoid it... it was covering, like, half the table. The kid starts sucking on the beast like there's no tomorrow and she just continued picking at her salad and chatting away about the lovely wedding...
Although shocked at the appearance of this monsterous tit on our dinner table, none of us were offended because we all knew this gal and understood that, that's just the way she was. And I could see how people would get their panties in a bunch, mostly because of their own prudishness. Me? Well, to make light of it... I said, "Hey... if he doesn't want any of that other one... can I have it?".
Hail, Hail!!!
just dont get pissed at me when im staring at it.
Sort of like the gal that wears the low rise jeans that barely cover her cooter... then, gives you shit for looking?
Hail, Hail!!!