Facebook has done a stupid thing: they’ve started deleting photos and accounts of breastfeeding women. Tara is leading the charge here on scienceblogs — this is a ridiculous and demeaning decision, reflecting a mindless prudery on the part of the facebook administrators. Give them hell.
Alas, Tara succumbs to her own biases and cites my breast as an example of offensive photography. Nay, I say, we must regard every expanse of torso as equally lovely. I think I have a few more shots of the masculine mammary in question; to prove my point, if Facebook can’t come to their senses, I may have to post them to my facebook page. If they had to start deleting every bare-chested college man’s photoset to justify scouring those pictures from their servers and their nightmares, it would serve them right.
Also, I’ve got too many friends anyway. That would clear that problem right up.
You people are sick, sick, sick. Rather than scaring you away, putting that picture on my facebook account means I’ve gotten a flood of friend requests.
This bodes well for my future career in porn when the theocrats shut down the universities.
I did consider urging everyone to upload your naked nipple to their facebook sites and see if they’d start taking them down…but I didn’t want to be responsible for unleashing that upon the world once again. :)
You know, it’s getting colder here in Minnesota…maybe I should do another set of poses outdoors, to get a better, bumpier look.
But for now, I’ve put the photo in a public album for all to admire.
Yes, clearly babies are obscene. Facebook is not being aggressive enough here. All baby pictures should be removed! To be safe, delete all pictures of anyone under the age of 75 years.
Just when I thought the American neurosis and hypocrisy swirling around this type of issue couldn’t get any more irksome…
Would the pro breast feeding protesters like Tara be called “Lactavists”?
Next on the No-Breast Agenda: KFC
I saw a BEAUTIFUL Juicy-looking Original Recipe BREAST, and got really excited. Of course, it was lunch time….
If Breasts are outlawed, only outlaws will have BREASTS!
And please kkep in mind that you have to be very careful because as Woody Allen pointed out, “they usually travel in pairs”.
Next on the No-Breast Agenda: KFC
I saw a BEAUTIFUL Juicy-looking Original Recipe BREAST, and got really excited. Of course, it was lunch time….
If Breasts are outlawed, only outlaws will have BREASTS!
And please kkep in mind that you have to be very careful because as Woody Allen pointed out, “they usually travel in pairs”.
Next on the No-Breast Agenda: KFC
I saw a beautiful Juicy-looking Original Recipe breast and got really excited. Of course, it was lunch time….
Remember: If breasts are outlawed, only outlaws will have breasts, and of course, you must always be alert, because as Woody Allen once pointed out, “they usually travel in pairs”.
My favorite game to play with sites that have ridiculous rules like that is to find out what their rules are exactly and then treat it as a creative exercise to come up with annoying art-works that straddle the line.
For example, on deviantart, where I post some of my photography, I determined that they have a rule that says (basically) “male nipples OK, female nipples naughty.” So I posted an image of a busty model with her shirt off and her husband’s nipples photoshopped over hers. Who minds a little hairy nipple anyhow? Of course these things make the site respond by coming up with even stupider rules (i.e.: “no nipples at all”) in which case you just photoshop the nipple tissue out and replace it with, say, elbow tissue – which looks remarkably auroela-like but clearly isn’t…
see: (the nipples picture)
http://mjranum.deviantart.com/art/Nipples-45068145
Ain’t we got fun? Prudes are so entertaining!!!
My buddies and I have a scoring system:
5 points – you get them to change their rules
10 points – you get banned because they can’t cope with you
50 points – you get the moderator to melt down and call you nasty things
My favorite game to play with sites that have ridiculous rules like that is to find out what their rules are exactly and then treat it as a creative exercise to come up with annoying art-works that straddle the line.
For example, on deviantart, where I post some of my photography, I determined that they have a rule that says (basically) “male nipples OK, female nipples naughty.” So I posted an image of a busty model with her shirt off and her husband’s nipples photoshopped over hers. Who minds a little hairy nipple anyhow? Of course these things make the site respond by coming up with even stupider rules (i.e.: “no nipples at all”) in which case you just photoshop the nipple tissue out and replace it with, say, elbow tissue – which looks remarkably auroela-like but clearly isn’t…
see: (the nipples picture)
http://mjranum.deviantart.com/art/Nipples-45068145
Ain’t we got fun? Prudes are so entertaining!!!
My buddies and I have a scoring system:
5 points – you get them to change their rules
10 points – you get banned because they can’t cope with you
50 points – you get the moderator to melt down and call you nasty things
Or in this case in triplicate! :-D
Anyone genuinely got a spare nipple in their personal set? Eg that foot one. What about people’s pets on facebook – or should that site be strictly limited to pictures of faces?
My favorite game to play with sites that have ridiculous rules like that is to find out what their rules are exactly and then treat it as a creative exercise to come up with annoying art-works that straddle the line.
This sort of thing is why I theorize that censorship is not all bad, when it comes to art. It gives the artist a limit and forces him or her to be creative. The results can be astounding. Of course, censorship has so many negatives that this one small advantage could never outweigh them all, but it is nice to think sometimes that even a bad thing can have positive consequences. Also I just love the idea of a breast with elbow tissue at its center. Give yourself 20 points if you get them to ban elbows.
But only 10 points if you get them to ban rigatoni, which are clearly more obscene than elbows.
Best Family Guy episode to date.
The FCC one (Look it up on Youtube). Here’s Peter’s Side Boob clip, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRGHUQkpShk
“they usually travel in pairs”
Just like your posts J-Dog?
PZ’s nipple = The new goatse?
oh god! they combined postsecret and lolcatz. Won’t the memes ever stop!!!
As for the nipples, when a baby is breastfeeding you don’t see them. You know, on account of the fact that it’s in the baby’s mouth. What you see, at the most, is a little cleavage. You know, like what you see on all the pictures of spring breaking bikini-clad girls that are all over Facebook. The ones they’re not taking down.
It’s quite an achievement for a culture to manage to brand a completely natural and healthy function as something unsettling and unfit for the public view. It’s not like it’s the first time this stigmatization happens either.
As for the second issue, I have to agree with Tara. Seeing PZ’s nipple was about as comforting as gazing into the eyes of one of the Old Ones.
a) yes, i do have a third nipple! (it’s on the inguinal line, about 10 cm below my right nipple, and is only about 5 mm across.)
b) try living (as i do) in korea, where nipplage is illegal (on my first day at work here, i got caught in a rainstorm, and showed up with a wet shirt and nipples obvious… embarrassed the secretary and was sent home to change and buy an umbrella.
c) i’m male.
I apologize to all for the triple play – not sure what happened.
Mrs. MG and I are expecting our first, and I swear, if anyone gets in her face about breastfeeding, they’re going to wish there was a god. I’m with forsen – how have we, as a culture, gone so off the rails that a natural and beautiful part of the mother-child relationship has been stigmatized? Some family values…
#20:
1. left side, same position, similar size
2. U.S.- gets occasional “ewwwh” comments at pool
3. Me, too.
#20:
1. left side, same position, similar size
2. U.S.- gets occasional “ewwwh” comments at pool
3. Me, too.
Heeh…heeh..snort…heeh. Boobies.
(God please don’t let this be the 500,000th comment)
The prize does not necessarily go to the person who makes the 500,000th comment.
I really don’t understand.
Everybody wants to see boobies. Nobody wants to see boobies doing what they are *for*. Everybody wants to save fetuses, but once they’re born, nobody wants to see them eating. (Unless they’re covering themselves in chocolate birthday cake, which is just too AWWWWW.)
The confusion.
Russ Meyers and PZ Myers.
ARGH!!!!!!! This drives me NUTS! Thanks for pointing it out, PZ. As a very pregnant women who intends to breastfeed her progeny, this just acts as a further impetus for me to whip ’em out in public every damn chance I get! Women are protected BY LAW to breastfeed wherever they damn well please. Whenever I hear someone say, “Oh, that’s just sick,” I want to grab them by the throat and SHAKE them violently. What could be more beautiful than a mother nursing her baby, seriously???
GAH! I am incensed.
Porn and science- two great tastes that go well together.
(Now, pardon me as I take my eyeballs to the emergency wash station…)
Breastfeeding, unfortunately, isn’t seen as normal. I’m a nursing mother and have been for 9 months. We’ve nursed in restaurants, malls, aquariums, zoos, bookstores etc. I’ve never thrown a blanket over my shoulder and I think in all this time only one person besides my husband has even noticed what I was doing at all. Discreetly nursing in public is the best advocacy I can think of.
Unfortunately, at every pediatrician appointment, I get asked how many ounces of formula my son takes. Pediatricians of all people, don’t assume I’m doing what they indeed RECOMMEND I be doing. Every time someone hears that I’m STILL nursing my 9 month old son I get lauded. And I know their sentiments are genuine, but frankly it’s not like I’m bringing peace to the middle east, I’m just feeding a baby. And it is amazing and wonderful, but it bothers me in some way that this extremely normal and natural thing I am doing is seen as something less or more than simply normal.
Long time reader, first time commenter, long time atheist and lover all things related to evolution.
Nutmeg: Good for you. I plan on breastfeeding for at least a year. I don’t understand why a woman WOULDN’T breastfeed if she is able – I mean, consider all of the advantages! Bonding with baby, losing weight faster, healing more quickly after delivery, warding off cancers, antibodies for baby, odorless poop, don’t have to worry about constipation… seriously, is there any con whatsoever? I mean, besides the retards who will complain that it is “gross”?
Thanks for commenting, Nutmeg. Welcome aboard.
Julie, MG and Nutmeg, 10/10.
Facebook: my finger.
What could be more beautiful than a mother nursing her baby, seriously???
I dunno. I’d prefer it if Lindsay Lohan were to walk by topless, to be completely honest with you.
Ew, are you serious? I’m pretty sure that alone would be enough to give you gonorrhea…
This is nuts. Typical of this country, too. The best response I can think up is to borrow the baby tonight and upload a picture of me trying to breastfeed our son. That’ll show ’em–hairy chest an’ all.
LM, breastfeeding is legally protected in some states. I know it is in California, but you need to check your state law–not all states have the decency to even legalize it.
Nutmeg, that’s good. My wife breastfed our first for over a year, and will probably do the same for our second. For what it’s worth, we’re with Kaiser, which not only encourages breastfeeding, but kind of assumes it. They even leave subtle hints all over maternity wards explaining that it’s the best food for them and THE ONLY THING you need to give your baby.
LM, I can think of a couple downsides. Not all women have good supply. It can hurt sometimes. You still have to watch your diet–not as bad as when you were pregnant, but still strict. Of course, none of those comes close to outweighing the benefits, but those are drawbacks.
Leon: Are you sure? I thought it was protected in all 50… but then I didn’t spend THAT much time at this site:
http://www.ncsl.org/programs/health/breast50.htm
Also, watching the diet is not an issue for me, but I guess I can see how it would be for other women. I’ve completely given up caffeine and alcohol (for good!), so other than a little discomfort, I don’t anticipate many drawbacks. :)
What really puzzles me about this is not how people can react in such a bizarre manner to a perfectly natural phenomenon which has been around as long as there has been mammals on earth.
What really puzzles me is the fact that we have a thread here about boobies which has been up for well over five hours, and still wOOt hasn’t showed up to link some of his volar boobies…
That was what my wife told me. Being a children’s librarian, she’s done most of the children-related research in our family. It may be she was working off old information; it’s also possible I’m not remembering right.
Aieeee! Oh, the humanity! My homebrewing ears are still ringing… It hurts! It hurts!
Leon: Looking more closely at that site, it does appear that there are a few states that say nothing about breastfeeding, whether it’s allowed or not. But it looks like more than 90% of the states protect it (thankfully!).
And yes, I really did give up alcohol. :) I thought it would be hard, but I don’t miss it at all!
I think watching breastfeeding causes a little too much introspection for some guy’s tastes.
“How dare you remind me that gorgeous tits are sometimes attached to someone’s mother! You have no right to make me face the possibility that my appreciation of boobies is a subconscious infantile desire for the comfort of breastfeeding!”
Actually, I’m just guessing here. I really don’t understand why some people make such a big deal about it. Can someone here who doesn’t like breastfeeding explain, please? Or if not, offer some good/amusing theories?
Free the Springfield Two!
Um, jealousy? I mean, the idea of it: here I am, spending money on dinner, wine, movies, dancing and whatnot, all with the hope that I may get to see some breasts later (at the very least), and some snotty little brat who’s probably never worked a day in its life just shows up with an empty stomach and an irritating cry and scores? No fair.
To all the idiots out there who have a problem seeing a woman breast feeding a baby, you’re a freaking mammal, get over it already.
Sciam sidebar had this a couple of weeks ago.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=A24E0966-E7F2-99DF-322F8725F208D744&sc=I100322
“Strange but True: Males Can Lactate
Unless you are an Indonesian fruit bat, though, it probably won’t happen naturally ”
Heh, so maybe some of those hairy nipples could do some feeding and give a helping “breast” in the child rearing chores. In my day all I did was finger feed after my wife had used the breast pump. Never used any formula though.
Oh and BTW does anyone else out there have vestigial nipples? I have an extra pair on my lower abdomen, not very noticeable, more like two dark spots but they are there. So that post about they always come in pairs, not always.
So now can we get a photo of a real manly man with four full breast suckling a brood of young’uns?
since I had some time today…
more on the legal status of public breastfeeding:
http://www.llli.org/llleaderweb/LV/LVJunJul05p51.html
their commentary is dated to around 2005, so things still might have changed, but I found it a very nice summarization of most of the legal aspects under consideration.
LM, alcohol is overrated. :-)
Block: “…a subconscious infantile desire for the comfort of breastfeeding!”
If that were the case, then women would be as breast-obsessed as men. Those who are attracted to breasts for sexual reasons are attracted to breasts for sexual reasons. You can let yourself off the hook, and un-hook without reservation.
Finally, some scientists come out and admit what Ive been screaming all along:
Tits are awesome! :D
I’ve got a nipple in my left armpit.
Been shaving around that damn thing for 40+ years.
(Not too intelligently designed.)
Blasphemy!! Torches and pitchforks are now in order!
…um, anybody know where I can find some? ;-)
OMG I just remembered that I have a genuine 3rd nipple just below my right pectoral. its about 2/3 cm wide.
Im soooooooo facebooking it!!!!
LM writes:
Ew, are you serious? I’m pretty sure that alone would be enough to give you gonorrhea…
I’m a photographer. All she’s got to do is reflect light attractively. :)
Breast-feeding is natural and I fully support women doing it where and when they feel appropriate. On the other hand, enjoying a good loud shag with a member of your preferred sex is also natural and we frown on people doing it publicly. I’m not trying to equate the two but it’s just worth noting that not all natural processes are treated the same way. The same could be said for enjoying a good bowel movement (though there are sanitary arguments that apply there) So, while I completely support breast-feeding in public, I also tend to turn my head and try to pretend it’s not happening. I also tend to leave the room when people decide to change a diaper in my presence. It’s simply that I find gestation to be disgusting (my personal preference, that’s all..) and most of its by-products (diapers, screaming children, and breast-feeding) bug me to a greater or lesser degree.
The important thing here is that my views on gestation and its byproducts are not widely shared (or practical) so I don’t think it would be fair of me to expect society at large to bend itself to my will, rather than the other way around.
That, to me, is the core of my disagreement with the notion of “tolerance of religion” – at what point is society at large bending itself to the will of a minority and at what point is the herd mentality of a majority stomping individuality. These are the most important questions for society, after matters of mere survival.
I’m not trying to equate the two
you just did.
and then with bowel movements…
at least be honest.
what you were really trying to say is:
i realize these comparisons sound extreme, but…
Can someone here who doesn’t like breastfeeding explain, please?
Most of the things to do with child-rearing make me squeamish. I’ve had some really aversive experiences involving the subject (at an early age I was stuck in the back of a car for a long trip with a child that I can only call “diaper disaster of doom”) – so I get the willies. On the other hand, I’m not one of those people who goes around asking mothers to stop breast-feeding; I prefer to simply leave.
These issues are microcosms of society. At what point does your right to swing your fist encounter my nose? Etc. It also ties up to courtesy. For example, if someone starts changing a diaper in my presence – I leave. Personally, I consider changing a diaper in an enclosed space to be particularly rude (baby sh*t! MmmmM!!!) parents forget how disgusting kids can be if they aren’t yours… But there are also situations in which you can’t comfortably leave, in which case it may be appropriate to say something. For example, I was in a restaurant once when a lady started changing her kid’s diaper. I went over and quietly asked her not to do that because it was ruining my enjoyment of my breakfast. She started shrieking racial epithets at me (she concluded wrongly that I had asked her to refrain because of “race” issues) and I wound up leaving the restaurant after explaining to the manager that they should give the lady with the baby my check.
First of all, to echo #40, where’s wOOt?
The same reason people don’t like to see bare butts, and back in the day women had to cover up their ankles. Just because we find certain features make a woman more sexually attractive (and I’m assuming women think the same thing about us guys), some people tend to confuse that with that feature being inherently sexual. (Even then, for full nudity, there’s the issue of tasteful vs. pornographic, and is it really all that bad just to see a piece of anatomy.)
Really, I’d like to see Facebook ban all pictures showing lips and tongues, because, at least in my experience, those are used far more sensually than breasts.
I wrote:
I’m not trying to equate the two
To which Ichthyic replied:
you just did.
Absolutely not. I placed them on the same scale, certainly, but they are not equal and I was not trying to equate them. I’m sorry you misunderstood my attempts to write precisely as being dishonest.
and you missed MY point:
you have a valid argument; you don’t need to place apologies on it because the comparisons sound extreme.
seriously, it IS a valid argument to compare breast feeding to bowel movements.
not one I might have made, but there is a valid level of logic to it.
In fact, I find I have to spend time considering exactly what the counter arguments to that would really be, that would be entirely separate from the the perception of “appropriateness”, which would just be essentially an argument from the same knee-jerk response level as that directed towards breast feeding.
hmm, public hygene, maybe? public defecation has historically led to outbreaks of cholera, for example.
don’t recall any public health issues with breastfeeding.
public sex is a trickier one. but then, I frankly have never objected to it, provided it doesn’t make so much noise it disrupts what I’m doing at the moment, like watching a movie.
Kick ASS! That’s awesome. Served her right for playing the race card like that. And for being a jerk (using racial epithets, not to mention screaming at another person in the first place).
I have an infant and a toddler, and I try to avoid changing their diapers right in the middle of things, especially if we’re at a restaurant. You know, most public venues have diaper-changing stations in the restrooms, and those even make your job easier by giving you a nonporous surface to do the changing on.
Re #50
You mean blasphemy or torches and pitchforks?
You can’t possibly mean alcohol, right? ;-)
Thanks for the welcome.
I think one reason people don’t like to see women nursing their infants is that it is a very visceral reminder that people are animals. I think that it has more to do with that than with the sexualization of breasts.
Point two: I don’t tend to think of it as my right to nurse my child wherever I want… rather I think of it as my son’s right to eat whenever and wherever is appropriate for any other person to have a snack or a meal… and he has a right to do it without a blanket over his head.
With that in mind, I don’t change his diaper in places that I wouldn’t cop a squat myself. So… the middle of a restaurant… okay for nursing but not so much for changing diapers.
As is the nature, with these United States, states get to make their own laws about breastfeeding in public. The federal government has protected a woman’s right to nurse her child anywhere she is permitted to be on federal property.
Oh, how nice it is to be a male and have nipples that, almost by definition, aren’t obscene? I wonder how much of this is Facebook not wanting to lose their hip, young image by reminding the youth of today that they, too, will grow old and probably spawn offspring of their own? Like, what a bummer. Or something.
I think Nutmeg nailed it – these things are visceral reminders that we’re animals. That bugs some of us and conversely it makes others of us feel more in touch with life.
So it just boils down to courtesy and treating others the way you’d like to be treated, yourself. I find that whole issue fascinating because it’s actually very very hard to do consistently. Mostly, in my experience, because our notions of how we’d want to be treated shift mercurially as the reality of a situation hits and over time.
For example (not to harp on the issue) I’ve noticed that people who have had kids tend to get over being squeamish about diapers pretty quickly, and that desensitization lasts a long time. As someone who owns horses, I’m utterly desensitized to horse-poop and horse-wee, which can be mightily pungent indeed. A few weeks ago I boarded a flight to Los Angeles and noticed that the lady next to me looked somewhat uncomfortable. I finally asked her what was up and she said (small voice!) that my boots really smelled awful. Arrrgh! I had worn my barn boots on the flight and I reeked of horse-wee and didn’t even notice it. So I went to the bathroom and washed my boots as well as I could – it was all I could do. And I felt awful because there wasn’t much else that I could do at that point and the poor people around me were stuck with my horse-reeking self. I cringe in embarrassed memory as I write this (lady on the plane, if you’re reading this: I am still sorry!)
Personally I don’t think it’s polite to complain about a woman breast-feeding (it’s what women and babies do) under virtually any circumstances – because it’s necessary and at least in the case of the infant it’s outside of h* control.
But… Well, it freaks me out a little bit. But it’s “my issue” and it’d be rude for me to make my issue someone else’s unless they were meeting me halfway in the rudeness department.
(Apropos nothing: if you want a really good way of learning how profoundly we can establish aversive responses to normal body activities, try getting diahrrea while you’re tripping on LSD. I strongly dis-recommend it but it’s certainly a fascinating illustration of how our brains can quickly associate stimuli and memories)
I placed them on the same scale, certainly,
But WHY? Because they both involve fluids and the body? No crying in public, then – how gross! Certainly sweating in public shouldn’t be allowed, either.
There are a few HUGE differences. One is a waste product and the other is food. One ends up left behind, the other goes straight into the baby’s mouth without you ever seeing it. One is full of potentially disease causing germs, the other is full of antibodies.
I really don’t get when people try to equate breastfeeding with shitting or fucking in public. You know what you see when a woman is breastfeeding? A woman holding a child closely to her torso. END – OF – STORY. You see nothing else, unless she happens to be not adept at it yet and you’re specifically staring for a long length of time. Then you might get a flash of cleavage for a split second. Most probably not, though. I’ve had entire conversations with people without them ever realizing that I was actually breastfeeding my son, until they asked to hold him and I had to explain that he wasn’t quite finished yet. Why is this so threatening to some people?
“public defecation has historically led to outbreaks of cholera, for example.” Ehm, though I get your point that statement doesn’t quite sound like it was very well thought through or expressed. Certainly poor hygiene coupled with overcrowding and ignorance of pathogens, how they are transmitted etc, would tend to create conditions for outbreaks of diseases such as cholera. However what if the public defecator were to use a poop scooper with a doggie bag and then sprayed a little bleach on the offending spot I think the outbreak might be avoided. Though somehow I still think the outcry from any observers would still be deafening. Any thoughts on why that might be?
try getting diahrrea while you’re tripping on LSD. I strongly dis-recommend it
can’t imagine why…
:p
Though somehow I still think the outcry from any observers would still be deafening. Any thoughts on why that might be?
well, that’s kinda the point, isn’t it?
I really can’t, logically, come up with any thoughts on why public defecation, provided it was completely sanitary, should provoke an outcry.
I understand that it would, but only by convention, AFAICT.
think about it:
when there is no choice (open toilets at very large music festivals in the past come to mind), people tend to adjust their level of “outcry” at public events.
moreover, historically there have been many societies for which it was not a social stigma to defecate in a public area.
so I see two choices, if we exclude the sanitation issue:
the outcry comes from victorian style social norms.
the outrcy comes from an extension of previously existing rules regarding public defecation that DO relate to the sanitation issue (even if it didn’t exist any more).
Re: defecation.
Most animals don’t like to do it right where they’re going to stand; I suspect it’s as simple as that the odor would be a flag to predators or a warning to prey. It’s probably as simple as that.
What I’d love to see is an argument for why nudity taboos arise that’s rooted in evolutionary biology. Nudity taboos have always fascinated and puzzled me. It seems they mostly come from religion – so my natural tendency is to dismiss them out of hand as ridiculous. But why is it that so many religions have latched onto clothing or aspects of garb as levers? Is it simply that poor/nontechnological societies have little more than sex and clothes that the control-freak gods can get upset about?
Come to think of it, it’s odd that the gods have ignored making rules about how we poop and pee. That seems like such an obvious target for pointless religious meddling.
Most animals don’t like to do it right where they’re going to stand; I suspect it’s as simple as that the odor would be a flag to predators or a warning to prey. It’s probably as simple as that.
don’t forget disease vectors.
Come to think of it, it’s odd that the gods have ignored making rules about how we poop and pee. That seems like such an obvious target for pointless religious meddling.
hmm, you have a point there, but it might depend on the religion.
as far as judeo-xianity is concerned, there is an online bible you can search to see if there are in fact any verses dealing with the excretion process.
hmm, now where was that again…
meh, just do a search in google on “online searchable bible”; that should do it.
you might find something about nudity in there too.
Re #66
Oh man, sounds like the shit really hit the fan there.
Re #68 Makes me wonder if there isn’t some connection between the apparent fixation of the religious on parts of the anatomy that are related to excretion of bodily wastes, especially when they are often the same parts that are used in sexual intercourse. Maybe the original rules were a way for primitives tribes to enforce group hygiene. Eureka,maybe this also explains why I think most holy books are a pile of crap.
Carlie asks:
But WHY? Because they both involve fluids and the body?
Because they’re both bodily processes that might or might not be considered socially acceptable to perform in public. I wasn’t trying to offend you; it’s simply that there’s a wide range of “body stuff” that people place on a wide scale of social acceptability. The breast-feeding thing appears to be interesting because, in our society, at this particular time, with our particular load-out of social norms – it’s close to some kind of borderline.
There are plenty of societies in which breast-feeding is completely unnoticed. It’s possible that it’s because in those societies, breasts aren’t covered or decorated or whatever. I don’t know. We’re dealing with left-overs of Victorian “values” – but where did those come from? I suspect a lot of them were a mix of religious woo and – what else? Victorian England was the most technological society and the wealthiest society on earth. Was it that they could afford to dress funny and worry about these things? Was it that they suddenly had the leisure time to fill with social rituals? These are interesting questions to me.
You know what you see when a woman is breastfeeding?
The way you asked that just helped me clarify a lot of my own attitudes regarding that topic. So, I thank you. They’re probably not relevant to the discussion, since I suspect I don’t represent anything like a norm and I suspect most of the people who don’t approve of public breast-feeding are coming from a different “issue” entirely. (For what it’s worth: I can’t stand infants. So it’s not breast-feeding that bothers me; it’s the presence of an infant. Which probably also goes a way toward explaining why my preference, when I encounter an infant, is flight – I feel no moral justification for disliking them; it’s simple aversion.)
my preference, when I encounter an infant, is flight
interesting marcus; perhaps not as uncommon as you might think.
you might want to check this out:
http://smussyolay.blogspot.com/2005/05/infantophobia.html
There’s a similar policy on LiveJournal regarding user icons: you can’t have a bare breast (or something that looks like a bare breast, as with an icon made from a painting that depicts a woman in gauzy clothes) as you default. :P
perhaps not as uncommon as you might think.
Ahaahaaaaaaahaaa!! He’s got it much worse than I do. I’m not really phobic. I just can’t stand ’em.
That was actually what triggered my apropos nothing comment about bodily functions on LSD. You can sometimes have a single experience that is so intensely memorably unpleasant that it affects your attitudes for years or the rest of your life. Like food poisoning – it usually takes nerves of steel to take the first bite of something that you got violently ill eating in the past. Well, when I was about 13 or so, I wound up in a multi-day-long trip in Europe sharing the back of a VW beetle with a monstrous shrieking head-kicking crapping drooling puking infant. By the end of the first day I would have cheerfully murdered it if I could have gotten away with it. But social constraints kept me in check and I managed to survive another 3 days of diaper smell and the torture-chamber shrieks as its parents blithely nattered on about how cute it was and (being desensitized) were utterly uncaring of how badly it smelled and how loudly it cried. By the end of the trip I never wanted to be near an infant again. I still don’t.
RE Nudity taboos in evolutionary biology…
I have no proof, but I’d wager it has something to do with cryptic ovulation in females and mate guarding males expressed to the social extreme.
I guess my frustration is for people who seem to think that breastfeeding in public involves mothers whipping out their breasts and trying to shoot a fountain of milk into their child’s mouth from across the table or something.
(Ok, so that would be kind of cool, and now I really wish I’d tried that when I had the chance, because on a good letdown one could really get some distance…)
But really, it’s not like that. You don’t notice it unless you’re really paying very close attention for an extended period of time. Even if you personally think it’s icky, it won’t be in your face. There’s nothing to see to be offended by.
Bah! The picture is gone! Facebook says the pic no longer exists. I guess all breasts/nipples/aereolas of both sexes are banned. That’s a lot of pictures to go through. I feel sorry for the sorry sap who has that job!!
My elementary school teacher always told us, “If you didn’t bring enough for everyone, it’s just not polite.” Okay, maybe I have a fetish…
“Come to think of it, it’s odd that the gods have ignored making rules about how we poop and pee. That seems like such an obvious target for pointless religious meddling.”
Actually, the Essenes (some say Jesus was one) had a rule that one had to go outside the camp quite a few cubits away (I forget how far but maybe 200 yards) to defecate. What’s more, no pooping on the Sabbath at all. Now that’s anal retentive. But only every seven days. A crap-fest 6 days of the week and then prairie doggin’ it on the seventh.
no pooping on the Sabbath at all.
I notice they appear to have dropped that one from the list. :)
“The lord is my micromanager…”
Carlie:
Bingo. Frankly, what offends me about motherhood is when a mother naturally gets aggravated by her kids and naturally starts screeching at them to behave and naturally grabs one roughly by the arm and naturally uses belittling language and naturally makes me cringe in a way that few other not-uncommon types of public parenting scenes cannot.
Somehow I just don’t get how a mother feeding her baby AS GOD SO OBVIOUSLY INTENDED can be viewed as indecent or offensive.
(Sorry, I just invested money in a company that manufactures irony meters. Heh.)
“Bonding with baby, losing weight faster, healing more quickly after delivery, warding off cancers, antibodies for baby, odorless poop, don’t have to worry about constipation… seriously, is there any con whatsoever?”
I’m suprised that missed out what I found to be the biggest advantage of all. It’s a heck of a lot less work. No washing, mixing, sterilising. No pacing the room at 3 a.m. waiting for the bottle that’s been in the fridge for hours to warm up to something approaching blood heat. No arm ache from holding the bottle steady.
Having done both (couldn’t get breastfeeding going properly with my first child) every time I hear some new mother saying that she bottle feeds because it’s ‘easier’, I want to scream at her.
How are you making the determination that it was that particular picture which caused people to add you as a friend and wasn’t merely the self-advertising here of your profile there (about which some people might not previously have known)? Otherwise I agree with your assessment of their mentality though. :-D
Please! Men’s breasts are no joking matter! (I had a sneaky glance at your picture, PZ, and there’s definitely some convexedness going on there.)
Oh, and regarding the Essenes: it’s true, they practically shat themselves to death.
OK, that’s stretching the truth a little. But their religious zealotry did turn around to bite them in the arse.
http://www.bioedonline.org/news/news.cfm?art=2928
Geez…this country has such hangups over certain body parts. Why is it that so many people can’t seem to make the clearly obvious distinction between obscenity and biological function? There is a huge difference between “breast as sexual plaything” and “breast as food source”, and it’s crazy that anyone would get their panties all up in a bunch over online photos of breastfeeding mothers. It’s related to the stories you see every now and again about a mother breastfeeding in a public place who’s asked to move to a more “discreet” location… we need to collectively just start the process of overhauling the way this culture thinks about breasts, I guess, before anything will change in a lasting and meaningful way.
clearly obvious distinction between obscenity and biological function?
ROFLMAO
It would be nice if everyone saw the issue so “clearly”.
unfortunately, if it was so clearly obvious, uh, it wouldn’t BE an issue.
try to avoid projecting too much.