News Alert! Heterosexual men find women’s breast sexually arousing! In other news water is wet.
Not sure what you are on about here. OF COURSE men find women’s breasts sexually stimulating. Willing to bet the man who got you pregnant found your breasts sexually stimulating. Willing to bet every person you have ever had sex with found your breasts a sexual turn-on.
I find vaginas to be a sexual turn on too. I do not want to see it while I am eating in a restaurant though even if its intended purpose is to be a gateway to start a new life and to bring a new life into the world.
Only in fantasy land where you are queen of everything.
Legal? So what? Legal is a long way from saying something is right or not. It used to be legal to own slaves. In some countries killing your sister/daughter/wife is legal under certain circumstances. Guess the men there would decry how shitty you are being if you pointed out that killing their wife is wrong because it is legal for them to do that. :rolleyes:
Just because you can do a thing does not mean you should.
If you cannot comport yourself in society because you feel your rights supersede all other considerations and you have no care whatsoever for those around you then you really should not be in public. Living in a society is an exercise in balancing rights. You have no such interest in this regard. It is all you and to hell with everyone else.
I am not saying you should not breast feed. By all means…knock yourself out. I am saying you should have some concern for those around you. Get out of the pool and go sit in a chair to feed the baby. Is that really so onerous?
This “tough shit, deal with it” attitude of some interracial and homo couples is annoying. They are going to show you how fucking beautiful it is whether you like it or not! Just what people hope for when they go out to dinner. :rolleyes:
Your bile is shocking. I’m not sure you understand how the American political system evolved, but rights of the many often supersede the rights of a few, especially when there is a net gain for society as a whole. Breastfeeding has been determined by our health system to have benefits that go far beyond merely sustaining an infant, not the least of which is reducing the incidence of smoking, obesity, and attachment disorders, all of which have wide ranging positive effects on our health care system and society as a whole. You don’t have to concern yourself with how I personally feel of course, but you have no choice but to consider the findings by the CDC, WHO, the surgeon general and lawmakers who made these decisions based on scientific findings rather than your personal fixations and hang-ups.
There are very few reasons why a child needs to be fed in public. As a parent, with a wife who breast fed, it was never an issue to take care of the baby’s nutritional needs long before we were in a public setting. On those rare occasions when the baby wanted to nurse again while we were out, a solution was easily found, and it NEVER included my wife whipping her udder out for a public display of infant feeding.
With that said, not everyone in the world has to be like us, and I get that. But I have found in my own personal experience that women who breast feed in public do it for the attention it brings, not for Junior’s lunch or dinner needs.
I know I will get slammed for this opinion by moms out there, demanding to be able to feed their child anywhere they please, and I understand your point of view. I just happen to disagree with it.
For the record, I am not completely against breast feeding in public. Clearly if that is your only option, and the child is hungry, by all means, do what you need to do. But it is rarely the case that people can’t plan to go out and not plan around their child’s eating schedule. Or in this case, where mom is in or next to a public pool, she doesn’t have to bare her tit and feed right there. There is no reason why she could not get up, and go to where her towel is, and do it at least away from the pool area. Kind of like where you’d want a person to eat their lunch or drink a soda. Away from the pool area. That is easy to do.
I don’t know to what level this woman was embarrassed, so I can’t speak to that. I’m sure her opinion is different than the life guard’s. but she shouldn’t be ridiculed or embarrassed. She should be politely asked to leave the area. And she should at least politely agree to move. I sense the “scene” was started after she was told to move and refused, causing the life guard to raise his voice or something that brought the situation to the attention of others.
I never said to stop breast feeding. I am suggesting you have some concern for those around you when you breast feed.
So, get out of the pool. Seriously. CAN you breast feed in the pool? Sure but why? Is it such an inconvenience for the mother to go sit in a chair by the pool while she does it? Is it better that she inconveniences everyone else in the pool merely because she can?
If you are in a park and breast feeding I have zero issue with it. If you are sitting across from me at the next table in a restaurant then it is a different matter. This is not a binary choice. It is considering the place and circumstance and adjusting accordingly. I do not see why asking you to cover up while breast feeding in a restaurant is too much to ask.
Your stance is to hell with everyone else and make no allowance for circumstances or to make even the merest concession for those around you.
As for the health aspect, as I cited earlier, the science is not as clear as you make it out to be. Not saying it is bad for the babies. Just that it is not as magical as you seem to make it out to be.
ETA: For what it is worth, if you are adamantly opposed to formula, you can buy human breast milk.
I had mentally written a very similar response before realising I just didn’t have the energy to get into an online argument with an ignorant young man with limited experience of children, but I agree with and support everything you said.
With respect, I suspect you both are projecting. Nursing breasts aren’t quite the sexual toolkit they were prior to giving birth, especially when one is recently postpartum, and it should be so obviously so. A nursing mom isn’t as sexually available if at all. A nursing mom is generally preoccupied with wiping bums and noses all day. A nursing mom is generally caked with dried milk, spit-up, and other assorted unsexy fluids. A nursing mom is harried and exhausted, and preoccupied with her family rather than the fleeting gaze of strange men. Bonding is so much more important than gathering a few approving glances, which are far outweighed by the disapproving glares. I know I certainly resented the attention of strangers both when my little one cried and when curious eyes fascinated by the action under my nursing apron stared too long. And truly the baby kicking the cover and my constant, nervous adjustment of the same brought far more attention than a simple accessible blouse would have caused. Picture the difference between a deliberately scantily clad tart and the buttoned up librarian. The too obvious plea for attention goes widely ignored but a chance to see a prim skirt hike up a thigh is catnip to voyeurs. If I had it to do over, I’d forgo the clumsy apron.
With regards to restaurants and other relatively quiet and calm establishments, a new mother often feels compelled to quiet a fussy child with whatever means she has handy in order to convince a judging public that she’s a good mom. On top of that, meeting a young infant’s needs on demand is quite the compulsion, so much so that someone else’s newborn crying can cause a letdown that requires immediate attention and relief.
Breasts being employed for nursing with a pink, mewling infant attached are such a different animal than the deliberately propped up cleavage of a sexually inviting woman that I just didn’t give them the same value or thought. The baby and I had a job to do and we got it done with as little fuss and scramble as we could manage. But I can’t really blame those activists who arranged the very obvious nurse-ins. The only way to desensitize a hypersexed public is to expose them to the act and get them used to the idea. I couldn’t handle that sort of scrutiny, but more power to the moms who grit their teeth and endure the critics.
Why? Because it offends your delicate sensibilities and gives you a woody? Sorry, I don’t care. No, it’s not worth my expending even a little bit of energy for that, when the benefits - to other little girls who may never get to see a woman breastfeed, and to their babies, and to the culture as a whole learning to get the hell over it - if I don’t cover up are, literally, exponential.
What inconvenience?
I will make a concession for public health. I will make a concession for safety. I will not make a concession for your erections or another person’s sense of ick. These are not “inconveniences” which warrant concessions.
Your cite says that it’s difficult to study, not that there are no benefits, or even overblown benefits.
(emphasis added)
This is just factually incorrect. It may have been your experience, but if so your child was a major exception. Either that or you just don’t consider women being able to live normal lives of engagement and usefulness in their communities to be a normal, bare-minimum level of equality that is worth some poor random Target customer having to use their neck muscles to avoid seeing a nursing baby if it bothers them. Given the derisive, inflammatory language you use to describe female anatomy and breastfeeding, forgive me if I would be unsurprised at a certain level of misogyny, in addition to monumental ignorance, underlying your assessment.
I already said as much, but because I’d be concerned about the infant’s safety in the presence of rowdy swimmers, and I’d be concerned that the infant wasn’t warm enough. I wouldn’t be in the least concerned about a mother publicly breastfeeding at a family friendly venue. In fact, after this conversation, I’d comp her entry fee at the least.
I am not opposed to formula and said nothing of the sort. I said that an infant accustomed to breastfeeding is not likely to take well to a cold bottle of foreign, smelly substance (my god the stuff smells ghastly even if it is a miracle for infants unable to breastfeed). Your suggestion that nursing mothers need to be better prepared to accommodate onlookers would be insulting if it weren’t hilariously self-absorbed.
And I haven’t made magical claims, you are more than welcome to keep vomiting up cites that breastfeeding isn’t a panacea, but we both know that studies touting the physical, emotional, and financial benefits of breastfeeding will trump your paltry cites so this tangent really isn’t going anywhere.
If I may ask, do you drive? If so, do you drive 10 to 15 mph less than the posted limit in order to accommodate the fears of more cautious drivers? If not, why not?
(Obligatory but tangential link to “Watch Your Language!” by Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC. Nutshell: there are no “benefits” to breastfeeding. There are health risks to artificial feeding. It’s science, not a promotional pamphlet.)
Thank you for the correction, I knew of the necessity for language appropriate to science, but used an easy shortcut for the sake of time.
For the sake of those who insist that a blanket should be used to cover a nursing infant, this is what my experience looked exactly like. This is a YouTube link to a diaper commercial, and though it should be safe for work and restaurants everywhere, I will break the link on the offchance the easily offended will lose his appetite by the sight of a nursing infant:
I wasn’t saying they would be able to kick her out totally. But I do think they would be able to make a rule that she can’t breast feed in the pool itself. Sit in a lounge over on the deck, yeah. In the pool? I can’t see where they would get in trouble making a rule against that.
Honestly, if seeing a woman breast feeding gave me a boner I would never argue against it. It’d be like arguing against lingerie. I’d be women who breast feed biggest fan.
So you are sending the message to little girls that it is ok to be insufferable entitled assholes. Good job.
What about women who cannot breast feed for any of a variety of reasons? Your message to little girls will ruin them if, for whatever reason, they are unable to breast feed their babies. It is not uncommon. Shit happens. But YOU making it the end all, be all for young girls will fuck them up if they cannot measure up. Way to go mom.
If I were in the pool I would make a point of steering clear of the breast feeding mom. Not because I was bugged by it but because I think it would be the right thing to do. Splashing my friends and doing cannon balls into the pool near the mother feeding her child seems wrong to me.
See…I actually care about the people around me. I could, LEGALLY, cannon ball right next to the mom feeding her kid. But that would be a shitty thing to do and I am betting you would think so too.
It is not a sense of “ick”. I have already said I am FINE with women breast feeding. It is a question of context. Of time and place.
Would you breast feed you baby on the dais of a wedding while the bride and groom were saying their vows? If not why not?
The cite says that the studies showing the benefits of breast feeding then to not account for certain variables. For instance women who breast feed tend to be in a better socio-economic class, better educated and put more effort into the welfare of their baby. So, it is difficult to say that breast feeding was the thing that made their babies prosper where others didn’t. It may be a piece of the puzzle but there is more to the story.
