Weighing in on Breasts: Funbags or for Feeding?

Yeah, I said it.  Breasts.  Breasts have been on my mind lately.  I've had a couple of interactions over the last few days that I think are worth sharing.  We'll start with the conversation I had with my husband yesterday.  He was frustrated with women being asked to cover themselves and their children or to remove themselves from a public place when they are breastfeeding.  I breastfed my son for a year and a half and he decided that he was done nursing.  I would have liked to breastfeed him for at least two years (as is recommended by the World Health Organization), but he was over it.  I breastfed him in public places on a regular basis because I was not always in a private place when he decided he was hungry or in need of comfort.  It's as simply as that.  On more than one occasion, I was asked to go someplace private, like a bathroom, or to cover up.  I was told by members of my own family that I was being inappropriate or offensive when I was feeding my son.  Yes, with my breasts.  I was asked why I didn't pump milk into a bottle ahead of time so I didn't have to "expose" myself publicly.  So yesterday, Andrew said, "I hope I'm saying this in a way that isn't offensive, but... I'm not mad because I'm a feminist.  I'm not mad because my wife is a feminist.  This isn't a feminist thing, or about me being a hippy or granola or whatever the hell.  This is about a hungry baby.  What the hell is there to be upset about when you see a baby eating?"

And you know, he's right.  It is a feminist issue because women are routinely shamed for utilizing their bodies as they were biologically intended to be used, but it shouldn't have to be.  Mammals' breasts produce milk for their offspring.  And it comes out of nipples.  Does that word make you uncomfortable?  It shouldn't.  It is a part of your anatomy if you are human.  And roughly half of the human race can make milk come from their nipples.  Take deep breaths; it's okay to come to terms with nipple milk.

So why is it so hard to come to terms with women breastfeeding?  The obvious answer is that, as a culture, we have sexualized women's breasts to the point of being uncomfortable when we witness breasts used nonsexually.  As a society, we prefer to see breasts selling cars or hamburgers to seeing them nurturing children.  Does that seem strange to you?  Breasts are not designed to sell things, but to feed children.  But we're more comfortable seeing them on the hood of a Ferrari than in the mouth of an infant.  Have you considered that the reason we are so attracted to breasts on a sexual level is that we are subconsciously choosing a mate?  Perhaps the reason we like to look at breasts is because they tell us, on a primal level, that we are looking at a woman who might potentially feed and nurture our children.  (This is not to say that everyone who likes looking at breasts wants children!  I'm just offering one possible evolutionary reason why we are attracted to breasts.)

You may have seen Alyssa Milano's recent appearance on Wendy Williams's show.  (Watch it here.) Their conversation about Alyssa Milano's breastfeeding advocacy is a perfect example of what we feel comfortable and uncomfortable with regarding breasts.  Wendy Williams openly admitted that she would rather see women dressed scantily in public than see a woman breastfeeding her child publicly.  She said that, were she a breastfeeding mother, she would take her child to the car to breastfeed because she felt that was more appropriate.  She said that breasts are sexual for a woman's entire existance, but only used to provide milk for a child for a little while, so they should be treated as sexual objects all the time.  She also referred to them as "funbags."  Alyssa Milano's simple response was, "that's what WE have done to them."  WE have made breasts into tits, boobs, funbags.  WE have created the image of sex.

This brings me to the second breast related interaction I had.  A friend that I went to high school with shared a photo on Facebook.  If you follow any kind of breastfeeing support pages, you see them all the time. It was a side-by-side with Rhianna's transparent dress and a mother breastfeeding.  It asks why is Rihanna's dress okay, but breastfeeding isn't?

Similarly, Alyssa Milano asked Wendy Williams why people are more comfortable with Miley Cyrus wearing thin suspenders over her breasts than with a breastfeeding mother.  These comparisons are a slippery slope!  My friend shared the above photo and pointed out that we cannot simultaneously shame some women for choosing to share their bodies in a sexually attractive way and support other women for choosing to breastfeed publicly.  Both are okay.  It's fine to point out the double standard, because there is an obvious one.  But you telling me, or me telling you, what an appropriate or inappropriate use for breasts is is reinforcing the idea that we have any right to regulate each other's lives.  It also reinforces the dangerous idea that we are somehow responsible for how we will be treated if we choose to show our breasts--sexually or to breastfeed.  (That dangerous idea was never more evident than it is in THIS news story, in which a New Hampshire politican claims that, should women feel so inclined to expose their breasts, they should be prepared to deal with men's natural inclination to grab them.) It boils down to one simple question: Are they your breasts?  No?  Then you don't get to choose how they should be used.

And what are we supposed to do about that?  I am not going to talk about the laws protecting breastfeeding or topless women.  I'm not going to touch the legal side of the issue at all, but I'd like to address the social issues.  What can we do to change the way we see breasts?  The answer is fairly obvious.  We should keep doing whatever the hell we want with our breasts.  I'm having another child in May.  I will be breastfeeding.  Without a cover.  (Hello!  You should try eating under a blanket in the heat of July!) I may share photos of myself as I breastfeed my baby.  I think it's beautiful and I will want to share it with others sometimes.  And, if you like to wear low-cut tops or go tan topless at the beach, keep doing it.  The only way we are going to make what we choose to do with our breasts "okay" is to keep doing it and the world will catch up with us.  Hopefully. In the meantime, if you do not like breasts (if that's possible), avert your eyes.  Yep, it's that easy.  Just don't look at them.