I just wasted 15 minutes of my life reading comments (ok, and commenting) about the pictures on this site
http://social.diply.com/great-images-of-women-breastfeeding-their-babies?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=batdad
Now, I am all for breastfeeding IF YOU CAN DO IT. Emily wouldn't latch, and maybe I gave up too quickly, but after being tired, and stressed out, and in pain, and freaked out about her having dropped an entire pound from birth to her first ped appointment, there was no way I could power through and essentially give her no food until she would latch and start nursing.
But, I did still want to give her some nourishment of my breast milk, so she got formula but I also supplemented with the little pumped milk I was able to provide. But still, that was my personal preference and I give no judgement toward a mother who chooses to exclusively formula feed if she cannot nurse or pump (hell, I don't judge even if she can do those things, but simply chooses not to). I adhere to, fed is best....any which way or how.
So, I will say that I of course see nothing wrong with nursing, I agree that it is not a sexual thing, and I see nothing wrong with nursing in public. I don't even think women should have to use a cover if they don't want to or the baby doesn't like it, provided that they don't flop their boob out, let it hang there for a few minutes and then put the baby on, all the while walking around Target with their shirt totally pulled down for all to see even with the baby "covering them". Yes, feed your baby. No, don't freak out about covering every inch of yourself for modesty sake, but completely exposing yourself for attention is not necessary.
Neither are these pictures, and I find if ridiculous that people do them and defend them. Wait, let me clarify. The pictures are fine, I guess, if that's your cup of tea, but plastering them online for all to see is for no reason but attention. If it really were about the promotion and beauty of nursing, then there would also be photo shoots of women pumping, or treating their dry, sore cracked nipples with lanolin. Hell, I've got a couple gross pictures of my c-section that my husband for whatever reason decided was a Kodak moment, let's start posting those! If it's for the natural beauty of it all, then C-section pics should be the next big thing right? After all, c-section mommas get a lot of shit for "taking the easy way out", and not "really" giving birth, so let's start a trend of posting beautiful and natural pics of the baby being pulled out of womens' guts after being sliced open. What is more natural than being born? Yes, not all women give birth, some of their children are born from their heart through adoption or step-families, but ALL children are birthed from A woman...somehow I bet people wouldn't be as eager to do these "natural" pics.
Or maybe instead of pictures, they could make glass walls of ORs so people could actually view babies being born, how beautiful and cool would that be? Instead of standing at the glass and cooing at newborns in the nursery, let's bring their arrival out from behind closed doors. After all it's natural and should not be hidden.
That's about as dumb as I feel these nursing pics are. Though I actually think #4 is beautiful. That's the kind of nursing pic I could be on bored with. It looks more realistic but also artful and beautiful, the woman is not stark naked as she does not need to be, and I highly doubt any women actually nurse their babies stark naked anyway (as in pic #9, oh sorry, she's wearing a sweater, my bad), unless maybe they are just "naked people" that would be waking around their house naked anyway.
#3 scares me...and not in a "that's a creepy nursing pic", but more of a "are her children vampires and are they attacking her"kind of way. I think it's the older boob kid and the much older kid going for her jugular, I mean to kiss her on the cheek, that gives it that look.
So of course the comment section was filled with people like me that are like, yeah nursing is fine, taking pics of nursing is fine, but making them sexual (#9 I'm talking to you) and putting them online is the issue.....and then there are the people claiming WE are the ones making it sexual (again, no need to be naked and do your hair and make up and pose in front of a window if NOT trying to make it more than it is) and it's art and it's beautiful and not for attention (yes, because the very first thing I do when I do NOT want attention, is take off my clothes, do my hair and make up, have a photo shoot and then post the pics online).
But, clearly this post was meant to invoke controversy and debate since they used pic #9 as the "cover pic" for the article, which is arguably the most attention whorish and sexual one, rather than #4 because they know most people won't read the article before they start arguing (as I did not at first) and #9 is much more of a shit stirrer.
Anyway, to each their own, but I...and I think many others would just prefer people are honest. For example, Playboy. I don't give a flying fuck about Playboy. They make no excuses or apologies about posing naked. It's either for the money, the fame, or the attention. Good for them. I even bought my husband a subscription of Playboy once. I don't care to look at it, but I have no problem with people that do, or the women that pose in it. I likely wouldn't bat an eyelash at that "nursing"pic if the caption read "I am totally full of myself and I need attention so I stripped down to my birthday suit so I could take a pic and show it off, and used my kid to cover up my need for attention". Or, "I wanted to show off and I also want an attaboy for feeding my child, like millions of women have been since the beginning of time". At least then I could say ok, good for you. I wish I had a body that I would want to photograph like that. But to claim it's to show the natural beauty of breastfeeding, give me a break.
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