This is how messed up we are

[Shankapotomus]

Last edited Sat May 12, 2012, 09:11 AM - Edit history (1)

It's unnatural and sick for a 3yo child to put its mouth on its mother's breast for the utilitarian purpose of drawing milk.

No, that is only normal when it's done by an adult of a certain age, of no relation and for no obvious utilitarian purpose.

Don't get me started on all the other non-utilitarian activities and ingestions we adults engage in and have fooled ourselves into thinking is "normal". Anal sex, oral sex, not the most biologically necessary activities, no? And yet our problem is with the breast feeding kid? Really?

Now I don't want to come across as a prude (I'm not) but, if you think about it, today's adult sexual activity is much, much weirder and abnormal than the Time magazine cover, wouldn't you say?

I mean, answer me this: on a level of pure grossness, where do you think breast feeding falls between anal sex, ingesting each others spunk, golden showers and two girls and a cup?

[Taitertots]

1. Are you comparing breast feeding to eating shit and semen?

Breast feeding is not gross at all. That is simply a non-sense comparison.

If anything, the only question we should be asking is if it will cause psychological problems for the child. There is little evidence to show that it will cause any problems.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

7. The OP is mocking the idea that sexualization of breasts is ok...

...but using them for the biological purpose is not.

[StitchesforSnitches]

2. America is a Nation of Puritanical Hypocrites

Always has been.

[cali]

4. true, but one can find this cover crap without being either.

It's exploitative and the way it's done is just idiotic.

I nursed. Never had the kid stand on a chair to do it. Didn't put on make up to nurse.

[cali]

3. the problem with the Time cover isn't that a 3 year old is shown nursing

it's that the cover is exploitative. Does anyone nurse their kid posed in a glamor shot (that's what it's known as in the biz) with the child on a chair staring into the camera? Does that look like nurturing to you?

How about the caption? Are you Mom enough?

And what do golden showers, swallowing semen etc have to do with the Time cover? Haven't seen anything like that on the cover of a national magazine.

I'm not into exploitation. Or desperate corporate entities using shock shlock to make money on their dying mag.

Oh, and I don't think this does anything to advance breast feeding, which is a very important thing.

And yes, I breast fed and felt it was the best thing to do.

[clydefrand]

5. How will this little guy feel

years from now when he sees himself in that picture? I agree with you all the way. No one feeds their child in front of a camera, at least breast fed! I hope this child doesn't suffer in years to come because of this photo. The little guy didn't seem happy about it at all.

[Trillo]

14. Years from now his mother will be dead,

and he'll have that pic. as a warm-fuzzy memory of some of the sustenance she gave him.

"No one feeds their child in front of a camera, at least breast fed!"

I think there's at least one, if not considerably more. Google images says 27 Million results for "mother breastfeeding" without quotes.

[Shankapotomus]

6. Don't you think the Time cover controversy

has less to do with Time mag and more to do with people's reactions to it? In other words, it's not shocking if we don't react to it. And it's only exploitative if we believe such a picture should warrant a strong reaction. But our reaction is based on a totally arbitrary and artificial standard of what is and isn't appropriate. We are reacting negatively because we've been programmed by society to react negatively. After all, if breast play was somehow never incorporated into our culture as a sexual activity (like some cultures never had french kissing or rubbing noses), would the Time cover be regarded as scandalous? We would have no reaction because we wouldn't associate it with sex or sexual behavior. So it seems to me the people with the problem are not necessary the breast feeding moms but it could equally be the adult people who have incorporated breast play into their sex lives. You see what I'm saying? Our reaction is warped by our view of what's sexual and that's totally arbitrary.

[cali]

12. I think it's a combination of things that elicit a negative reaction to the photo

it's exploitative whether one reacts to it or not.

Look, Time could have chosen to put a mom nursing her 3 year old or 4 year old on the cover done it in a way that really did show nurturing and love, but they chose not to.

No, not everyone is reacting because it shows something outside the cultural norms but because it's done in such a fucked up way- and that caption, double ugh.

My other objection is I think Mom is using her kid to make her point or to get attention. The kid had no choice in this. Children are frickin' people- not appendages of their parents.

[EFerrari]

9. Exactly. Breastfeeding a 3 year old isn't creepy.

Presenting the nursing couple to be ogled, that's creepy.

And most moms don't have the option to breastfeed their kids that long. I was lucky to get six months with each of my kids and that was with family help, not maternity leave.

This cover is an ad for the 1% who want to put focus back on uppity tits and not on the fact that very few women have any kind of time with their new infants, let alone, with their 3 year olds because we can write no-strings checks to fucking Wall Street but no checks to support those first few crucial months of life as most democracies do.

[Ship of Fools]

10. That was my take, 100%.

Had the woman been more plain in appearance, had the shot been
less staged, I wouldn't have had the least problem with it.

[Swede Atlanta]

8. Dude or dudette...I'd like to hear you out but.........

this post makes no sense to me. What point are you trying to make?

[Cairycat]

11. I'm not so sure this kid is going to be traumatized later by this cover

Do you even know his name now, without looking it up? Will you remember it ten years from now?

As a mother who nursed her kids in toddlerhood and even beyond, I've known quite a few families that did the same. And the kids have turned out ... pretty much like an equivalent bunch of kids who weren't nursed. But this idea that kids are somehow sexualized by nursing beyond earliest infancy, I haven't seen it ... I don't think it's borne out at all.

[sarcasmo]

13. Are you the Nebraska Women who went on the rant?

[Shankapotomus]

15. nope

and i'm not a woman. (not that there's anything wrong with that).

[Odin2005]

16. It's sad that many "progressives" have such regressive attitudes towards breasts.

We are MAMMALS, we suckle our young!