Breasts are Big!!

(Well, not all of them, of course. Lots of luscious Asian breasts are perkily less than a mouthful. Some breasts appear big, but aren't really, merely suffering a case of silicone bloat. Mine, as it happes, are decent. But I meant the other kind of 'big', as in topical, news-worthy, cutting edge.)

So. Breasts are Big!

And controversial, evidently. If you read the mommy blogs at all, you'll know there was a big kerfuffle about this magazine cover. The editors received 5,000 letters about it, of which 25% complained about its "obscenity". People were "shocked", didn't want their impressionable teenage sons seeing it, had to shred it on sight.

What a shizophrenic society is our neighbour to the south! That cover is positively pornographic, Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" precipitated a deluge of outraged complaints, but breasts and sex are everywhere. Everywhere!

So. Why is this (on the left) worthy of a flood of complaints, and that (on the right) is not?

And no smart-ass comments of outrage from the fashion police. I'm not talking about crimes against fashion, but of prudery that forbids the picture on the left while allowing the woman on the right to walk around - and be photographed - in that outfit.

Let me clarify. That woman has every right to walk around in that ridiculous outfit. (Though one does naturally wonder just how her nipples can stand the strain of being the sole means of support of the entire ensemble. I mean, what happens when she takes a deep breath? One does wonder this.) Setting all concerns about her taste aside, she has every right to wear that thing. And people afford her that right.

BabyTalk has every right to post a picture of a nursing baby. Why is there any discussion at all?

What's the difference? Because, as one outraged letter-writer said, "A breast is a breast — it's a sexual thing." True enough, as far as it goes. Breasts are sexual things. However, they are also biological things. In fact - hold on to your hats, because apparently this idea is radical - breasts are primarily a feeding station. Women may not spend much (or any) of their adult lives nourishing a child, but that's why they're there. If we weren't mammals, we wouldn't have them.

Breasts are made for babies. Men (and/or women) get to enjoy them; women get to enjoy men (and/or women) enjoying them - but that's icing on the cake. The only reason, biologically, that women have those things hanging off their sternums is to Feed.A.Baby. That's it, that's all. All the rest is window dressing.

The fact that so many people have completely reversed this, made breasts primarily, even solely sexual, is sad. The fact that so many people would see a picture of a nursing baby - a modest, tasteful picture at that (do you see any nipple at all?) - as sick and disgusting... Well, anyone who can see a baby nursing and have a wave of revulsion? That's pretty twisted.