Adrianne Curry gets my vote for biggest asshole on Twitter this week (so far). Here's her post from yesterday:
I'm pretty sure she's figured out by today that offending millions of breastfeeding mothers and proponents across the globe is not only a surefire way to guarantee thousands of pissed-off emails in your inbox, but also likely to get you painted as an ignorant jerk. Oh, and boost your pageviews.
It hurts to realize that we haven't come as far as I thought we had in normalizing breastfeeding. Its discouraging and disheartening to see women shaming other women for feeding their babies. Its frustrating that despite the ongoing dialogue about nursing and the abundance of facts and research available, ignorant people still wish to equate breastfeeding with a sexual act.
I'm getting tired of repeating myself when it comes to this debate. I frankly can't even understand why there IS a debate about feeding babies. Women have been nursing their children anywhere and everywhere ever since human beings started having babies. Its only here in the good old USA that nobody bats an eye at Victoria's Secret ad with women saved from nudity by only the tiniest scraps of fabric, but people still get their knickers in a twist at the thought of having to see what little can be seen of a woman's breast when a baby's head is in front of it.
I'm no prude. I'm not offended by women wearing revealing clothing or lingerie cleverly disguised as clothing. If a girl's got assets she's got every right to show them off. Breasts are awesome, no doubt. As sexual objects go, they're hard to beat. When I'm not pregnant or nursing, they play a big part in sex for me. (At least, they used to, back in the days I actually HAD sex. I'm not sure I remember HOW anymore...) To me, one of the most amazing things about them is the dual purpose they serve. The breast is a GLAND, folks. All that yummy roundness and softness exists not just to titillate (sorry, couldn't resist) and excite, but to house the ductwork necessary to provide the perfect food for infant humans. If humans weren't meant to breastfeed, breasts simply wouldn't exist.
When I was nursing my kids, there was no sexual aspect whatsoever for me. There was a lot of emotion tied up in it, the softness I felt in my heart when I a tiny little hand would clutch my finger and my baby would grunt and sigh and eat. The hormones produced during letdown and nursing that help moms and babies bond created a tender emotional glow around the act of feeding my babies that is almost impossible to describe. I felt so many things - joy and love so intense they were something that could be touched and seen. Happiness. Contentment. Pride. Love. More love. Love on top of love with a sprinkling of yet more love. There was nothing more beautiful in that moment than my baby. There was nothing remotely sexual about it. It was motherhood in its most elemental form.
Pregnancy and birth taught me that my body was meant for more things than I realized. Legs are not just for walking - they provide something to brace yourself with for the next contraction. Hands are not just for picking things up, they're for crushing the fingers of your labor partner. Ha. Vaginas are great for sex and other things, but they are also the passage for babies to enter the world. Breasts - they make baby food. When we limit our understand of ourselves only to those things sexual we miss out on so much more. Our bodies can be smelly and sometimes a little gross, but at the same time they are strong and amazing and incredibly multifaceted. We are both base and sublime.
How sad that Adrianne Curry's is unable to appreciate and marvel at the wonder of a woman's breast. How unfortunate that her limited thinking leads her to believe its only purpose is to provide sexual pleasure. Its odd that while Ms. Curry seems to harbor no qualms about flaunting her own nudity in public venues, her public stance against breastfeeding is based on being opposed to OTHER women being (at best) partially unclothed.
My job as a mother is to take care of my children. Feeding them is not optional. So long as babies need to eat mothers will nurse. Women need not be relegated to bathroom stalls (ewww, unsanitary) or behind closed doors to feed their babies. There is something wrong with a society that views THIS:
as somehow being more acceptable than THIS:
Perplexing, isn't it?
