After living here a few years, my Hungarian dressmaker mother in the 1950's
said the US was a strange place as breasts were for pictures but not for
feeding babies.

The "gross" part of breastfeeding is part of a culture that cannot just
accept breasts as they are.  They are not big enough, small enough, rounded
enough, pointed enough.  Women attempt to change themselves through their
breasts.  This emphasis has been going on for a long time but with films and
photography we can see how clothing styles and states of [un]dress change
breast perception.  Moveable, immoveable, high, low, pointed, flat,
maximized, minimized.  Bras are made to be visible with seams and bumpy
lace, invisible in smooth new microfiber. There was a time bra straps were
to never show in public, now bra straps are from fun fabrics in colors meant
to call attention. 

Then it says something about our society when teenage girls are asking for
and getting breast surgery [augmentation or reduction] as their high school
graduation gift to make them feel good about themselves.  It takes a strong
woman or girl to like herself and her breasts for their function when they
are not liked for their looks or do not meet the criteria for what is
beautiful [or "in"] this season.  

There are a lot of people just plain uncomfortable with breasts--period!  It
doesn't take a baby being on the end of one to make it so.
Judy Ritchie

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