Kathleen, in your post with this heading, I got lost in the quotation marks. I can't tell which passages are quotes from the Jelliffes (Derrick or Patrice, or both?) and which, if any, are from someone else citing the Jelliffes, and/or your friend who shared it with you. In the text as it appears at the archives, there seems to be an orphaned quotation mark of this kind: " That mark precedes the first passage you cited, but I couldn't find a corresponding mark showing where that quote ended. I have cut and pasted the post, minus your introductory sentence, below. Can you clarify where the " should be closed, and who is the 'I' in the first sentence below? Is it C.Weichert, or someone quoting C. Weichert, and is C.Weichert quoting the Jelliffes, and if so, from where? Is the 'I' in the first sentence, the same person as the 'She' in the final one? This seems picky, I'm sure, but since you cite someone who cites someone else (and who possibly is citing a third instance) we need to know who to credit if we cite them to others :-) Rachel " I found the following description in Jelliffe & Jelliffe' s Human Milk in the Modern World to be explanatory for me. ….. a functional castration of women has occurred. They have acquiesced to a combination of forces, medical and cultural, which have eventuated in the use of the breast as the primary sex symbol and yardstick of feminine desirability, divorced from its nurturing role. Women in a critical period of their life cycle have become divorced from themselves and from the ability to confirm their identity fundamentally. In this instance, the degree of concern of the medical profession might be described as inversely proportional to the dimension of the problem. To draw an analogy, would the professional distance of physicians be maintained were it routinely recommended that all insemination be accomplished artificially? Would anybody suggest, seriously, that males abstain from intercourse, bind themselves, take drugs to relieve congestion, or be mechanically relieved routinely, and that it would be as good? The apparent absurdity of the analogy goes to the heart of the problem. If one sees lactation as part of a psychosexual continuum in women, the analogy can be taken seriously. Weichert , C (1975) Pediatrics 56.987. Breast-feeding: first thoughts. She is also of the opinion that: ‘To deal with anxieties that lactating women express concerning their ‘normality’, because of the sensual relationship they share with the infant, one must confront the relationship between lactation and sexuality, not deny it.’ *********************************************** Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html To reach list owners: [log in to unmask] Mail all list management commands to: [log in to unmask] COMMANDS: 1. To temporarily stop your subscription write in the body of an email: set lactnet nomail 2. To start it again: set lactnet mail 3. To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet 4. To get a comprehensive list of rules and directions: get lactnet welcome