What makes breastfeeding such a hard sell?  No one left alive on the planet has any illusions about it's superiority as a source of infant nutrition.  Everyone pays lip service to the benefits and feels a bit guilty when they say, "Yes, but..." But they still say "Yes, but."

We have a huge image problem, and part of it IS about what Fiona Giles calls our "cranky, middle class" reputation.  We are like some band of annoyed, ax wielding, rather grim Temperance Union ladies going around making 'normal' people feel bad about themselves. I did a radio interview last night, and when the interviewer asked me bottom line what the best benefit was, I said:  Hands down the best benefit is that bfg is one of life's sweetest experiences.  The memory of the PLEASURE of it lasts a lifetime for women.  And it means the world to the baby.

For most people sex is funny, parenthood is funny, and bfg is funny.  We should make and laugh at jokes about it, take back ownership of the right to enjoy it, and we should be open to conversation about why people get grossed out or turned on by it.  I used to do presentations at WIC meetings where I would open talks with a forced viewing of Kittie Frantz's hand expression video.  There were always people who had been MADE to attend, and I could spot them.  They were the ones with their arms crossed defensively over their own chests (men and women) and the Eeewwwww! looks on their faces.  I used to say:  "OK.  You are sure this is going to be gross, so let's get it over with.  Let's see what it looks like when the milk comes out. " It was amazing to watch their body lang. as  the video progressed.  By the end the audience would all leaning slightly forward with looks of fascination rather than revulsion.  Then we could get on with business.  People in this country (US) have excretory taboo issues with breastmilk.  Frank conversation and frank confrontation of this wouldn't hurt. 

We have sexual fetish issues with breasts.  Fiona is right:  the culture idealizes engorged breasts on thin, adolescent girls.  This represents a juvenilization of female sexuality.  Women in the West currently are encouraged to exercise their sexuality publicly only in courtship mode. This has a perverted kind of logic:  girls are easier to manipulate and their availability is titillating. Women, who take ownership of their own decisions and behavior, and who make a commitment to the baby, are probably a whole lot more threatening. They are certainly less available.  So to encourage a persistent immaturity, media portray women in their generative, maternal mode as de-sexualized beings .  The same is true for mature women, who are (for all intents and purposes)  sexually invisible. 

 Power is still very unequally distributed.  If the only way you see yourself being sexually powerful in a culture that values sexual power is to stay girlish, then being 'womanly' is to surrender power. I think the womanly art of breastfeeding is linked on some subliminal level to abandonment of the only power some women think they have. 

Therefore, I think women must dialog about other images for bfg than the sheltered, cloistered madonna that many find isolating, or unattainable, or frankly unappealing. I have spent a lifetime emphasizing the acquisition of intellectual and spiritual power, and value it more than I do sexual power, however I am not immune to the role it plays in the culture.  Personally, I  find pornography exploitative and not particularly erotic. I don't think we want to re-frame bfg promotion in terms of porno, and I don't think that
is what Dr. Giles' article is suggesting.  I think she is raising some provocative issues with regards to the conversation about why we have such a hard time selling bfg.

Barbara Wilson-Clay, BSEd, IBCLC
Austin Lactation Associates
www.lactnews.com

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