I asked my son, Dan, who is 28 yrs old and the father of a 6 week old baby boy, *Big Z*, what he felt about bf and sexuality. Dan nursed for 2 1/2 years. In his reply, which I have permission to quote, he refers to his sisters, Abby and Chana. BTW, I should mention that his wife, Eliz, is breastfeeding after breast reduction surgery and her only *problem* is oversupply!
I find it interesting that he refers to babies *feeding* rather than *breastfeeding.*
You can see a pic of Dan and baby Zachariah at:
http://tao.merseine.nu/~dsr/baby/buddha_nature_and_kid.jpg
Dan writes:
"I have a single vague memory that I can trace back to being two years
old; interestingly, it's about going grocery shopping with Dad. I have
no memories of breastfeeding myself. I do have memories of watching Abby
and Chana feed, and dozens if not hundreds of occasions of knowing that
various babies were getting fed. These all seemed perfectly normal to
me, and when I started having sexual thoughts, breastfeeding women
played no role in them.
I can see that Z. is very happy when he is at the breast, and takes
great comfort in it, but I could not describe any of it as being
remotely sexual. For one thing, the happiness that he feels when
attached is clearly a calm, quiet, peaceful "rightness" and uncaringness
similar in my mind to Buddhist' Nirvana, which I can tell you is not at
all the joy of orgasm or even sexual excitement. If anything, it's at
the opposite end of the pleasure spectrum. If you've had the pleasure of
having eaten really well, sipped an exquisite liqueur, all while having
a pleasant conversation with good friends, that's the sort of experience
I think Z. has at the best of times on the breast."
> As for the impact on the boy... those of you who know boys who have
> breastfed and can remember having breastfed, what memories do they
> have of it? Has it hurt them, personally or socially, to remember
> that they suckled on their mother?s breast?
"I have friends who are gay, bisexual, straight and neuter, friends who
are committed monogamists and others who preach polygamy. Some are into
BDSM and others extremely vanilla... and I have never heard any of them
claim that their orientation or any other part of their sexuality was
based on having breastfed.
The only anti-breastfeeding statements I have heard have come from
teenagers and early 20's females who have told me that they thought it
was "yucky"."
> And then, the issue of gender. Are girls breastfed longer because of
> their gender? Does a mother feel it is less "sexual" to
> breastfeed a daughter? Does the public frown more on a breastfeeding
> toddler boy than on a breastfeeding toddler gril?
"We've only had positive experiences concerning Z's public snacking so
far. I'll let you know of anything negative as it comes up."
Norma Ritter
[log in to unmask]
--
__________________________________________________________
Sign-up for your own personalized E-mail at Mail.com
http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup
CareerBuilder.com has over 400,000 jobs. Be smarter about your job search
http://corp.mail.com/careers
***********************************************
To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html
|
