>We shouldn't be trying to encourage women - or men - to deny or >>sublimate the breasts' sexual role I have to disagree with this. I think we need to vigorously educated people about the fact that viewing the breasts as sex objects is CULTURAL, not biological, and therefore not automatic. Viewing the breasts as sex objects is one of the MAJOR stumbling blocks to having more children be breastfed, and for longer periods of time. It is quite possible to get sexual pleasure out of most any region of the body -- you learn to get sexual pleasure from your breasts. You can also learn to get sexual pleasure from having your toes sucked -- and that particular belief/behavior doesn't end up with children being bottle-fed or weaned early and suffering the health and cognitive consequences of such. There *are* cultures, as I said, where people recognize breasts as primarily for feeding babies, and also get sexual pleasure out of them without it seeming to interfere with breastfeeding. But clearly we in the US have gone way overboard on the breasts are for sex side of the continuum. I am not so naive as to think I can just snap my fingers and voila, people will no longer view breasts as sex objects. No -- it takes work and education and exposure to breasts with babies attached. I also think that women who are particularly attached to their breasts as sex objects -- both for getting male attention and for getting pleasure during sexual activity, are among those LEAST likely to breastfeed, because they (1) think it is disgusting to have a baby doing what their husband/boyfriend does (2) get sexually aroused by breastfeeding and then feel guilty (3) don't want their breasts to get droopy and saggy (and they believe that this will happen if they breastfeed) and (4) sympathize with their husband/boyfriend who covets the breasts for himself and so deny them to their children. Try toe-sucking. Kathy Dettwyler *********************************************** 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