For those of you unfamiliar with the research data on this issue, I recommend reading my chapter "Beauty and the Breast" from the book I co-edited, Breastfeeding: Biocultural Perspectives. It doesn't matter that oxytocin is released when the baby nurses and during orgasms. That has nothing to do with anything. Both cause contractions that are necessary for human survival (admitting sperm to the uterus, expelling the baby, feeding the baby). In most cultures of the world, throughout history, breasts have been ONLY for feeding babies. Nothing more, nothing less. Suggesting that we not struggle against viewing the breast as a sex object because both men and women get pleasure out of it (and because it is a losing battle) is like saying that people shouldn't have struggled against Chinese foot-binding adn the viewing of the bound foot as a sex object because men got such great out of it and because it would be a losing battle. Well, that battle was won, and Chinese women no longer have their feet tortured and mutilated and render inoperable because they are bound, and Chinese men learned to get their sexual jollies elsewhere. And the same could happen for breasts in the west, if we but agreed that breastfeeding was too important to sacrifice on the altar of men's (and women's) culturally-learned sexual pleasure. 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