I don't know.   On my way to  the event last thursday I had an hour to spare so    popped into the Wallace Collection for an hour [ paranoid about the trains being late,  so when I saw there were delays  I left  early] 

In the gallery with the  renaissance art,  there must have been half a dozen  works [paintings,  ceramics] with  breastfeeding mothers on.  Mostly of Mary, but  a nice one of Jacob's family  on the move, with a nursing daughter sitting  sidesaddle on a donkey.  All with  breasts over the top.  Most  such pictures are, whether they are in galleries or churches.  That's what women did.   I don't think the artists were intending it as a pornographic device, they painted Venus,  or the muses or  Susannah if they wanted  the  renaissance equivalent of pin ups.  Some of these pictures would have been  intended as aids to devotion.  The artists observed  their wives,  neighbours,  daughters doing it thus and just painted a mother feeding her baby.  You did what you had to with the  clothing you wore.  As did the mother we met at the meeting.  

Yet I have come across some  pictures  which are such that    people feel  they are intruding on them.  In fact the only bf image my husband has  ever been uncomfortable  with was a Philippina Madonna, in a very realistic setting, gazing directly at the viewer.  She had been caught unawares by someone coming in, so it seemed. 

Interesting.  It seems a different world view  to   the modern media view.  I once  sat and discussed   this attitude to bf with an African man who simply could not  understand the modern  European attitude.  But I bet he'd have understood those pictures in the way the original viewers would have understood them

What will be *really*  interesting is if we ever have a page 3 girl with her baby latched on.  

Helen


As a media analyst - three things to highlight for further pondering....

1)  Clothing over a partially naked body, is a standard devise of the 
pornography industry.  The tease in strip tease, isn't the naked body, 
but the revealing of slowly revealed sections of the naked body.

2)  The women who is utterly naked in The Sun, is looking directly at 
you.  The mothers in the posters, are looking at their babies.  By 
looking at you directly, the Sun mother invites you to look.  By us 
looking at the mother looking at her babies, we are aware we are 
looking, and she may not know it.  So we are outsiders, looking in.  
Again, another standard device in the pornography industry.

3)  The Sun mother, is not actually showing much breast, especially 
compared to the Nova Scotia 'over' mothers.  Her arm, and the baby, is 
actually hiding most of her breast.

But I'd suggest it's the eyeline shot, that makes the real 
difference...  we need a controlled study, with similar pictures, and 
different eyeline shots, and to test for reaction.  It may be that the 
mother looking at the camera (the audience) whilst the baby feeds, is a 
more 'acceptable' shot than the one of her involved with the baby.  The 
Male Gaze, and all that jazz.  We're included, so we feel invited and we 
feel it's a nice thing.  When she's looking at the baby, we feel 
excluded, and that we are viewing something intimate and exclusionary - 
we feel our 'lack'.  We have been made voyeurs - that will excite some 
of us, and repel others.  The people excited, will then be doubly upset 
that the woman's gaze is on the baby.

I think it may be a fascinating discovery, that is we have actually 
naked mothers, looking at the camera, and the camera and lighting  
within an artistic nude framework, we'll have less 'reactable' 
breastfeeding imagery than that of a normally clothed mother, feeding 
her baby and concentrating on her baby.  After all, we all have a lot 
more exposure to The Nude, so to speak: its' normal.  This image is a 
normal The Nude image, but happens to also have a baby in it.

Morgan

> But, in the Nova Scotia Posters photos, the women are clothed and only their 
> BREAST is exposed, drawing the eye directly to the breasts and the 
> breastfeeding.  Given that the breasts are lifted up and over the mother's 
> clothing, it leaves one with the impression that we are peeking at something 
> that WE shouldn't be peeking at.
>
> When I look at the N.S. Posters, I kinda want to go "oh...sorry!  Didn't mean 
> to intrude."  When I look at the Sun photo, I kinda want to go "Awwww...how 
> sweet.  Do ya need a cup a tea?"  
>

             ***********************************************

Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html
Mail all commands to [log in to unmask]
To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or [log in to unmask])
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet or ([log in to unmask])
To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]