I am just catching up on some posts and have to comments for those that
voiced objections to the Thing.

Yes it was very long, yes it was potentially offensive, (But there was a
warning at the beginning.)  But I do think it makes a valid point about our
preconceived notions about bodily activities.

I don't think that the story is as much as a joke as it is a valuable
parody of the ridiculous things that mothers are told about breastfeeding.
 Even those of us that are BF professionals tend to be complacent about the
bad advice that mothers get, where as the ridiculous story that The Thing
represents is obviously not taken seriously by anybody.

Yet why is there a difference?  The "Thing" story just seems too incredible
to be true that it happened, yet if you change the wording around and the
genders with breasts and women, that story repeats itself day after day
after day.

Occasionally radical, shocking information like this is needed to shake up
the thinking of people and get them to "think out side the box".  The risk
of course is that even though the information my be true, it is so
radically different that what people are prepared to handle that it ends up
offending others.

If you were offended, you are entirely entitled to your feelings.  I just
wanted to provide to you a spin on my feeling of how this piece can be
handled (with the right "spin" ) to make a point with a carefully selected
audience.  It is also important to keep in mind that there are those people
in the world that really do find any kind of sexual activity (even among
married couples) to be offensive.  Priests and nuns are two groups that
come to mind.  The average person would think that any human that refuses
to participate in some form of consensual sexual activity is "abnormal",
yet we take it for granted that priests and nuns are normal to remain
celibate.