In a message dated 98-04-05 15:23:42 EDT, you write:

<< .SO, the simple politically correct action for all the Lactivists at the
 conference in Florida is to go topless on the beach!  >>

I must admit I am one "la troops" who would love to see this.  I am of the
opinion that Kathy D. is right when she says culture is not so much an
overarching force with which we must conform or rebel: rather, it is something
we make every day, in our actions.  And as Cormac McCarthy says in his
wonderful novel The Crossing, "Acts have their being in witness."  A
Wittgensteinien perception, and true to boot.

The whole breast thing can be changed, and fairly quickly.  What people see
others do is what "writes to their hard drive", whether they have a negative
impression or not, as part of the experiential stuff of "normal".  Seeing me
nurse my almost four year old on the playground today may make you physically
ill, but, afterwards, it is still something.*you have seen done*. something
*people do.*  This is a great source of hope for me in my efforts at advocacy,
personally and in my work.

Breasts are beautiful and appealing, in that they do form part of the inherent
"cues" for fertility and femininity that make reproduction so much fun and
such a driven behavior.  They have evolved, so to speak, to speak to our
desires.  But their beauty, like the beauty of the great character actors of
films, lies not in how they conform to any presupposed ideal or form, but
rather what they are.  In other words, what is natural and well-used is often
beautiful. Prosthetics or crutches are generally not considered as such.

No problem here with bikinis, or anything else a woman wears to better suit
her needs for comfort, flexibility, or even because she has worked hard to be
fit.  The concept, however, of working hard to be fit and healthy and doing
so, only to desire further assistance from a cosmetically augmentating breast
apparatus is a little schismatic to me.  The idea here would be, If you are
healthy, be proud--why scorn some parts for not being culturally enticing
enough, though perfectly healthy and normal.

I applaud those who take the lead in empowering, perhaps radical, advocacy.

"There is at last no greater freedom than the integrity of our own minds.
Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world."--Ralph
Waldo Emerson

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Joy Berry-Parks
LLL, central AR
Attachment Parenting Group of AR
Anthropology apprentice
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"Childhood Decides."  Jean Paul Sartre