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Why is breastfeeding in public acceptable?

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    #452
    Reviews and Books Galore
    Closed Accounts Posts: 964 ✭✭✭Reviews and Books Galore


    volchitsa wrote: »
    I know. Stupid women eh? They just won't be told! 😂

    Do you think One Eyed Jack is sexist and looks down on women?


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    #453
    One eyed Jack
    Registered Users Posts: 23,695 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack


    Martina1991 wrote: »
    A pregnant woman instinctively produces the hormone prolactin to prepare her breasts for milk production.
    If the milk isn't expressed it would leak out of her nipples.
    Its not turned on like a tap when the baby latches on.


    Use of the word instinct in that context implies a consciousness that simply isn’t present. A pregnant woman will produce prolactin as a result of becoming pregnant. Women who were never pregnant will still have breasts, and humans of both sexes will still have mammary glands which are capable of producing milk expressed through their nipples.


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    #454
    Plumbthedepths
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,653 ✭✭✭✭Plumbthedepths


    One eyed Jack wrote:
    I’m not trolling anyone here at all, I’m interested in the discussion of the phenomenon of what are a small group of women who appear to need validation for their lifestyle choices which they appear to be desperate to shove in people’s faces, and then cry foul when those people say they have a problem with it. It doesn’t take Sherlock to work out that shìt.


    The only FACE these women seek to shove their breast into is that of their OFFSPRINGS's. Why you find it offensive and the reason for you to post the amount of nonsense you have is strange if you are indeed not trolling. You have yet to respond to a poster who asked you for facts to back up your comments. You have failed to do so. A blog spot is not fact,bits opinion.
    Btw 'these people' you refer to I hope you are not suggesting that you are not one of 'these people'.


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    #455
    Plumbthedepths
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,653 ✭✭✭✭Plumbthedepths


    One eyed Jack wrote:
    humans of both sexes will still have mammary glands which are capable of producing milk expressed through their nipples.


    So you're saying I don't need to buy milk in the shop anymore eventhough i'm male.
    Me "I have nipples, can you milk me One Eye? "


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    #456
    ceadaoin.
    Registered Users Posts: 8,149 ✭✭✭ceadaoin.


    Lefty Bicek wrote: »
    Obviously, the other poster is. Duh. If a person says, as the other poster did, that



    ... then anything else other than breastfeeding, is by definition, not best practice.

    For an alternative perspective on that type of judgementalism...

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/28/an-unrealistic-pressure-mothers-on-what-its-like-to-breastfeed

    Apart from all that, my original point was that breastfeeding in public is done more often that is strictly necessary.

    Since people think they're smart enough to throw the WHO around, have some of this...

    https://www.who.int/nutrition/publications/infantfeeding/bf_counselling_participants_manual3.pdf



    So, really, there's nothing whatsoever wrong with expressing milk. Nothing.

    It might even seem to be sensible to have a bottle handy in the baby bag when you're out and about.

    But who would notice that ?

    Have you ever tried to express milk? I can only assume that you haven't and that you have no clue what you're talking about. It's really not that easy for many women, even those who are pretty successful at breastfeeding. A pump is not a baby and your body knows this


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    #457
    One eyed Jack
    Registered Users Posts: 23,695 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack


    Plumbthedepths wrote: »
    The only FACE these women seek to shove their breast into is that of their OFFSPRINGS's. Why you find it offensive and the reason for you to post the amount of nonsense you have is strange if you are indeed not trolling.


    Can their infant children see what they post on social media now as they’re feeding? I suppose they can, but the point of being seen to breastfeed in public smacks of exhibitionism and going out of their way looking for someone to have a problem with it - baby in one hand, camera in the other.

    It’s the attitude I find offensive, not the breastfeeding. I don’t care whether or not a woman is breastfeeding, I do care when she wants me to care by getting up in my face about it because I’m not caring the way she needs me to care in order to validate her behaviour and justify her attitude.

    Btw 'these people' you refer to I hope you are not suggesting that you are not one of 'these people'.


    One of the vast majority of people who distinguish between breastfeeding in public and exhibitionism? I am indeed one of those people. I’m also one of the vast majority of people who are supportive of women breastfeeding in public, in the office, wherever and whenever they want, there’s nothing inappropriate as far as I’m concerned about their behaviour. When they have a shìtty attitude and are actively looking for people to take issue with their behaviour so that they can claim people have an issue with them breastfeeding, then they’re being disingenuous - the issue wasn’t the breastfeeding, it was the shìtty attitude.


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    #458
    Plumbthedepths
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,653 ✭✭✭✭Plumbthedepths


    One eyed Jack wrote:
    I am indeed one of those people. I’m also one of the vast majority of people who are supportive of women breastfeeding in public, in the office, wherever and whenever they want


    You'll have to forgive me but I don't believe a word of the above. You can assume I think you are a liar.


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    #459
    One eyed Jack
    Registered Users Posts: 23,695 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack


    Plumbthedepths wrote: »
    So you're saying I don't need to buy milk in the shop anymore eventhough i'm male.
    Me "I have nipples, can you milk me One Eye? "


    I can if you lie still while I inject you with hormones...


    Human male breastfeeding is possible, but production of the hormone prolactin is necessary to induce lactation, so male lactation does not occur under normal conditions. Domperidone is a drug that can be used to increase lactation. Male lactation has also been seen during recovery from starvation. This may be because glands that produce hormones recover faster than the liver, which absorbs hormones, leading to high hormone levels.

    Spontaneous production of milk not associated with childbirth, known as galactorrhea, can occur in males and females.


    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_lactation


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    #460
    FunLover18
    Registered Users Posts: 6,793 ✭✭✭FunLover18


    One eyed Jack wrote: »
    This stuff about assuming primary and secondary functions in evolution is denying evolution, or at least not understanding what evolution actually means. It’s like an appeal to nature fallacy that assumes evolution has some form of consciousness that determines what is good and what is bad. It falls flat on its arse for numerous phenomena in evolution which are just... evolution.

    I wouldn’t argue that anything in evolution is more important than anything else, because I am aware of for example numerous genetic conditions which at one point in evolution offered what would be considered an advantage, which are now considered a disadvantage or a disability in modern society.

    No one is assuming that evolution has consciousness, evolution is abstract. But mammary glands exist to produce milk, across mammals this is the one function they share. In humans they also exist as a form of attracting a mate but as I mentioned and as you failed to address it is exclusive to humans so I fail to see how you can argue that one is not more important. No one is saying just because something has a function it must be good, the appendix has a function, or had a function but no one here is saying "we should start using our appendixes again, we evolved to have them, they must be good for us". It's an objective fact though that mammary glands have a function and that function is to produce and store milk for the purpose of feeding young, that is unquestionably their primary/main/principal function and anything else such as your or my titillation is secondary.


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    #461
    Plumbthedepths
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,653 ✭✭✭✭Plumbthedepths


    One eyed Jack wrote:
    I can if you lie still while I inject you with hormones...


    So only in extreme circumstances or with the intervention of hormones not present in my body.....ok.
    You could have just tried honesty and said 'no'.


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    #462
    Plumbthedepths
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,653 ✭✭✭✭Plumbthedepths


    Anyway time to bow out of this nonsense . Interesting it is only members of my sex 'male' that have an issue with breastfeeding . Misogyny lads, nothing else fits. Ye need to take a long hard look at yourself lads.


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    #463
    One eyed Jack
    Registered Users Posts: 23,695 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack


    Plumbthedepths wrote: »
    So only in extreme circumstances or with the intervention of hormones not present in my body.....ok.
    You could have just tried honesty and said 'no'.


    But that wouldn’t have been honest if I had said no. The fact is that I could milk you if you wanted me to under the right conditions.

    It’s simply introducing synthesised hormones in the same way as hormones are produced when a woman becomes pregnant that make her lactate whereas if she wasn’t pregnant, she wouldn’t lactate, she would be the same as a man - lactating only under extreme circumstances!

    So now we’ve got

    mammary glands - common to both men and women
    breasts - common to both men and women

    Yet some people will still claim that the primary function of the breasts is to produce milk, and that justifies them behaving in an anti-social fashion when there are thousands of women who breastfeed in public without feeling the need for people to take issue with them doing it so they can claim there’s a stigma against breastfeeding.

    The stigma isn’t against breastfeeding, it’s against anti-social attitudes and behaviour and exhibitionism like ”consciousness raising”.


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    #464
    Shanotheslayer
    Registered Users Posts: 17,191 ✭✭✭✭Shanotheslayer


    I'm all for women getting their tits out.


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    #465
    Lackadaisical
    Closed Accounts Posts: 518 ✭✭✭Lackadaisical


    I'm male and I just don't understand why someone would have an issue with it though. I mean what's so offensive? It's absolutely not some kind of disturbing or unpleasant sight. It's just somebody breastfeeding a baby.

    I'd be more or the opinion that those offended by it should have their coffee in the toilet, as they are the ones with the issue.

    If you can't see the difference in context between boobs doing their main job and boobs as a sexual turn on, I think it's your own thought processes that need to be put under the microscope.

    What is the issue? Do boobs somehow make you uncomfortable? Why is that?

    Do you have any irrational fear of bras or anything like that?


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    #466
    hatrickpatrick
    Registered Users Posts: 17,797 ✭✭✭✭hatrickpatrick


    ZilkyG wrote: »
    Genuine question. This seems to be all the rage now, and the argument for it, is that it's completely natural! Well so is ****ting, yet society dictates that we must withdraw to the shadows for something so 'natural'.

    Sh!tting smells bad, that's why it's a private thing. Breasts do not smell bad and are in fact visually lovely. Literally no comparison between the two.


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    #467
    ceadaoin.
    Registered Users Posts: 8,149 ✭✭✭ceadaoin.


    hatrickpatrick wrote: »
    Sh!tting smells bad, that's why it's a private thing. Breasts do not smell bad and are in fact visually lovely. Literally no comparison between the two.

    Also, ****ting out in the open is a health hazard. Why do people think it's in any way comparable to feeding a child?


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    #468
    Gwen Cooper
    Registered Users Posts: 719 ✭✭✭Gwen Cooper


    One eyed Jack wrote: »
    But that wouldn’t have been honest if I had said no. The fact is that I could milk you if you wanted me to under the right conditions.

    It’s simply introducing synthesised hormones in the same way as hormones are produced when a woman becomes pregnant that make her lactate whereas if she wasn’t pregnant, she wouldn’t lactate, she would be the same as a man - lactating only under extreme circumstances!

    So now we’ve got

    mammary glands - common to both men and women
    breasts - common to both men and women

    Yet some people will still claim that the primary function of the breasts is to produce milk, and that justifies them behaving in an anti-social fashion when there are thousands of women who breastfeed in public without feeling the need for people to take issue with them doing it so they can claim there’s a stigma against breastfeeding.

    The stigma isn’t against breastfeeding, it’s against anti-social attitudes and behaviour and exhibitionism like ”consciousness raising”.

    I’m still waiting for you to answer my question. Just in case you missed it - why do all mammals have mammary glands? What is their purpose?


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    #469
    ceadaoin.
    Registered Users Posts: 8,149 ✭✭✭ceadaoin.


    One eyed Jack wrote: »
    But that wouldn’t have been honest if I had said no. The fact is that I could milk you if you wanted me to under the right conditions.

    It’s simply introducing synthesised hormones in the same way as hormones are produced when a woman becomes pregnant that make her lactate whereas if she wasn’t pregnant, she wouldn’t lactate, she would be the same as a man - lactating only under extreme circumstances!

    So now we’ve got

    mammary glands - common to both men and women
    breasts - common to both men and women

    Yet some people will still claim that the primary function of the breasts is to produce milk, and that justifies them behaving in an anti-social fashion when there are thousands of women who breastfeed in public without feeling the need for people to take issue with them doing it so they can claim there’s a stigma against breastfeeding.

    The stigma isn’t against breastfeeding, it’s against anti-social attitudes and behaviour and exhibitionism like ”consciousness raising”.

    There have been cases of women who adopted babies lactating without the aid of hormones. Also wet nurses (who you try so hard to ignore in favour of this "plant milk" lol) were a thing for a lot of human history, with no synthetic hormones required to induce lactation despite them not being pregnant. That's because female breasts are designed for feeding young and male ones arent

    And yes perhaps males can produce something akin to milk with medical intervention. Has it been analysed? Is nutritionally sufficient to nourish an infant? Do they first produce colostrum which is important for the babies immune systems? Does it change and adapt according to the child's needs like a woman's milk does? Probably not and would come with a dose of synthetic hormones and medication which probably isn't the best thing for a baby


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    #470
    scarepanda
    Registered Users Posts: 3,450 ✭✭✭scarepanda


    Oh man, I've been away all day. In fact I've been out in public with friends where I had to nurse my newborn. And this thread has got to be the most ridiculous thread I've ever come across discussing, if you can call it that, breastfeeding. But in a twisted way a little entertaining as well - although I don't know if I would have thought that in the early weeks of nursing my first child.

    Lefty, what exactly do you propose I do when out and about when my baby gets hungry? Let the poor child roar with hunger? How would you feel, if you were sitting next to me, if I let that happen while I sip on my latte and have a gossip with the girls? Do you propose I sit at home till they are weaned? Which would be for 2 years, based on how long I nursed my first child.

    Or do you seriously suggest that I go and pump in advance so that I can give my child pumped breast milk via a bottle, which in this weather might have gone off?

    Genuinely do you have any idea at all the effort required to pump enough milk to feed a hungry child? Do you realise that a child is far more efficient extracting milk than any pump? And do you realise that a nursing mother will have to express in and around the same time or very close to when the child feeds, so that they don't get ill from not expressing? So why in the name of jazus would I pump in advance of bringing my child out in public when I'm there ready to nurse them? To save your blushes? Seriously **** off with that opinion/suggestion.

    One eyed jack, you challenged a poster earlier on about them not responding to your points when they told you to shut up, yet when I told you that, as a breast feeding mother that there was no point as you were only spouting bull**** you never pulled me up on it? Would that be because you don't have the balls to tackle a woman who is doing the very thing you disagree with? Someone you would be repulsed by if you saw me in public? Would you seriously have the balls to say something to me if you saw me nursing uncovered in public?


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    #471
    Lackadaisical
    Closed Accounts Posts: 518 ✭✭✭Lackadaisical


    The hypocrisy of it is that male breasts are genuinely only decorative, yet I can happily walk down the street with my top off and nobody gives a damn. However, if a woman subtly feeds a baby with her's and they do have a function and you get a boards thread full of people being outraged by it and others silently tutting.

    Humans are weird!

    FFS they're just boobs!


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    #472
    gctest50
    Registered Users Posts: 9,605 ✭✭✭gctest50


    Lackadaisical wrote: »
    The hypocrisy of it is that male breasts are genuinely only decorative, yet I can happily walk down the street with my top off and nobody gives a damn. However, if a woman subtly feeds a baby with her's and they do have a function and you a boards thread full of people being outraged by it.

    Humans are weird!

    FFS they're just boobs!

    Nah, Incels are weird


    They be like "that kid is getting to feel breasts and Incels can't but deserve to

    waaaaaaaaaaaaaaasssaaaaah "


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    #473
    One eyed Jack
    Registered Users Posts: 23,695 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack


    Gwen Cooper wrote: »
    I’m still waiting for you to answer my question. Just in case you missed it - why do all mammals have mammary glands? What is their purpose?


    Mammals are so called by virtue of the fact they have mammary glands - they’re classified as being mammals on that basis.

    They don’t have a purpose, they just do what they do. In human females generally they lactate when they become pregnant, and in human males, because they can’t become pregnant, they’re unlikely to ever lactate because their bodies don’t produce generally produce prolactin in sufficient quantities to cause lactation.

    The mammary glands though are distinct from breast tissue which varies in shape, size and volume and depending upon whether a person is male or female, or whether they are a male who wishes to present as female, the presence of hormones in the body controls all that too, unless they wish to have cosmetic surgery to increase or decrease the size and volume of their breasts, or foregoing that extreme for a padded bra.

    You want to imagine their purpose is for feeding infants, you go ahead, but I’m not convinced because I know enough women to know that their breasts are more to them than just food containers for babies.


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    #474
    Gwen Cooper
    Registered Users Posts: 719 ✭✭✭Gwen Cooper


    One eyed Jack wrote: »
    Mammals are so called by virtue of the fact they have mammary glands - they’re classified as being mammals on that basis.

    They don’t have a purpose, they just do what they do. In human females generally they lactate when they become pregnant, and in human males, because they can’t become pregnant, they’re unlikely to ever lactate because their bodies don’t produce generally produce prolactin in sufficient quantities to cause lactation.

    The mammary glands though are distinct from breast tissue which varies in shape, size and volume and depending upon whether a person is male or female, or whether they are a male who wishes to present as female, the presence of hormones in the body controls all that too, unless they wish to have cosmetic surgery to increase or decrease the size and volume of their breasts, or foregoing that extreme for a padded bra.

    You want to imagine their purpose is for feeding infants, you go ahead, but I’m not convinced because I know enough women to know that their breasts are more to them than just food containers for babies.

    Mammals have mammary glands to produce milk so they can feed their young. Humans are mammals. They also have mammary glands to feed their young.

    Not sure why you think that I believe that my boobs are there only to feed my babies, they have lots of other uses for me, such as:

    - Fun to play with
    - They look good in a dress
    - Anti-stress balls that are always available
    - Reliable period predictors

    Etc.

    But the primary reason why any mammals, again I repeat, including humans, have mammary glands, is to produce milk for their offspring.

    Go ahead and show me a study that proves that I’m wrong.


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    #475
    jam_mac_jam
    Registered Users Posts: 4,725 ✭✭✭jam_mac_jam


    Thier purpose is for feeding infants though. That is not imagination.

    Just because some women choose not to breastfeed or have kids does not change that. Of course breasts are more then food containers.


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    #476
    Lackadaisical
    Closed Accounts Posts: 518 ✭✭✭Lackadaisical


    I think though we’re risking turning a thread that’s essentially about a puritanical view of boobs into a male vs female argument.

    In my experience anyway, the people who are offended by breastfeeding aren’t of a particular gender, rather they’re all puritanical prudes that have some kind of odd hang ups about finding body parts ‘dirty’.

    The fact that men have mammary glands that are switched off isn’t really relevant to a debate about women’s right to breastfeed in public.

    Most 21st century men and most 21st century women will defend the right to breastfeed and have zero issue with it. It’s more of a legacy1950s prudishness problem that hasn’t fully gone away.


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    #477
    One eyed Jack
    Registered Users Posts: 23,695 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack


    scarepanda wrote: »
    One eyed jack, you challenged a poster earlier on about them not responding to your points when they told you to shut up, yet when I told you that, as a breast feeding mother that there was no point as you were only spouting bull**** you never pulled me up on it? Would that be because you don't have the balls to tackle a woman who is doing the very thing you disagree with? Someone you would be repulsed by if you saw me in public? Would you seriously have the balls to say something to me if you saw me nursing uncovered in public?


    No, that would be as I explained to Gwen earlier, if I thought she was stupid, I just wouldn’t engage. I chose not to engage with you, and your post above is just further evidence of what I had instinctively thought when I read your earlier post.

    For what it’s worth though, your attitude is exactly the type of person I was referring to earlier who wants the attention. I don’t have any issue tackling someone I disagree with, whether they are a man or a woman, as this thread clearly shows. So your thinking that I didn’t address your point because I mustn’t have the balls? It doesn’t take balls to stoop to your level.

    I don’t know if I’d be repulsed by you if I saw you in public, let alone if I saw you breastfeeding in public. I’d question myself if I found you attractive while you were breastfeeding though as in my experience women who are breastfeeding tend to look like they were up all night before coming into the office not looking their usual selves. They’re usually wrecked tired and it shows. They’ve always in my experience appreciated the support.

    Would I have the balls to say something to you if I saw you nursing uncovered in public? Well given that I understand going topless makes it easier to switch breasts during breastfeeding and promotes bonding by skin to skin contact between nursing mothers and their children, I don’t require balls to ask you is there anything I could do for you or is there anything you need?

    Come at me with the kind of shìte attitude you display in your post though, and it still doesn’t require balls to tell you to FO.

    EDIT: I’m not telling you to FO now, I’m suggesting what I would do should the circumstances ever arise.


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    #478
    bnt
    Registered Users Posts: 12,968 ✭✭✭✭bnt


    I sat just-about-next to a lady with a newborn on a flight to the USA a couple of years ago. As far as I could tell, the baby spent the whole flight clamped on to her like a barnacle, though under a light cover - I wasn't nosy enough to look any closer. Whatever she was doing, it worked: the baby cried for about ten seconds of a 7-hour flight. Absolutely no-one on the plane gave them any trouble.

    From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch’.

    — Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 Astronaut



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    #479
    memorystick
    Registered Users Posts: 1,582 ✭✭✭memorystick


    Is it wrong to stare at these babies feeding?


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    #480
    Lackadaisical
    Closed Accounts Posts: 518 ✭✭✭Lackadaisical


    I think though this is another case of internet bubble vs reality. If you breastfeed in public and someone told you off, I can almost 100% guarantee it will be them who’s committed the social faux pas, not you.

    It’s not 1959.


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    #481
    ceadaoin.
    Registered Users Posts: 8,149 ✭✭✭ceadaoin.


    One eyed Jack wrote: »

    I don’t know if I’d be repulsed by you if I saw you in public, let alone if I saw you breastfeeding in public. I’d question myself if I found you attractive while you were breastfeeding though as in my experience women who are breastfeeding tend to look like they were up all night before coming into the office not looking their usual selves. They’re usually wrecked tired and it shows. They’ve always in my experience appreciated the support.

    Lol, you've got to be trolling. So women have to look like a bedraggled mess or they aren't "genuine" with their breastfeeding and only attention seeking? Thank God we have men like you telling us how to do it right. How would we manage this new craze without your "support"? Maybe you should offer them tips on how to supplement with plants too or how to get their husbands lactating to help out?


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