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Breastfeeding in Public places

1…457910…22

Comments

  • #182
    eviltwin
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,495 ✭✭✭✭eviltwin


    ash23 wrote: »
    My point was to show specifically what level of inhibition I meant. I also didn't post pictures of topless women. I posted a link to a search for pictures of Facebook "protest," pictures. Pictures of what some women deem an acceptable level of nudity simply because they are feeding.
    I also stated that photos and "protests" like that make me wonder what level of nudity is involved when reading a story like the op. Because like it or not some women are not discreet about feeding. It seems it's now socially unacceptable to ask for discretion while feeding but surely common sense on both sides is what is necessary.

    Of course I've explained all this already if you'd read over what I've actually written on this thread

    That level is virtually unknown. Do you seriously expect us to believe you have seen women breastfeeding that way in a public place? You take the most extreme photos you can find and say that is what you are referring to when in reality no one removes all their clothes or bares both breasts to feed a child.


  • #183
    ash23
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,791 ✭✭✭ash23


    Shrap wrote: »
    If you're wondering why people think your attitude is quite odd, it's because you have come up with this imaginary class of immodest, indiscreet, extremist, exhibitionist (your words) mother who insists on acting like breastfeeding in public is normal (the horror!). I have NO IDEA where you are coming from with this use of language about breastfeeding.



    They are beyond reproach, they are feeding their babies. That can never be exhibitionist/extremist unless you subscribe to the notion that the breast is a sexual object when it's used for feeding a baby.


    So something has to be sexual for people not to want to see it? I don't want to see your armpit hair or the mole on your back. Is it because it's sexy? I'm not sexualising breastfeeding. Nor am I grossed out by it. I just see it as something intimate between mother and child and I loved it with my own but don't really need a close up and personal with someone else's thanks


  • #184
    ash23
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,791 ✭✭✭ash23


    eviltwin wrote: »
    That level is virtually unknown. Do you seriously expect us to believe you have seen women breastfeeding that way in a public place? You take the most extreme photos you can find and say that is what you are referring to when in reality no one removes all their clothes or bares both breasts to feed a child.



    Ummm I've stated loads of times that I am talking about a minority and the majority of women are not like this. Seriously unless you actually read what I'm writing just stop responding to me because I don't want to keep repeating myself.


  • #185
    volchitsa
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,275 ✭✭✭✭volchitsa


    ash23 wrote: »
    So something has to be sexual for people not to want to see it? I don't want to see your armpit hair or the mole on your back. Is it because it's sexy? I'm not sexualising breastfeeding. Nor am I grossed out by it. I just see it as something intimate between mother and child and I loved it with my own but don't really need a close up and personal with someone else's thanks

    So how is it different to bottle feeding, since you don't feel there is a sexual aspect to it?

    "If a woman cannot stand in a public space and say, without fear of consequences, that men cannot be women, then women have no rights at all." Helen Joyce



  • #186
    ash23
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,791 ✭✭✭ash23


    volchitsa wrote: »
    So how is it different to bottle feeding, since you don't feel there is a sexual aspect to it?


    Well there is an intimacy to it that isn't there with bottle feeding by the very nature of the skin on skin contact. Plenty of people advocate skin on skin but. Nothing sexual about it and its kind of disconcerting that you're trying to insist that I must find it sexual to be unsettled by it.


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  • #187
    SpaceTime
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,085 ✭✭✭SpaceTime


    It's utter nonsense! Boobs are literarily the most natural, normal thing there is. They're practically the definition of being a mammal.

    How anyone is offended or shocked by a woman feeding a baby is just beyond me and I say that as a bloke.

    I'll have to find a different 5 star hotel to stay in next time I'm in London! Preferably one that's mammalian friendly!


  • #188
    Shrap
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,163 ✭✭✭Shrap


    ash23 wrote: »
    So something has to be sexual for people not to want to see it? I don't want to see your armpit hair or the mole on your back. Is it because it's sexy? I'm not sexualising breastfeeding. Nor am I grossed out by it. I just see it as something intimate between mother and child and I loved it with my own but don't really need a close up and personal with someone else's thanks

    No, I'm sorry now, but if you were walking down the street on a sunny day, you might see both my armpit hair and the mole on my back and you most certainly wouldn't be weirded out by it. You would ignore it and carry on.

    Breastfeeding is only as intimate as you think it is. It is functional to a lot of people, rather than this incredibly personal and exclusively intimate experience that some other people feel it is. I didn't, myself, but I have indeed met women like yourself who felt it was. I didn't love it either, and was very happy to wean both babies before 10 months.

    The sexualisation of breasts seems to be the majority problem people are having with the exposure of them for the function of breastfeeding. I still don't see where you're coming from with your horror of other women's breasts.


  • #189
    SparkySpitfire
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,331 ✭✭✭SparkySpitfire


    Right so, no one is offended by seeing a woman with a low cut top so low it's barely covering her nipples.

    But seeing the same amount of skin with a baby attached to it is vile and offending?

    Give me a fcking break. I'm so done with people.


  • #190
    volchitsa
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,275 ✭✭✭✭volchitsa


    ash23 wrote: »
    Well there is an intimacy to it that isn't there with bottle feeding by the very nature of the skin on skin contact. Plenty of people advocate skin on skin but. Nothing sexual about it and its kind of disconcerting that you're trying to insist that I must find it sexual to be unsettled by it.

    I genuinely don't understand what you mean - when we take a child's hand there is skin on skin contact, or on a hot day you will often see small children in just a nappy snuggling up in their father's arms, and the father may also be bare-chested or nearly, so plenty of skin contact there too, but no-one would get so uptight about that sort of thing.

    So I can only presume that you (and others) have a problem with women's breasts that you don't have with men having similar skin contact with their children. I can't see any explanation for that other than that you see breasts as primarily sex objects. I'm perfectly willing to consider other explanations though, I just haven't seen any that stand up to examination yet.

    "If a woman cannot stand in a public space and say, without fear of consequences, that men cannot be women, then women have no rights at all." Helen Joyce



  • #191
    Penny Tration
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,687 ✭✭✭✭Penny Tration


    Ash23, I don't really understand your 'I don't really want to see it' attitude.

    I completely agree with you that SOME women tend to fully 'whip em out' when feeding.

    However, while I don't PERSONALLY enjoy seeing women breastfeed, because I do feel a bit uncomfortable seeing it, I have the option to look away. They don't have the option of not feeding their child!


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  • #192
    Rubberchikken
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,303 ✭✭✭Rubberchikken


    Most women beastfeeding, and not making a POINT, tend to do it discreetly.
    It's a perfectly normal thing to do, feed a child, but some want to make sure everyone sees that they are sooo progressive that orhers must be made aware.


  • #193
    Shrap
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,163 ✭✭✭Shrap


    Jingle_Balls wrote: »
    Ash23, I don't really understand your 'I don't really want to see it' attitude.

    I completely agree with you that SOME women tend to fully 'whip em out' when feeding.

    However, while I don't PERSONALLY enjoy seeing women breastfeed, because I do feel a bit uncomfortable seeing it, I have the option to look away. They don't have the option of not feeding their child!

    Thank you! Common sense prevails, and recognising that you're the one feeling uncomfortable, so you're the one with the problem. Nice one. :cool:

    Although I still haven't ever seen the "whip em out" variety of mother, but never mind. I'm sure I won't keel over in shock if I ever do.


  • #194
    ash23
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,791 ✭✭✭ash23


    ash23 wrote: »
    My point was to show specifically what level of inhibition I meant. I also didn't post pictures of topless women. I posted a link to a search for pictures of Facebook "protest," pictures. Pictures of what some women deem an acceptable level of nudity simply because they are feeding.
    I also stated that photos and "protests" like that make me wonder what level of nudity is involved when reading a story like the op. Because like it or not some women are not discreet about feeding. It seems it's now socially unacceptable to ask for discretion while feeding but surely common sense on both sides is what is necessary.

    Of course I've explained all this already if you'd read over what I've actually written on this thread
    Shrap wrote: »
    No, I'm sorry now, but if you were walking down the street on a sunny day, you might see both my armpit hair and the mole on my back and you most certainly wouldn't be weirded out by it. You would ignore it and carry on.

    Breastfeeding is only as intimate as you think it is. It is functional to a lot of people, rather than this incredibly personal and exclusively intimate experience that some other people feel it is. I didn't, myself, but I have indeed met women like yourself who felt it was. I didn't love it either, and was very happy to wean both babies before 10 months.

    The sexualisation of breasts seems to be the majority problem people are having with the exposure of them for the function of breastfeeding. I still don't see where you're coming from with your horror of other women's breasts.


    So you think all breastfeeding women are beyond reproach no matter how much they expose and no matter where? Naked photos are OK on Facebook once a baby is attached to one breast?
    No decorum or subtlety is needed at all?

    Personally I think a bit of cop on is a better approach and the extremists who breastfeed in the most indiscreet way ever just for an "up yours" are as much of a problem as the person who complains about a woman feeding discreetly.
    I don't like breastfeeders who think its a cause and deliberately set out to shock or make people uncomfortable. And I don't think they should be abovebeing called on it because they're helping nobody


  • #195
    volchitsa
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,275 ✭✭✭✭volchitsa


    Shrap wrote: »
    No, I'm sorry now, but if you were walking down the street on a sunny day, you might see both my armpit hair and the mole on my back and you most certainly wouldn't be weirded out by it. You would ignore it and carry on.

    Breastfeeding is only as intimate as you think it is. It is functional to a lot of people, rather than this incredibly personal and exclusively intimate experience that some other people feel it is. I didn't, myself, but I have indeed met women like yourself who felt it was. I didn't love it either, and was very happy to wean both babies before 10 months.

    The sexualisation of breasts seems to be the majority problem people are having with the exposure of them for the function of breastfeeding. I still don't see where you're coming from with your horror of other women's breasts.

    Agreed.

    I loved breastfeeding for the way it just knocked me out, sent me off to sleep every time. I can't say it was intimate in the way the poster seems to be saying though. It sounds like a sex act the way some people describe it. I think that is unhealthy, and is purely imagination, not reality at all. Bottle feeding a baby, even someone else's) is sweet too, when they are all cuddly, and yet no-one bats an eye.

    "If a woman cannot stand in a public space and say, without fear of consequences, that men cannot be women, then women have no rights at all." Helen Joyce



  • #196
    IvyTheTerrible
    Closed Accounts Posts: 14,949 ✭✭✭✭IvyTheTerrible


    I don't get this "I'm all for discrete breastfeeding but these militants that insist on their right to whip the boobs out are ridiculous" attitude. Who's expressing this militant attitude? I haven't read it on this thread, or seen it "in real life".

    I get the feeling that people that say this actually have a problem with breastfeeding in general and are afraid to say it.


  • #197
    Shrap
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,163 ✭✭✭Shrap


    ash23 wrote: »
    So you think all breastfeeding women are beyond reproach no matter how much they expose and no matter where?
    Yes, unless they are exposing parts that are not being used for breastfeeding and are also against the law to expose.
    Naked photos are OK on Facebook once a baby is attached to one breast?
    Yes.
    No decorum or subtlety is needed at all?
    No.
    because they're helping nobody
    Except the child being fed. Which is the point they are making to people who persist in having a problem with mammals feeding their young with their mammaries in public.


  • #198
    eviltwin
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,495 ✭✭✭✭eviltwin


    I have to say I loved breastfeeding and was gutted that it didn't work out and I had to stop at 6 weeks. I think part of the problem was supply because I didn't bf in public, I felt too ashamed and worried someone would stare or give me grief. I'd use formula instead. I think as someone said normalising it by making it more acceptable would help bf rates. It's got so many benefits and should be encouraged more, it is in the hospitals but society still has some way to go.


  • #199
    ash23
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,791 ✭✭✭ash23


    volchitsa wrote: »
    I genuinely don't understand what you mean - when we take a child's hand there is skin on skin contact, or on a hot day you will often see small children in just a nappy snuggling up in their father's arms, and the father may also be bare-chested or nearly, so plenty of skin contact there too, but no-one would get so uptight about that sort of thing.

    So I can only presume that you (and others) have a problem with women's breasts that you don't have with men having similar skin contact with their children. I can't see any explanation for that other than that you see breasts as primarily sex objects. I'm perfectly willing to consider other explanations though, I just haven't seen any that stand up to examination yet.


    I don't like seeing men in restaurants in summer with their shirts off. I don't think its appropriate. Beach or poolside grand. Restaurant or cinema - put your shirt on thanks.

    Is it so difficult to understand that I don't want to see another woman's breast? I would be uncomfortable if a man walked into my house with his shirt off.


  • #200
    ?Cee?view
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,971 ✭✭✭?Cee?view


    hoodwinked wrote: »

    i managed to breastfeed my child without pulling my boobs out everywhere i went, yes it was a bit of hassle trying to organise which shopping center/restaurants had breast feeding rooms...when and where i could go out...etc but here i am 5 years later and not once was i asked to "put them away" because i was organised and discreet about it!
    hoodwinked wrote: »
    it was no more constricting me than when i was potty training my child, and had to vet which shopping center/restaurants i went to that had a toilet she could use, (a vast lack of bathrooms in cork city center meant i didn't see the city center for those weeks) but i knew it would not be ok to whip out her potty in the middle of the street/restaurant/shopping center and let her use it, so i just didn't go there or checked they had the facilities we needed!

    I can't believe that a mother thinks that's it valid to compare feeding a child to teaching a child to defecate. Boggles the mind...


  • #201
    volchitsa
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,275 ✭✭✭✭volchitsa


    I think the suggestion that someone should "call" a breastfeeding woman out for being deliberately provocative is promoting bullying.
    When you look at the figures for babies being breast fed in Ireland, they are shockingly low, so even just statistically speaking, the chances of coming across any form of deliberate provocation is unlikely. Far more risk that a woman just won't breast feed at all, with the nasty attitudes we see on here.

    "If a woman cannot stand in a public space and say, without fear of consequences, that men cannot be women, then women have no rights at all." Helen Joyce



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  • #202
    dark crystal
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,962 ✭✭✭✭dark crystal


    Shrap wrote: »

    The sexualisation of breasts seems to be the majority problem people are having with the exposure of them for the function of breastfeeding. I still don't see where you're coming from with your horror of other women's breasts.

    I honestly believe it's a throwback to catholic education and being taught by nuns. Women's bodies were something to be ashamed of and covered up. Dirty women were sent to laundries etc. Shame was their modus operandi.

    All this being taught while up on the wall hung an effigy of a half naked man nailed to a cross.

    It's a shame in 2014 that grown adults can't separate the image of breasts from sexual organs to functional appendages. There's an almost childish 'ewww...boobies!' type attitude being expressed towards them I find really strange. Like someone else said, I can't wrap my head around that at all.


  • #203
    Penny Tration
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,687 ✭✭✭✭Penny Tration


    Shrap wrote: »
    Thank you! Common sense prevails, and recognising that you're the one feeling uncomfortable, so you're the one with the problem. Nice one. :cool:

    Although I still haven't ever seen the "whip em out" variety of mother, but never mind. I'm sure I won't keel over in shock if I ever do.

    I've seen two of the 'whip em out' feeders. But, I've seen at least 50 regular breastfeeding mothers. They far outnumber the couple of odd ones.

    I absolutely recognise it's my issue if I'm not comfortable seeing it. I totally agree with women breastfeeding wherever and whenever necessary.

    Tbh, it's like a kid who runs around naked on the beach. Not something I particularly want to see, but it's not sexual in nature, it's innocent, so I just don't look.

    Although I don't see how it'd ever be possible, if a situation arose where I could not look anywhere else but at the mother feeding her baby - big deal. I'm a big girl, I know what breasts look like!


  • #204
    eviltwin
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,495 ✭✭✭✭eviltwin


    ash23 wrote: »
    I don't like seeing men in restaurants in summer with their shirts off. I don't think its appropriate. Beach or poolside grand. Restaurant or cinema - put your shirt on thanks.

    Is it so difficult to understand that I don't want to see another woman's breast? I would be uncomfortable if a man walked into my house with his shirt off.

    Just turn the other way, its not that hard.


  • #205
    ?Cee?view
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,971 ✭✭✭?Cee?view


    dark crystal wrote: »
    I honestly believe it's a throwback to catholic education and being taught by nuns. Women's bodies were something to be ashamed of and covered up. Dirty women were sent to laundries etc. Shame was their modus operandi.

    Quite possibly true. Encouraging to see the following though

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/pope-francis-encourages-mothers-to-breastfeed-in-the-sistine-chapel-9055379.html


  • #206
    volchitsa
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,275 ✭✭✭✭volchitsa


    ash23 wrote: »
    I don't like seeing men in restaurants in summer with their shirts off. I don't think its appropriate. Beach or poolside grand. Restaurant or cinema - put your shirt on thanks.

    Is it so difficult to understand that I don't want to see another woman's breast? I would be uncomfortable if a man walked into my house with his shirt off.

    The man with his shirt off isn't feeding a child though is he? Are you really saying you would find it acceptable if a child went hungry rather than that its mother should breast feed it? Because that is what it is - a way of feeding a child, and it shouldn't be anything else.

    "If a woman cannot stand in a public space and say, without fear of consequences, that men cannot be women, then women have no rights at all." Helen Joyce



  • #207
    Shrap
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,163 ✭✭✭Shrap


    dark crystal wrote: »
    I honestly believe it's a throwback to catholic education and being taught by nuns. Women's bodies were something to be ashamed of and covered up. Dirty women were sent to laundries etc. Shame was their modus operandi.

    All this being taught while up on the wall hung an effigy of a half naked man nailed to a cross.

    It's a shame in 2014 that grown adults can't separate the image of breasts from sexual organs to functional appendages. There's an almost childish 'ewww...boobies!' type attitude being expressed towards them I find really strange. Like someone else said, I can't wrap my head around that at all.

    I'm with you there. Not the only one with that idea either: http://www.ucd.ie/pages/97/rickard.html "The Shame of Breast-Feeding? An Aspect of Irish Culture in Historical Perspective"


  • #208
    ash23
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,791 ✭✭✭ash23


    Shrap wrote: »
    Yes, unless they are exposing parts that are not being used for breastfeeding and are also against the law to expose.

    Yes.

    No.

    Except the child being fed. Which is the point they are making to people who persist in having a problem with mammals feeding their young with their mammaries in public.


    Well this is what we disagree on. I think that people need to be respectful of breastfeeding mothers but it's a two way street. Perhaps it's because I know personally a girl who is an exhibitionist about feeding and I've seen her tear strips off people who've said it via Facebook. But I don't see why social norm shouldn't apply when breastfeeding in public. At least the attempt to be discreet. As said the majority do. So it's the norm and women are generally considerate and mindful of others.
    So why do we have to accept the extreme?


  • #209
    Shrap
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,163 ✭✭✭Shrap


    ?Cee?view wrote: »
    Quite possibly true. Encouraging to see the following though

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/pope-francis-encourages-mothers-to-breastfeed-in-the-sistine-chapel-9055379.html

    Good. About bloody time after the millennia of causing shame about people's bodies and their sexuality (not that they're fully stopped doing that).


  • #210
    dark crystal
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,962 ✭✭✭✭dark crystal


    ?Cee?view wrote: »
    Quite possibly true. Encouraging to see the following though

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/pope-francis-encourages-mothers-to-breastfeed-in-the-sistine-chapel-9055379.html

    Well fair play to that man. Great to see!


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  • #211
    ash23
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,791 ✭✭✭ash23


    volchitsa wrote: »
    The man with his shirt off isn't feeding a child though is he? Are you really saying you would find it acceptable if a child went hungry rather than that its mother should breast feed it? Because that is what it is - a way of feeding a child, and it shouldn't be anything else.
    I was told my problem with seeing a woman breastfeeding was sexual and asked did I have a problem with a man shirtless. I do depending on context and its not a sexual thing.
    I breastfed and have no issue with breastfeeding in public. I don't expect a baby to starve or go to the loo to be fed etc etc.
    I really can't keep repeating myself


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