…and this is a 
Obscenity!
Category: Weirdness
Posted on: August 4, 2006 2:57 PM, by PZ Myers
Hang on, people, don't look below the fold if you are easily offended. I'm including a horrific photo that was shown on a magazine cover, one that elicited the following reactions from readers:
"I was SHOCKED"
"I was offended and it made my husband very uncomfortable when I left the magazine on the coffee table"
"Gross, I am sick"
"I had to rip off the cover since I didn't want it laying around the house"
Are you ready for this?
Here's the hideous cover in question. Hide the horses! Call in a hazmat team to scrub that image away! Would you believe 25% of that magazine's readers were offended by the breast on the cover?
I really am shocked at the level of prudery we get in this country. That's not a prurient photo, it illustrates a perfectly lovely and healthy function, and no one should be harmed by its display.
It does seem a bit unfair that I can flaunt my pale and hairy torso without triggering the hue and cry that tastefully shot baby picture did. I think. Maybe I should try.
Uh-oh. There go all my readers, off to subscribe to babytalk instead.
Come on, this is Minnesota. Almost all of us are this shade of fishbelly pale up here.
Now the real question is, which of those pictures would you rather have left out on your coffee table?
Comments
Oh, no. So you weren't kidding when you said you'd start an "all new, all nude self-portrait series"?
Posted by: j | August 4, 2006 3:05 PM
Blatant hairy porno!!!!!
Posted by: Rocky | August 4, 2006 3:07 PM
Honestly, this doesn't surprise me a single bit. Americans can be incredibly hypocritical when it comes to things like breastfeeding. First, you have the Breastfeeding Mafia that screams bloody murder if a woman elects to not breastfeed her baby, then you have people screaming bloody murder when a woman is shown breastfeeding her baby.
People need to take a step back and see what they're complaining about. This is the kind of stuff that gets sent out into the international scene and makes us looks like blithering idiots!
Posted by: Junk Jungle | August 4, 2006 3:07 PM
There is something very odd about any human(!) who sees something wrong or odd or shameful in a baby suckling at a woman's breast. Somehow, I think these objectors have forgotten that we are mammals.
Posted by: Russell | August 4, 2006 3:08 PM
One word: airbrush.
Posted by: quork | August 4, 2006 3:13 PM
I am not an animal!!!!!
I am a human being!!!!!!
Posted by: John Merrick | August 4, 2006 3:14 PM
Junk Jungle:
I missed these screams somehow. Perhaps they were muffled under that giant stack of promotional material and samples from Similac and Enfamil.
Posted by: PaulC | August 4, 2006 3:15 PM
I think that this is called for at this moment.
Posted by: Auguste | August 4, 2006 3:18 PM
That picture has been popping up in online ads here and there. My first thought was, "Man, I envy that baby."
Posted by: JakeB | August 4, 2006 3:20 PM
I blame the Sugar Tits mania sweeping the nation.
+++
Posted by: mjs | August 4, 2006 3:21 PM
Why on earth are they disgusted by something like that? I feel sorry for those people, they must have been brought up to be inhuman.
Although I'm not sure this meant we HAD to see a PZ's nipple haha
Posted by: Alexander Vargas | August 4, 2006 3:22 PM
I'd like to see some polling numbers before making too much of this. I am still inclined to think that the attitudes expressed in these letters are not representative. You're always going to have a few prudes who are "shocked" by any display of human skin, and they're the only ones who will write a letter about it. Are there really large numbers of Americans who would find that image disturbing? Maybe I'm just naive.
Posted by: PaulC | August 4, 2006 3:22 PM
If you go to any warm beach in Europe, you will see that most of the men and the women wear one piece bathing costumes - the bottom part. No on cares, no on screams, it all seems very normal, and the good thing is women of all ages do it, not just the sexy young ones, there are old women of 80 out there.
No one need get their knickers in a twist about a bit of bare titty, half the population have the full formed kind and the all have nipples.
Posted by: oldhippie | August 4, 2006 3:25 PM
One of the reactions:
"I was offended ... [so] ... I left the magazine on the coffee table"
Huh?
Posted by: John Lynch | August 4, 2006 3:28 PM
They were talking about this the other day on Rotten.com as well. But we didn't get PZ-titties there. Heh heh.
Posted by: Tlazolteotl | August 4, 2006 3:36 PM
I'm intrigued by the woman who (a) was offended by the cover; (b) nevertheless displayed it on her coffee table; and (c) claims that it made her husband "very uncomfortable." (Second quote, above.) Uncomfortable in the sense that he was offended too, or uncomfortable in the sense that he disappeared into the bathroom for a half-hour with a bottle of Mazola oil? If the former, what's it like being married to a man who's put off by the sight of breasts? Or, more likely, what's it like having a wife who's not only a prude, but projects it onto you?
Posted by: Molly, NYC | August 4, 2006 3:37 PM
Not pierced then?
Posted by: Roger B. | August 4, 2006 3:42 PM
Has anyone asked if the breast on the cover of Baby Talk belonged to a guy? Because that would be disturbing.
Otherwise, what's the problem?
Posted by: Troutnut | August 4, 2006 3:43 PM
Such prudery has, unfortunately, been a major current in the US since the beginning. After all, the Puritans fled Europe in part because they couldn't deal with the slowly liberalizing society there.
Part of the problem comes from the fact that our nudity laws are a blatant double standard. I, PZ, or any of the guys here can (and probably often do) walk around in public topless, and nobody says a word. But if Molly or any other woman does it, they get arrested. Isn't that by definition unconstitutional discrimination on the basis of sex?
Posted by: jay denari | August 4, 2006 3:52 PM
Everyone needs to relax.
That's not a breast. It's a heavily retouched octopus head.
See? There's no reason to be offended.
Posted by: Dava Jones | August 4, 2006 3:53 PM
The funny thing about breasts is that they have a dual identity. A lot of the time they are sexual, in that men like to play with them and women like to have them played with by their lovers.
However, as the partner of a currently breastfeeding woman, I can tell you that once they are doing their primary function, feeding a baby, they are no longer sexy for the momma. She's like, "I've been having someone suck milk out of em all day, play with somethin' else instead."
Posted by: dAVE | August 4, 2006 3:56 PM
"I am still inclined to think that the attitudes expressed in these letters are not representative."
Well, think of it this way: 25% of readers of a baby magazine about caring for one's baby, usually utilizing one's breasts in the process, were offended. Says an awful lot to me.
Posted by: Rey Fox | August 4, 2006 3:59 PM
I find it amusing that the president of another country was photographed for a news story while talking to a woman who was breastfeeding her baby (uncovered) and no one there thinks it's an issue, but if a breast is flashed for a split second during a halftime show in the US, there is an indignant uproar. Do a google image search on "hugo chavez" and it should be the 4th image. (safe search needs to be off) The picture may be NSFW in some environments, but was attached to an AP story last year (or the year before, they all are starting to run together).
Posted by: David | August 4, 2006 4:05 PM
Hasn't been my experience...
Posted by: Azkyroth | August 4, 2006 4:12 PM
Actually, since the early 90s it's been perfectly legal in NY state for women to go topless, provided they aren't doing it for commercial reasons, etc.
It's not common, but some women do go topless on beaches in NY.
And as far as people getting upset by breastfeeding, it seems fairly common. I've gotten into plenty of arguments with people who say things like "sure it's a natural body function, so is taking a shit! They should go in the ladies room if they have to do that!"
Being offended by breastfeeding is a sign of a sick, twisted mind.
Posted by: craig | August 4, 2006 4:19 PM
.
Maybe she saw it in a doctor's office.
Posted by: quork | August 4, 2006 4:23 PM
The thing is - the same could be said for many body parts. I like eating, but there are other things I do with my mouth. Should we all go around wearing veils?
Posted by: Jeff | August 4, 2006 4:27 PM
That's sure crazy, there. We're typically better about that in Canada, especially since we had that court case in 1996 to give women the right to go topless in public.
There are certainly prudes here, too, but I think the reaction would be less.
Posted by: King Aardvark | August 4, 2006 4:28 PM
I'm going to have nightmares of PZ's hairy nipple for the rest of the month.
Oh, the horror.
Posted by: King Aardvark | August 4, 2006 4:31 PM
Trust me, breastfeeding anywhere around people is still not considered normal in a lot of the country. I spent two and a half years total breastfeeding babies, and I got a lot more snide comments and rude stares than supportive comments or what should be the normal response of Just Don't Look At It. And once a woman knows what she's doing, there isn't anything flashed to be upset about - I had an older woman once sit down next to me on a bench at the mall and start cooing over the baby without even realizing he was nursing at the time. I admit that was awkward, but I wasn't used to it yet. In any case, after a few bold trials and smackdowns including being haughtily told by a dept. store cashier that I couldn't use a completely empty dressing room to nurse, I took to furtively nursing in my car, planning entire day trips around when I could stop at the one store with a mommy room, etc. Not to mention the peer pressure - every time I mentioned any slight trouble with nursing, my own mother would always start with how I should switch to formula.
It's not easy, I tell ya.
Posted by: Carlie | August 4, 2006 4:31 PM
Frakking idiots. Great gibbering Jeebus. Whadda they think THEY did when they were crapping diapers and puking mother's milk?
Sigh. Sad that being human is an obscenity ...
Posted by: Chuck | August 4, 2006 4:33 PM
Twenty years ago my family and I traveled Down Under to watch Haley's Comet in the Australian Outback and do other more conventional touristy things. On the way back we stopped over in Tahiti for two days. The Qanta 747's crew stayed in the same hotel and enjoyed the same pool and beach we did, and the ambiance was just like Oldhippie described. Every female at the pool, including all 14 stewardesses, (but no Americans) sunned themselves in one-piece, bottoms only, bathing suits. It was a bit jarring to this American at first, accustomed as I am to American prudery (not North American, mind you), but within minutes seemd perfectly normal. And the behavior, except for some boorish Americans, was very decorous. We Americans get our knickers in a snit over the most rediculous things; it's no wonder the rest of the world (with the exception of the Islamic world with which our yahoos have much in common) think we're bonkers.
Posted by: Keanus | August 4, 2006 4:33 PM
i definetly vote for the baby shot on the table!!! people shocked by a mammary gland. that's GLAND...not genitalia...GLAND!!! sheesh.
Posted by: scout | August 4, 2006 4:34 PM
Y'know, I've seen women in public wearing bikinis that covered less than that baby does...
Posted by: mjfgates | August 4, 2006 4:38 PM
I think these types of feelings might disappear in a generation or two. Attitudes about breastfeeding are *much* more positive than they used to be (and they still aren't that positive, so go figure.)
For instance, I just found out that my mother fed me, not even formula, but a mixture of evaporated milk and corn syrup. Gah! Aren't those the first two ingredients for fudge??? And she was a total hippie college student from the late seventies and everything.
So it's totally weird to her that I'm breastfeeding. She has no advice to offer (which is kind of a relief, becasue she's one of those nosy mothers...) at all. But everyone I know in my generation is completely pro-breastfeeding. The fact that the parenting magazine is even pondering why women don't breastfeed longer (it's the article the cover is for) I think shows things are starting to change.
Posted by: plucky punk | August 4, 2006 4:43 PM
People with dirty minds will always find something to be offended about.
Seven years ago I was working for Owl, a kids science and nature magazine here in Canada. Around the time I came on board we published an issue devoted to vampire bats, mosquitoes, leeches and other animals that subsist on blood. The cover proudly proclaimed, in dripping red letters, "This Issue SUCKS!"
We got quite a few letters expressing shock and outrage that we had dared to use the word "sucks" on the cover of a children's magazine.
I may seem pretty clueless for saying this, but I didn't even understand what they were complaining about. The only thing that the rest of the editorial staff and I could figure was that the wackjobs thought it was a reference to oral sex.
My proposal that we run an issue on the evolution of the human brain called "Getting Good Head" was not well received.
Posted by: CaptainMike | August 4, 2006 4:47 PM
I thought that's what they were for! I must be missing a few pages from my manual...
Posted by: Matt | August 4, 2006 4:51 PM
I don't have any objection to women breast feeding; it is a natural, healthy thing. I just don't know where to look when they are doing it. I am not going to stare at them; I don't want to make them feel uncomfortable. I don't want to only look away, that is almost as bad. Maybe it is a problem on my part, but I don't like making them feel uncomfortable.
Yes, we are sometimes rather silly in our prudishness. I remember when I was in High School (decades ago). We had a guest lecturer on wolves. He gave a talk and we watched a movie. One of his points was that in the Southern US he couldn't show the movie. It wasn't because of the hunting scene in the movie. It wasn't because a hunter takes a pistol to the head of a wounded wolf and blows the wolf's brains out. Oh no. (which was rather disturbing, hunting wolves with helicopters and killing them) It was because he had the only film of a wolf baby being born in the wild! (Maybe I could see if he had filmed them making the baby, but giving birth?)
Unfortunately, I am not sure how far we have come in 30 years in some places.
Posted by: Jim | August 4, 2006 5:05 PM
I've said it before in response to this story: Cute baby, cute boobie (no, I'm not referring to yours, PZ). I'm seriously baffled that anyone has a problem with that.
Posted by: L33tminion | August 4, 2006 5:09 PM
Posted by: quork | August 4, 2006 5:20 PM
You know, earlier this year I was nursing my youngest in the auditorium bathroom at a gradeschool recital. It wasn't even during intermission: the poor baby suddenly decided he was starving and had to eat RIGHT NOW. So I mosied on down to the large restrooms with the nice sitting area, found myself a nice couch, and settled down to nurse the baby.
To a chorus of snickers and gasps from the ladies in the restroom (of course, I'm in KS, so it should be expected, right?) "I can't believe she's doing that when there are KIDS in here!!"
My GOD! I'm feeding my baby in front of CHILDREN!
On a side note, I've received many of those Babytalk magazines, and they quite often show pictures of breastfeeding inside the magazine. Apparently, none of those women have ever opened one???
Posted by: kansas_lib | August 4, 2006 5:36 PM
See, I always think it's unfair that any man can walk around topless in many places but I can't! It's hot during the summer and we haven't got A/C, so how come I gotta be the only one in the house with a shirt on? :/
Posted by: BrassyDel | August 4, 2006 5:48 PM
"I just don't know where to look when they are doing it. I am not going to stare at them; I don't want to make them feel uncomfortable. I don't want to only look away, that is almost as bad. Maybe it is a problem on my part, but I don't like making them feel uncomfortable."
Just act normal. Easier said than done, I suppose, at least at first. Where would you be looking if she were just holding the baby, or if she were feeding the baby a bottle? I assume that you wouldn't be staring at the baby (or mom's breasts) the entire time, but carrying on a normal conversation with eye contact to the mother. Same rules apply. If the woman is doing it in public, she can't (and most likely doesn't) expect everyone to act as though she doesn't exist. Honestly, it just looks like a woman is holding her baby particularly close. There's nothing funky going on. Even if she has to switch sides in the middle of a conversation, it would be quick and (hopefully) flashless, and you could look away for those few seconds if it makes everyone feel better.
Posted by: Carlie | August 4, 2006 5:48 PM
"Somehow, I think these objectors have forgotten that we are mammals."
Considering I had a 2nd grade teacher claim that sharks were mammals, and argued with me when I told her she was wrong (her criteria for mammalism seemed to be giving birth to live young), I'm not so sure everyone realizes what a mammal is...
Posted by: Alex | August 4, 2006 5:50 PM
Cap'n Mike - It's an age thing, methinks. "That sucks" was very dirty language in 1965 when I was in high school, and children, as you know, should be obscene and not heard. I was a bit taken aback by the rehabilitation of "sucks" myself, what with having used it only away from adults as a kid.
Funny story: at my younger daughter's Tulane graduation party (June, before Katrina) at Antoine's in New Orleans, the older daughter's baby announced his all-consuming hunger. Older daughter no more than started to ask the waiter "Is there a place..." than he took her to a back stairwell with a chair and assigned a junior waiter to "stand guard" so she wouldn't be disturbed.
Posted by: Coragyps | August 4, 2006 5:57 PM
Being offended by breastfeeding is a sign of a sick, twisted mind.
agreed. people make such a fuss. my (first) wife had all kinds of troubles breastfeeding our kids, including some ninny complaining about what she was doing in the middle of a several hour airplane ride.
i think the only thing uncomfortable about bathing in a bottoms only pool of pretty women would be that i would constantly look. i guess those darting, glancing skills would need improving for that context.
the other funny incident happened when hiking with kids up a mountain. as little kids often do with parents, there was a code word for breasts and breastfeeding, one they made up and entirely innocently we just reenforced. well, on this one warm day up the trail, we kept leapfrogging this pair of women, one having a mesh see-through top as well as day pack. fine. makes perfect sense to me. i sure wouldn't want to wear a bra in that heat and work. but kid is riding on my backpack, sees the mesh top, and says the code word, then gets all excited about it because, apparently, kid realizes other women besides mom have them, too. (he's maybe two.) the funny part is, the lady realized what the word meant and got all upset about the public recognition and acknowledgement.
Posted by: ekzept | August 4, 2006 6:02 PM
This is just plain stupidity. The reason we have bathrooms for taking a grump is because that tends to require special equipment, like plumbing and running water. And also because we don't really need to be picking up person-poop from the sidewalks all day.
Breast feeding requires nothing more than a baby and a breast, and doesn't leave any smelly residue.
If the objection to public breast feeding is a result of rampant sexualization, then what does that say about people who have to compare it to taking a public dump?
Posted by: Dan | August 4, 2006 6:23 PM
Funny you should say that. I did a little review (or a rant at, depending on your point of view) of a well-known a Christian school / homeschool curriculum that mentions exactly that.
http://shrimpandgrits.rickandpatty.com/2006/08/02/ace-should-be-put-in-the-hole/
Here's the relevant quote:
Posted by: Rick @ shrimp and grits | August 4, 2006 6:32 PM
Come on, this is Minnesota. Almost all of us are this shade of fishbelly pale up here.
Hey ... I'm that pale (if not more so), and I'm not even from Minnesota (from Sunny So Cal and currently living in FL), my grandmother's from Minnesota, though, is that close enough?
Posted by: DAS | August 4, 2006 6:40 PM
It's funny that the very thing the breast was meant for... feeding a baby... is obscene.
That's messed up.
That is a beautiful photo. A beautiful moment.
The world average duration breastfeeding for 4 years, I think.
I think the U.S. average is 6 months. My son is still breastfeeding and he's 2. Probably start weening him soon. It's only in the morning and just before bed mostly now.
Posted by: Steve_C | August 4, 2006 6:42 PM
I can't believe that it only now hit me, but do you think that any subconscious problems certain people have might be because nursing breasts fit all the definitions of sexy even more than normal breasts? Big, full, hard - all the things that are erotic signals (ironically those are probably erotic signals precisely because they signal that these breasts can function for your offspring, baby) are out in full force with a nursing mother. Never thought of it because I'm a woman, but perhaps some of the uncomfortable men are having their sexy neurons triggered and they know they "shouldn't".
Posted by: Carlie | August 4, 2006 6:42 PM
re: Carlie's comment above
FuturePundit: Breastfeeding Women Secrete Aphrodisiac Chemosignal
Posted by: j | August 4, 2006 6:55 PM
I'm guessing your nipple ring is on the other breast then, PZ? :)
Posted by: Ithika | August 4, 2006 6:55 PM
BTW, if there's a baby latched onto one boob, and you latch on to the other, the baby will get Pissed Off.
I only have one data point on that, though.
Posted by: steve s | August 4, 2006 6:59 PM
I kinda find hairy dudes sexy, PZ.
Posted by: Bill S | August 4, 2006 7:00 PM
j: Oh, no, it's Menstrual Synchrony McClintock -- she's found another phantasmal pheromone to peddle, which I suspect will be as hard to pin down as the other.
Ithika: that would be asymmetric. If I were to have a ring piercing some body part, shouldn't it be along the midline...somewhere?
Posted by: PZ Myers![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/nav-commenters.gif)
|
August 4, 2006 7:00 PM
You could be the cover, er, person at Half Naked Thursday.
Fame awaits!
http://osbasso.blogspot.com/2005/05/guidelines-for-half-nekkid-thursday.html
Posted by: Doc Bill | August 4, 2006 7:06 PM
I'm really not that hairy, Bill. It's fairly sparse, and no one is going to confuse me with a teddy bear.
Besides, my thing would be to shave it all off, slick everything down with a thick layer of gelid phosphorescent slime, and sport in the moonlight with a similarly pale, damp, lissome member of the opposite sex, don't you think?
(There goes the last member of the Pharynguloid fan club. It was getting too crowded here, anyway.)
Posted by: PZ Myers![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/nav-commenters.gif)
|
August 4, 2006 7:10 PM
Never thought of it because I'm a woman, but perhaps some of the uncomfortable men are having their sexy neurons triggered and they know they "shouldn't".
Absolutely. It's like the knee-jerk "OMG MEN BUTTFUCKING IS SOOOO DISGUSTING I DON'T THINK IT'S AROUSING AT ALL" reaction. Hell, I'm getting uncomfortable with myself for my own reaction to that picture, so I sympathize. Not that I think that makes it anyone else's problem, obviously.
What really offends me is the insult to the intelligence that is the display of a nipple-less, stretchmark-free, perfectly hemispherical tit ostensibly attached to a lactating, recently pregnant woman.
Posted by: junk science | August 4, 2006 7:24 PM
All of a sudden I feel really.... hot.
Posted by: Lauren | August 4, 2006 7:25 PM
Some lady's husband was "uncomfortable" at the sight of a nude female breast?
Something seems wrong there...
Posted by: scarshapedstar | August 4, 2006 7:27 PM
He's uncomfortable with how much he wants to be that baby right now.
Posted by: junk science | August 4, 2006 7:35 PM
That was funny! I sprayed a mouthful of water all over my keyboard.
My kids are grown now, but I am still the topic of conversation around my large, right-wing, bible thumping Alabama family b/c I had the audacity to discreetly breastfeed infants in public (my living room) when others were present.
Its only one more in a long list of personal flaws as I am an atheist, a scientist, an environmentalist, a liberal, and (shockingly for a mother!)a successful business person who escaped the backwoods of Alabama after becoming an E.O. Wilson fan. Figured if he could do it, so could I.
Posted by: Mataha | August 4, 2006 7:44 PM
I dug up the original AP story on this, and I'm sure nobody here will be surprised to learn that it gets even stupider
"One mother who didn't like the cover explains she was concerned about her 13-year-old son seeing it.
'I shredded it,' said Gayle Ash, of Belton, Texas, in a telephone interview. 'A breast is a breast -- it's a sexual thing. He didn't need to see that.'
'I'm totally supportive of it -- I just don't like the flashing,' she says. "I don't want my son or husband to accidentally see a breast they didn't want to see.'
Here's a newsflash, lady: there is no such thing, especially in the case of your son. I can't speak for anyone else, but at the age of 13 I would have loved to have seen that cover. It probably would have wound up in my bedroom at some point.
On a related topic, my friend Dave was recently in a Kitchener, Ontario and he says they now have signs up in a lot of public areas saying "Breastfeeding is not only permitted here, but encouraged."
Posted by: CaptainMike | August 4, 2006 7:45 PM
First, the idea of smooth, glow-in-the-dark women is remarkably interesting. So I don't think you're completely freaky, PZ.
That said, speaking as someone who seems to have lost that universal ability to See Babies As Adorable, I can't help but say I do, personally, find breastfeeding visually unpleasant. But... I also find tight leather pants on exceptionally large posteriors to be visually unpleasant.
EVEN IF you find the effect of breastfeeding to be odd or disgusting, I don't think it's 'your' position to determine the moral viewing content for everyone else, when we are talking about a completely natural process. I could whinge about this at length, but I'll not, in the interest of avoiding looking like ranting idiot.
In summary, though, the idea of censoring breastfeeding when self-censorship (ie, DON'T LOOK) works just fine ticks me off no end.
Posted by: Talen Lee | August 4, 2006 7:59 PM
Way up there, Jay says:
Um... that's what you think. They just don't say it loud enough.
Posted by: Karmen | August 4, 2006 8:08 PM
I don't see what the problem is. The poor baby is obviously just having a simple chat with his mother.
I hate "it could be worse" arguments, but at least the outraged readers are in a super minority on this issue. Best not to let the 25% composed of bible-thumping boobie ayatolas get all the airplay.
Posted by: BlueIndependent | August 4, 2006 8:23 PM
Yeah, where are the blue veins and the stretch marks? That ain't a natural lactating breast.
Posted by: Orange | August 4, 2006 8:46 PM
Dude. Push-ups. Trust me.
Posted by: Rob G | August 4, 2006 8:58 PM
So, some people have not only "forgotten" that we are mammals, but actively suppress the knowledge!
There's an entry over at FStDT where one FFF was arguing that humans *were* mammals... and that mammals *weren't* animals.
It was even worse being there for that one.
Posted by: Graculus | August 4, 2006 9:29 PM
Some random smart guy i ran into told me that he is disgusted that Americans have traded restraint for restrictions and it is ASTOUNDING what is actually offending people in THIS day and age. It was the most profound thing i have heard come out of a random encounter LATELY.
I mean... it's just a boobie... it's not going to hurt anyone.
Posted by: Davita | August 4, 2006 9:35 PM
I mean... it's just a boobie... it's not going to hurt anyone.
Sure, it's all fun and games until someone pokes their eye out...
Posted by: Carlie | August 4, 2006 9:51 PM
In response to Captain Mike:
That's encouraging to hear, since when I lived in Kitchener (late 80s-early 90s) breastfeeding publically was actively discouraged. Being a West Coast sort of girl, I was accustomed to nursing whenever and wherever, not to have to ask for the mommy's room at the mall to be unlocked, or to sit in a bathroom stall, or go into another room in my own home.
I weep for these sad repressed people - only because their prudish attitudes affect so many of the rest of us.
Posted by: Heidi | August 4, 2006 10:23 PM
You know, I think that calling it beautiful is almost as silly as calling it obscene. There may be something cool about it, but I don't know that the concept of "beauty" was ever intended to describe the excretion of bodily fluids. Nor does it typically descibe drinking. So I'm not sure where it fits into a description of drinking bodily fluids.
Why can't it just be a beauty-neutral thing, like sneezing? I will look at somebody very strangely if they tell me sneezing is obscene. But I'll also be puzzled if they think it's beautiful.
*achoo*
Excuse me while I wipe this beauty off...
Posted by: Troutnut | August 4, 2006 10:36 PM
I bet all 25% of those readers who were offended voted for Bush too. Its the type.....just scary if you think about it.
Posted by: Paul | August 4, 2006 11:01 PM
As a mother who has breasted, I'm more concerned that the Mystic-Tanned cantaloupe that baby is sitting in front of is supposed to be a breast. As a friend of mine said, it might as well be a flesh-coloured balloon. It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that the root cause of offense is due to the fact that most mother aren't flawlessly airbrushed, but rather exhausted and smelling slightly of spoiled milk.
Posted by: Nanners Ogg | August 4, 2006 11:45 PM
Carlie:
And then it's just fun.
Posted by: Dan | August 4, 2006 11:48 PM
In response to;
I am not an animal!!!!!
I am a human being!!!!!!
Posted by: John Merrick | August 4, 2006 03:14 PM
/quote
You're mindlessly invincibly pig ignorant, Mr. Vegtable.
Humans are animals, ignoramous. Please don't spawn.
Posted by: stoney | August 5, 2006 12:07 AM
In European counties such as the Netherlands, people are offended if they DON'T see such stuff on magazine covers!
Posted by: PeteK | August 5, 2006 12:12 AM
Jim: You don't know where to look when they're doing it (breastfeeding)? How about wherever you look when they aren't doing it?
Posted by: Older | August 5, 2006 12:36 AM
My nipple's not obscene either. Livejournal said so!
Posted by: Mike Crichton | August 5, 2006 12:39 AM
Uh, stoney...
You might want to check the poster's signature. John Merrick was the Elephant Man... the tagline from that movie was "I am a man, not an animal." You might want to take a quick look in the mirror before calling names.
Posted by: ArtK | August 5, 2006 12:51 AM
Holy God. That is one nasty photo. Don't ever do that again!!!
Posted by: SSciaraf@u.arizona.edu | August 5, 2006 1:22 AM
It wasn't 25% of the readers; it was 25% of the people who felt moved to write letters to the editor about the cover.
That's not a representative sample.
Posted by: Evan | August 5, 2006 2:13 AM
Actually it was 25% of the 4,000 people who were contacted in a reader survey, and all they said was that it made them uncomfortable. It still isn't a representative sample of the mag's readers or the American public in general though.
Posted by: CaptainMike | August 5, 2006 3:39 AM
That's a good thing:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/5240832.stm
Posted by: SEF | August 5, 2006 4:36 AM
It's beautiful because it's a mom caring for her baby, and it's a warm, tender moment.
It's beautiful because we ARE mammals so we're programmed to think it's beautiful. Same reason we like little baby things with big heads and eyes like babies and kittens, and same reason a mama cat nursing her kittens is a beautiful sight.
If we were birds, we'd think a photo of a mom and dad vomiting into their waiting babies' mouths was beautiful.
Man... the things I think of at 4:30 am... and I don't even do drugs anymore.
Posted by: craig | August 5, 2006 4:48 AM
Oh the hypocrisy. Ay ai ai, it burns.
We live in a world where women's bodies are defined as objects for adult male consumption/husband's property. Women in our culture are there to be stared at, groped, wolf-whistled, their bodies rendered in distorted and unrealistic ways, basically just used for male benefit - all in the name of and justified by male biology. You know, "we can't help it, it's evolution turns us into such jerks".
And then you act all suprised when people (but only the sort of people you disapprove of, unlike you marvelously advanced liberals) get themselves wound up in a bunch about something which actually is normal for the woman's body and useful for the infant, ie breastfeeding.
Join the dots people. Sheesh.
Posted by: zzz | August 5, 2006 6:55 AM
Go here if you need the background:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/07/what_is_a_good_erotic_exclamat.php
Posted by: zzz | August 5, 2006 6:57 AM
First, the idea of smooth, glow-in-the-dark women is remarkably interesting. So I don't think you're completely freaky, PZ.
Er, he just said "a similarly pale, damp, lissome member of the opposite sex".
He didn't specify species. Given that this is PZ Myers...
Posted by: Phoenician in a time of Romans | August 5, 2006 7:47 AM