Breast is best, just not in public?
2009-06-25 12:03
In my column last week, I discussed the fact that Facebook regards breastfeeding as obscene and removes pictures of mothers nourishing their babies the way nature intended from the site.
In a bizarre case of life imitating the internet, the issue raised its head in Johannesburg newspapers this week, when a patron at Nice was asked to cover up after complaints were received from neighbouring tables.
The angry woman went to the papers with her story, and Carla Edgar, the owner responded to an interview saying that the woman's breast was showing when she wasn't breastfeeding. The woman responded that she had no reason to show her breast if she wasn't feeding her child.
Obviously, without having been there, I can't comment on what exactly took place. I do know that I have breastfed at Nice myself, and was approached by a very pleasant young waiter who said to me that they were perfectly happy with me feeding where I was, but if I would be more comfortable, there was a room at the back that I could use.
A lump of flesh
I imagine that this level of consideration and politeness is restaurant policy - and Nice is a baby and toddler-friendly place - so I'm not inclined to damn the owner after one incident that is receiving publicity.
At the same time, I continue to be horrified by the mindset of the general public in South Africa to nudity. A number of readers replied to my column last week saying that having sex and going to the loo are also perfectly natural, but we don't permit them happening in public - so the "breastfeeding is perfectly natural" argument doesn't hold water.
Granted, I wouldn't want someone relieving themselves in the middle of a restaurant, and sex is generally a loud and messy endeavour, so I'd prefer it if that was kept to private spaces as well, but with breastfeeding, the bodily fluids that are escaping are going straight into the baby, and the glimpse of nipple that is offered to onlookers is generally covered very quickly by an enthusiastic mouth.
A breast is merely a lump of flesh. Breastfeeding is a quiet and contained affair. People who find themselves offended by the feeding of a baby (and I still find this inexplicable) really can just look the other way. Believe me, we breastfeeding mothers don't want you gawping at us either - there's an entire restaurant full of other people for you to ogle.
Shameful or private?
In response to the article about the incident at Nice, News24 has run a survey today about breastfeeding in public. Although the survey isn't yet finished, the results are already heavily weighted towards "It's not on".
The only reason that people could find public breastfeeding offensive is if they find breasts to be sexual, because bottle feeding a baby certainly isn't frowned upon. How strange that a body part's primary function must be hidden away because people are concerned that they might get turned on by it.
And I continue to be saddened by the fact that feeding our babies in the way that nature intended, with a substance that is perfectly suited to being digested by them, is considered to be shameful or intensely private by the majority of South Africans - or at least, News24 readers.
- Georgina Guedes is a freelance journalist. She thinks that people who are offended by nudity spend far more time thinking about it than those who hardly notice it.
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