The British Battle of Breastfeeding vs Bottle

Deputy Editor of the UK’s Mother & Baby magazine Katherine Blundell formulated a storm of controversy with this month’s opinion piece in the magazine titled “I Formula-fed...So What?”. Her article described how she “couldn’t be fagged” (bothered) to nurse, expressed concern that her “fun bags” would be irrevocably ruined, and ultimately dismissed breastfeeding as “creepy”.

Women around the world have reacted, creating a Facebook page demanding an apology from the magazine that has already attracted over 1,200 fans, and there have been scores of news articles, blogs, and comments. Scanning all of these, there are the expected OMG’s, gasps of indignation, arguments refuting Blundell’s thinking, and personal infant feeding stories. Probably 99% of the commentary is being generated and read by women. I couldn’t help but laugh at one writer describing the “age-old” debate of bottle vs breast, considering formula has only existed for about five generations!

Only a handful of commentators have latched on to what I feel is at the root of this issue – the oversexualization of the female breast in Western culture. Clearly Blundell thinks of her chest primarily as sexual apparatus and has a hard time reconciling the image of a perky bosom begging to be fondled by a lover with feeding an infant. And who can blame her? Our society is saturated with pictures of young fashionistas popping out of tight low-cut tops and triangle bikinis. They are the stars of reality TV, the “booze and boobs” set stalked by paparazzi with no other apparent talent than their figures and willingness to flaunt them (with the unexpected exception of Kourtney Kardashian who has been very vocal about her passion for breastfeeding, blogging about it and even pumping on camera, while maintaining her sexy, high-heeled image). And young girls dreaming of fame emulate them, seeing it is so much easier to get implants and garner a Twitter following than to actually learn how to act or sing or dance. Then years later, they are left with painful sagging scar tissue on their chests and a mothering experience that was not all it could have been.

I’m not denying breasts are sexual. On the contrary, breasts are and always have been highly sexual. I love mine, love having them touched, love how they look in the right clothes, love looking at other women’s. And so do men. My argument is that they have become oversexualized – when women routinely pay thousands to willingly be cut up and have foreign plastic matter inserted in their pecs, when people can’t wrap their heads around their dual functions of feeding and attraction – we are collectively past a tipping point into pathology.

It befuddles me exactly how and when this happened, but I have made it my mission to turn it around. A quick (and very unscientific) online survey targeted at men indicates that they love breasts in all shapes and sizes, and actually prefer real and small over large and fake. When asked about breastfeeding, only 5% of men described it as creepy while 67% acknowledged the dual function of breasts; 15% even said it turned them on. Men – to have your say, the survey is still open at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GQJHY25 .

Among all the op eds and comments resulting from Blundell’s piece, the other thing that really disturbs me is a terminal niceness and PC-ness around respecting each other’s choice. Half of the posts start with “Every women has a right to choose...”. That is true. Women in Western culture today have more choice and control over their individual lives than ever before – they can choose to marry or stay single, to work or not, to have an abortion or become a mother. Though we are far from reaching equality with men (if there is such a thing), many of the social stigmas and barriers faced by previous generations have evaporated. However, with the plethora of choice we enjoy comes the responsibility to choose wisely. Choosing to breastfeed is not only optimal for the individual mother and baby’s health – it also has ripple effects for the environment, for the economy, for the way we perceive our bodies. In the US, it is estimated that the government would save $13 billion (yes, that’s a “b”) in health care costs if every child was breastfed for the first six months of its life, and 900 less infants would die unnecessarily. Consider all the water, all the electricity for boiling, all the cartons going into landfills. Human milk is the ultimate green, a fact I don’t think the environmental community is touting enough. When you strip away the marketing and misperceptions, would there really be any other choice than to nurse?

Then we take it back down to the micro level of an individual mother, like Blundell, agonizing over how to feed her baby. Please understand I don’t judge any one person for their choice; everyone is a product of our culture that oversexualizes the breast and doesn’t provide the support or correct information to facilitate breastfeeding. But I do challenge this culture, and hope you will too.

The Boob Hustle

She looks in the mirror, naked from the waist up save a new Victoria’s Secret bra that promises to add 2 cups sizes. She does a quarter-turn to the right, surveying the smooth mounds that seem to miraculously spring from her flat chest. With a dagger of embarrassment, she notices the gap of space between the warm real flesh smooshed up inside the cup and the top of the foam form that represents what she thinks her breasts should look like. She realizes her expensive trip to the lingerie store hasn’t solved anything. In her mind there is a “click”, like a weight being added to one side of a scale sending it past the tipping point, and she decides to get breast augmentation surgery.

Would it surprise you to consider that the root of this woman’s body dsymorphia and anguish can be traced back to the invention of pasteurization? In the late 1800’s, Pasteur’s discovery of slowing the growth of microbials in food led to a huge whey surplus. Farmers and milk suppliers quickly created demand for all their excess milk by inventing new (and until then) completely unnecessary products with it – most notably, baby formula. As any business or economic model will attest, one of the best ways to attract customers to a new product is to discredit its competitor – in this case, breastfed human milk. And for the past 130+ years, the multinational marketers have unfortunately been immensely successful in their campaign to destroy breastfeeding, one of the fundamental traits by which we define ourselves as mammals. No other animal on the planet feeds its young with the milk of another species - only humans in the past two centuries.

In the first decades of the 1900’s, formula was touted as nutritionally superior to mother’s milk and without argument parents in the Western world who could afford to buy it did. As science advanced through the middle of the century, so too did the recognition that human milk carried immunological benefits that no swamp mix of dried cow’s milk and coconut oil could replicate. Study after study confirmed nutritional, physiological, and psychological benefits to both mother and child through nursing, and breastfeeding rates started to rise again after being nearly beaten to oblivion in Western culture.

The formula companies then expanded to new markets in the developing world where uneducated mothers were easily led to believe that the first world had invented something far superior to what they themselves could possibly produce. Sadly this has only resulted in an increase of infant mortality in developing nation lacking adequately sanitized water to mix formula.

So, as recognition of the benefits of breast milk grows, why are so few babies around the world getting it? The most recent assault on nursing is, paradoxically, the act by which babies are made – sex. Despite the obvious advantages, many women (and their partners) simply choose not to nurse because they can’t get past the notion of their chests as sexual apparatus.
Packed with sensory receptors, female breasts have always been highly sexual parts of human anatomy. Darwinists have gone so far as to suggest female homo sapiens evolved with protruding mammary glands (rare among primates) to mimic buttocks and encourage face-to-face bonding between men and women during sex. They are also amazing dual function body parts, just as the mouth is for eating and talking and breathing. Failing to acknowledge the breast’s role in feeding children is like suggesting men should only either pee or have sex with their penises, but not both.

It is difficult to ascertain the origins of our current hyper-sexualization of women’s chests, and probably a stretch to propose it is part of a formula company conspiracy. Yet the complex and interlinked relationship between how we feed our babies and how we view our bodies is hard to ignore.

Throughout history, female breasts have been revered as objects of beauty, sexuality, and fertility. And the socially preferred size and shape has morphed and altered during this time, from being bound flat in Japanese kimonos to the cone bras of the 1950’s. It is only in the past three decades, as breastfeeding was starting to show signs of a comeback, that unnaturally round, high, and large shapes have become the desired look. And the only way to achieve this form is to insert blobs of silicone or saline into the chest that impair the breast’s ability to function as a feeding mechanism, and ironically, often diminish sexual sensation as well. It’s the modern-day equivalent of Chinese foot-binding – killing the natural function of a body part in order to satisfy a seemingly extraneous sexual fetish. Today, foot-binding is cited as an example of a pathological attraction to disability. What will future generations think of implants?
How and when did we become so collectively deceived and brainwashed about our bodies, to the point that women will pay thousands of dollars to undergo a potentially harmful and even life-threatening surgery? Proponents point to increased self-esteem, but when did having a small chest become such a shameful affliction as to create low self-esteem? Why does a businessman sneer at the sight of a mother nursing in public, yet pay huge amounts of money to watch a stripper bear her chest? Has not our culture’s obsession with melon-like orbs affixed to women’s chests reached a tipping point into absurdity, even danger? Consider the following:

- Stats vary, but over 95% of women CAN breastfeed, and can often supply enough milk for twins and even triplets
- Previous to the invention of formula, infants whose mothers didn’t produce enough milk were supplemented or exclusively nursed by other lactating women
- The majority of men love breasts in all shapes and sizes, and prefer real over fake by a vast majority
- Many women who have undergone augmentation report a loss in sexual pleasure, and increased pain and discomfort in their chests
- Augmentation is not permanent; most plastic surgeons recommend checks every 10-15 years and subsequent surgery is often required due to sagging and pulling of the skin

No one NEEDS to ever use formula and no one, save those dealing with reconstruction, NEEDS augmentation. If your mind immediately starts putting up arguments against this statement, you’ve been hustled.

One Real vs One Fake

In any experiment testing a hypothesis, researchers try to control as many variables and outside influences as possible. For example, to study the effects of nature versus nurture, scientists try to find sets of twins who have been separated at birth so they can test people who are genetically identical with different life experiences.

Using this principal, how could we realistically test how implants feel inside of a woman versus natural breasts over time? You could get twins – one with implants and one who has left herself natural, and have them record their experiences. However, you would still have to rely on their subjective feelings and interpretations of the experience. Ideally, you would need a woman who has experienced life with one real breast and one artificial breast. And this is exactly who I talked to!

Since starting No Cones, I’ve had some amazing conversations. An acquaintance named Cynthia (named changed to protect identity) shared with me her fascinating story. She was born with a hereditary condition - a sunken chest just like her father – with no negative health consequences. Simply, the bone structure on her left chest wall just caved inward.

As she became a maturing teenager, the condition became more prominent. Her right breast was blossoming whereas the left side of her chest was concave. Cynthia recalls wearing baggy tops and covering her swimsuit with a t-shirt to hide the lopsidedness. At the age of 16, her doctor recommended a saline implant to balance the look of her chest and she proceeded with the surgery.

For the past 25 years, Cynthia has had the unique experience of living with one real breast and one implant. And she emphatically states she can’t imagine anyone ever choosing to put implants in their bodies for purely cosmetic reasons.

“Every day, I have had these side by side on my chest, and the difference is enormous,” she says. “The implant is so heavy I can feel the constant pull on it all the way up to my neck, and now it hangs lower than my real one.”

According to Cynthia, real is vastly superior. She recalls awkward moments with new boyfriends, wondering when and how to explain that one is going to feel different than the other before their hands reached under her bra. Happily married for several years now, Cynthia says there is nothing sexually pleasurable about her fake breast.

“I have numb areas on my left side and I don’t even like having the nipple touched as it feels weird,” she admits. “Why anyone would pay money to have this done is beyond me.”

The irony - so many women are getting implants thinking a certain size and shape of breast make them more sexually attractive, only to find they’ve been robbed of the actual sexual sensation in them.

A Real Bodice-Ripper

First week of No Cones. I’m floundering on Twitter, surprised every morning when I Google news citing “breasts”, and have already been called a hypocrite by a neighbour because I wear a push-up bra. Sigh….so far to go…

This week Disney made an unprecedented casting call for their latest “Pirates of the Caribbean” installment – no implants allowed! The explanation is that audiences have become more discerning and implants are too obvious to be believable in an 18th century setting. I have a sneaking suspicion, though, that there must be another reason behind this (after all, surgically-altered actresses seemed fine for the first three movies; Kiera Knightley aside who is gloriously and unabashedly natural). Publicity is probably the answer…and it’s working.

Whatever the reason, I applaud Disney and Rob Marshall this decision. To have a motion picture powerhouse use a wildly popular franchise starring one of the sexiest men alive say “no cones” sends a huge message to all the young actresses and wanna-be’s out there – you don’t have to go under a knife to make it. In fact, it might hinder you. In fact, those DD’s might weigh you down (literally) as a porny typecast, unsuitable for period films, and paying off those surgery bills. And as we sadly know, what the young celebrity set does if often emulated by other women. However in this case it’s a good thing.

What has been unsettling is reading some of the commentary on the story. One writer at the University of Alberta’s newspaper called it “discriminatory” and that Disney shouldn’t exclude women who’ve had “harmless enhancement”. Since when is going under potentially life-threatening anesthesia to put a product inside your body that could cause all kinds of pain and disfigurement, not to mention destroy one’s ability to feed her children “harmless”? The terms “surgically-enhanced” or simply “enhanced” are frequently used in these stories to describe women who’ve had implants, and I’ve got a REAL problem with referring to this unnecessary procedure as an enhancement. Then of course there are the yokels asking how they can become casting agents for the film, a reference to Disney’s assertion they will test to ensure extras indeed are 100% natural.

Then again I should also want to applaud these yokels…as they are a group of men VERY excited at the prospect of surveying hundreds of natural breasts. A bodice-ripper indeed!

Questions...

Today I am embarking on a project I have been wanting to for over a decade, one that until recently seemed impossible to tackle without heaps of money. How do you sway people's perceptions about beauty and body image - what's normal, what's sexy, what's functional? Where did these perceptions orginate anyway, and are they harming our world or enhancing it?

In particular, I'm talking about breasts. Women's breasts - big ones, small ones, droopy ones, perky ones, even ones that are missing. We'd be hard pressed to find a body part on the female anatomy that stirs so many images and emotions in both men and women of all backgrounds. From adoration and fawning over by men in strip clubs, to self-loathing and disgust among extremist feminists and women who feel they don't "measure up", to fear in breast cancer survivors. Imagine thinking about elbows the same way we think about breasts....constructing garments to make them look a different way, dedicating magazine spreads to show beautiful ones, keeping ones considered ugly constantly covered.

Of course this analogy sounds ridiculous. But remember it was only a generation or two ago that women in China suffered bone-crippling bindings to feed the fetish of small feet. The destruction of a body part's natural function in order to appease some arbitrary definition of beauty...is this not what we are doing when we go under a knife to insert foreign matter into our chests? How and when did large round orbs become the beauty ideal?

Theories abound on why the human animal developed to include external mammory glands. And there is no denying that breasts, in both men and women, are erogenous zones primed to be part of our sexual selves. But clearly there has been a tipping point sometime in the past two decades where the natural form and function of the human breast has given way to the Barbie caricature. When girls ask for augmention surgery for their sweet 16th rather than a car...when, as PC as it is, both men and women turn their head in disgust at the sight of a woman breastfeeding in public...when lesbians risk developing cysts and infection by binding their chests so tight, thinking this flattening is their symbolic gesture against the sexualization of the breast. How did this happen, and when will we collectively say "enough"!

It's natural to love breasts. Love natural breasts.