This is supermodel Nicole Trufino breastfeeding her son. Everyone involved with the photo agrees it’s a beautiful shot. So do I. Too bad Elle won’t make it available to the general public. Instead, they sent this cover only to their subscribers.
I will never understand why we have no stomach for breastfeeding. I venture that one reason is because we’re completely disconnected from our food. Our chicken comes in cutlets that are shrink wrapped, our carrots are cut into baby sized pieces and bagged. So when we see our food come from the source, it’s rather unnerving.
But the real elephant in the room here is our issue with breasts. Let’s face it: when it comes to boobs, Westerners have the maturity of 12-year-old boy with his first boner and a face full of acne. Just take a look at online comments about Trufino’s cover, and you’ll see what I mean. Lots of people are not okay with a woman voluntarily exposing their breasts to others–unless it’s to make them horny. Or to sell something. Because the last time I looked, there is a national chain restaurant called Hooters, there is a tit shot in every episode of Game of Thrones, and the Internet is still awash in porn.
If that breast has milk coming out of it, though, watch out! In her Instagram post about the cover, Nicole Trufino said, “The last thing I want to do is be controversial, so please take this for what it is, let us normalise breastfeeding.” How odd that breastfeeding could be considered remotely controversial, or NOT normal. And how sad that we judge women who do it, and shame them into wearing strange, giant tents while they do–all because we’re scared of seeing stray boobie that we just looked up on the Internet not a half hour ago. That shouldn’t surprise me in a country where Janet Jackson’s nipple brought us to a grinding halt.
Such hypocrisy. And the truth is, I have no tolerance or time for it. To those ranting about women showing off while breastfeeding, or how their delicate sensibilities are offended, I say this: grow up. Babies need lots of food, and they need it fast. A mother satisfying her child’s need with her breast is the most basic and ancient of human rituals–and one of the most beautiful. But it’s not easy, and women need support. You don’t have to understand that, and you don’t have to agree, but you don’t get to be an obstructionist. Don’t go ask someone in charge to make her stop. Don’t shame her. If you do, you are ignorant, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself.
Until we all come to grips with breastfeeding, I applaud those who are keeping it front and center–like the writers of Outlander, who just featured a very realistic and graphic portrayal of lactation in the show. It’s only by being exposed to breastfeeding that we’re all going to learn to go with the flow.
I agree because the problem I have with those that complain about breastfeeding in public is that their disgust always seems to have sexual overtones. Most women are complex, meaning they can be both sexual and mothers. However I feel that society in general is more comfortable thinking of women as either sexual or as mothers. As you said, society doesn’t have issues with showing women’s breasts. Pictures of celebrities in skimpy bikinis cover magazines and girls can get beads for lifting their shirts. But have a woman display a portion of her breast while breastfeeding in public and society cries out in horror. Society should be ashamed. Because honestly only those that are complaining are confusing the issue by tinting it through a sexual lens. A mother is simply feeding her child.