25 September 2007

I admit bafflement

I cancelled my Facebook account at the behest of my blogging friends like Motherhood Uncensored and Mothergoosemouse. You KNOW I can't resist a good bandwagon.

Yes, it was the whole breastfeeding thing again. It seems Facebook considers breastfeeding photos obscene, but pro-anorexia and pedophilia are fine...so I decided to part ways with them and their perverted ideas. I don't really miss getting friended and poked, to tell the truth.

I just have a hard time believing that anyone, in 2007, is still getting all het up about breastfeeding. Don't we all know that it is good for babies and moms? That it helps protect against a host of health problems? That it is normal and natural? That it has nothing to do with nudity or sex? That everyone who can do it, should? (And I am not blaming those who can't!!)

Now there is a new protest springing up. You too can get your button:


Just click on it and it will take you over to the League of Maternal Justice so you can become one of the cool, bandwagon-hopping bloggers.

12 comments:

meno said...

If i had a facebook account, i would SO cancel it, but i am denied that pleasure.

Mrs. G. said...

Everywhere I turn around there are silicone filled tits shoved in my face--magazine covers, Victoria Secret ads, television. It fries me that a woman using her breasts for what they were made for(by evolution or God depending on your slant)...feeding her precious baby, creates such a fuss...unbelievable! Do these people not remember that they, too, spent some time at the breast? I'm forty and I remember feeling the stares and heading into the stinky gross bathroom to nurse so that I didn't offend anyone. I wish I had the confidence then that I have now. I would fight Facebook with all I had. I would be nursing outside their company's headquarters.

PunditMom said...

So many good buttons, so little space! And I'm taking my 'just say no' philosophy over to Facebook.

Christina said...

Facebook doesn't even regularly monitor for sexual predators, yet they seem to have their own team dedicated to removing breastfeeding pictures. Talk about f'ed up.

Anonymous said...

Oh, the bandwagons. I think I might be the last person in the blogosphere who couldn't care less.

I don't have a facebook account, but I wouldn't delete over this it if I did. People are stupid all over the place...if I tried to get away from all the stupid, I'd have to buy my own island. :)

Anonymous said...

If I had ever been a member of facebook, I would have bailed to prove a point. Instead, I'm forced to pump my fist for you quitting your account and it just feels inadequate, not that it's not totally rockin' that you bailed on them. I just wish I had even that much leverage. Wish I could do more.

XUP said...

Breastfeeding is "obscene" because it messes with the North American mindset that says tits are for sex. Mothers and babies are not sex. When you mix mothers and babies with tits, all hell breaks loose. We can't have that. That's what we get for buying into that Victorian taboo for so long that declares the human body should not be shown in public (except for pornographic purposes)

BOSSY said...

No tits on Facebook? Well it is FACEbook after all. Ha. Only kidding. (Bossy doesn't think she has anything to cancel.) (Just a few dozen credit cards.)

LittlePea said...

I didn't have a Facebook account, actually I didn't even know what that was. I really don't understand why people have such a problem with breastfeeding.

Suzanne said...

I don't know. I once read something by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach (author of Kosher Sex) that said that women should not breastfeed for too long coz their husbands will feel neglected and get jealous that the baby gets to touch boobies while they don't. This makes me laugh hysterically because if I don't laugh, I will cry. (Also the good man suggested that men should never be in delivery rooms because they will never look at a cooter in an erotic way again once they witness a baby come out of it.) I don't know if he has a facebook profile or not.

BetteJo said...

Yup, I hopped on and took a button even though it's been a good 19 years since I breastfed. It's amazing to me that people can be so uncomfortable with something so natural!
I remember the 1st time I breastfed in public, I was at a Red Lobster restaurant, tucked into the corner of a booth. I had a receiving blanket over my shoulder but it kept falling down, so I held my baby to my breast with one arm and ate with the other. The waiter looked at me a bit confused, then looked again, then turned red. It wasn't that he could actually see anything - it was just that he KNEW what I was doing. Very strange I think. My feeling was that it was better for everybody than to have a hungry crying baby at the table!!!

Anonymous said...

I think the Facebook thing is TOTALLY bogus, especially considering all the other content on there.

I will say, though, that I also don't get the need to post pictures like that in the first place. Lots of things are natural and beautiful, but I'm squicked out by the contant need to publicly share those natural, beautiful things on the Internet. Something about it just bothers me ... like, can't anything just HAPPEN anymore? I would kiss my husband in public under plenty of circumstances (within reason, obviously), but I wouldn't be likely to take a picture of us locking lips and put it on the Internet. It's supposed to be special and it's not about anyone else.

On one hand, I get that women are really proud of their babies and their bodies, and I think that's great. On the other hand, I have to admit that I find this need to include something like that on your Facebook profile, of all places, to be a little unsettling. It's starting to seem like something isn't right or special or real unless it's documented on the Internet, and that just creeps me right out.

I guess that even though I'm against Facebook on this one, I don't think disallowing an image of something is the same thing as disapproving of something. It bothers me that the two are considered the same thing, as if "the Internet" and "reality" are interchangeable concepts. Oh, you don't want it to exist on your part of the Internet? Well, then, you must not want it to exist EVER!

I'm so not articulating this well, but hopefully you understand that I'm probreastfeeding (do it in the restaurant booth next to me! whatever!) but also freaked out by the way everything must be documented publicly for six billion people in order to make it real and valid. Believe me, it bothers me in my own blogging too, at times, when I know I'm doing it.

I would never limit someone's right to publish something (hello, glass house), but I find it bothersome in some cases all the same. And um, I'm not sure what that really means in the context of this discussion, but it seemed interesting to mention. The end.

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