Forgive me for bringing up old news, since the following nonsense broke a few weeks ago–but it's just too outrageous, and too indicative of a whole bunch of disturbing cultural trends, not to mention here. Take a look at this photo, which appeared on the August 2006 cover of the free parenting magazine Babytalk:

[img_assist|nid=506|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=91|height=100]Now take a look at the reactions it inspired, culled from 700 angry letters and some media follow-up:

"I immediately turned the magazine face down."

"Gross."

"I shredded it. A breast is a breast–it's a sexual thing. [My 13-year-old son] didn't need to see that."

"I don't want my son or husband to accidentally see a breast they didn't want to see."

Is it wrong for me to bring up Janet Jackson and John Ashcroft here? Because what I really want to say about all of this is: When did America decide that women's breasts were disgusting objects? Breasts are among the first things that most of us, as human beings, have an opportunity to see and touch and taste. They are warm and soft and nurturing and life-sustaining. They feel nice. And yes, they can be erotic, which does not, by the way, make them GROSS. Furthermore, half of us have them attached to our bodies. Are we supposed to be grossed out by ourselves?

I guess, according to an alarming percentage of Babytalk readers, the answer is yes. Not only am I supposed to be disgusted and offended by the image of something that I as a woman merely have to look straight down to see every minute of every day, but I'm ALSO supposed to vigilantly protect my offspring (My 13-year-old son didn't need to see that) and my menfolk (I don't want my son or husband to accidentally see a breast they didn't want to see) from it.

Seen in this light, the FCC investigation of the 2004 Superbowl's now-infamous wardrobe malfunction is starting to make a little more sense. So is our sex-saturated media culture, which skips hand in hand with our categorical unwillingness to have a policy-level adult conversation about human sexuality in the United States. And so is our hyper-eroticization of young women and their bodies (Britney and Christina, Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, Brazilian bikini waxes), which skips hand in hand with our efforts to deny those same young women access to sexuality education, birth control, emergency contraception, safe abortion, or anything else that might allow them to make informed sexual and reproductive decisions, or even to be empowered to take responsibility for the fact that they are sexual beings.

Luckily, the lactivists are on the case–exposing American reproductive hypocrisy one breast at a time. Because seriously, what's a girl to do? You can't take birth control, because you're interfering with God's plan for your reproductive system. You can't take emergency contraception, since everyone knows it's basically like having an abortion. You can't have an abortion, because you're a big, fat selfish pig for choosing yourself over your baby-to-be. Then, if you do what you're told and HAVE a baby, you can't even breastfeed in public, because it offends women and irresponsibly arouses men?

I guess the moral of the story is that we're just not supposed to have sex. Or maybe we should all just breastfeed under burqas. The Bush administration could even arrange to have them sent here second-hand from Afghanistan, seeing as the women over there are totally liberated by now. I wonder if THEY get to breastfeed in public…