This:
Hot!
This:
Says Jezebel:
For those who need a refresher course: Facebook banned some photos of mothers breastfeeding their children because they said it violated their Terms of Use. Naturally, this angered a lot of breastfeeding mothers who created a group with 80,000 people titled “Hey Facebook, breast feeding is not obscene!” and some of the mothers even staged a small protest outside of Facebook’s main offices in California.
A spokesman for Facebook says that the site does not ban all breastfeeding photos, just ones where a nipple is fully exposed:
“Photos containing a fully exposed breast (as defined by showing the nipple or areola) do violate those terms (on obscene, pornographic or sexually explicit material) and may be removed,” he said in a statement.
“The photos we act upon are almost exclusively brought to our attention by other users who complain.”
The Facebook spokesman claims that the company’s standards for “indecent” breastfeeding photos are not just found on Facebook: the social networking company called several U.S. newspapers and asked if they could run an ad with a woman breastfeeding with a fully exposed breast, which the newspapers declined (and we all know how great newspapers are doing right now).
Which makes me wonder: What kind of tools spend their days searching on Facebook for photos of breastfeeding moms and complaining that they violate the terms of use? The same sort of tools that create Facebook apps like “Hot Naked Sexy Breasts Nude Bikini Chicks” and “Send Some Tits to Your Buddies,” perhaps?
History repeats. AOL had this same problem ten years ago, only then it wasn’t photos, it was just the word “breast”. They banned not only breast-feeding but breast cancer until someone pointed out how fucking stupid they were making themselves look. Possibly someone from Scunthorpe, all mention of which was also banned. Fail.
reporting in to epic thread
I’ve got another question for you: What kind of tools feel the need to post pictures of themselves breast feeding on a public forum?
Isn’t in someone’s (banal) job at Facebook to actually review every image posted? Or at the very least, run each image file through software that determines indecency based on the image data?
there’s your tool right there
@3 – it’s not exactly public – only one’s “friends” can see one’s photos. That said, certainly not something I would do, but if my friends wanted me to see photos of them breastfeeding I wouldn’t begrudge them. Actually, now that I phrase it that way, maybe I would begrudge them. Still, they should be allowed to post ’em if they want.
@3
Beat me to it… why would anyone even want to have a picture of a breastfeeding kid on their page?
What andice @3 said…but also, I must comment on ECB’s implication that men who create applications for breast lovers are somehow the most likely anti-breast-feeding-pic suspects. How does that follow? Are you implying that men who like boobs in a sexual context suddenly hate them when there’s a baby attached? Honestly, I don’t think that’s the case (maybe Charles would agree with you, but he’s insane as everyone knows).
Likely, the people complaining are just your garden variety born-agains and repressed clench-butts.
Most new mothers are inordinately proud of their new creation, and find the sight of it suckling at the teat to be the most endearing vision in the history of the world. They are not far wrong. Wanting to show off such love and loveliness is the most natural thing imaginable.
Let me turn it around on you, @3: what kind of a tool would want to post a picture of themselves doing anything at all? The answer is, of course, just about everyone.
LoL!
Excellent distracting post – as Palestinian children are blown up by the rockets of Israel.
American media is a new war zone for Israel. We must distract the public as Obama ramps up war in the Middle East. Gaza is only the beginning, soon we’ll be at war with Pakistan. America needs a huge troop surge in Afganistan and Obama and ‘alternative’ publications like The Stranger have to carry water for Obama in selling these wars.
I’m glad there is no mention on the Stranger of the Israeli censorship, Israeli attack of peace protestors and all the other activities of the ‘peace’ idiots out there.
The Stranger is PRO WAR and that is how it should be for Seattle’s Jewish community. We must stand by rightous Israel in these times.
I breastfeed my son – and while I don’t feel compelled to post breastfeeding pictures online, I think the whole Facebook things is another sad observation on American society. Somehow, breasts are ok in any sexual context but so many people get completely freaked out at the idea of seeing them used to nourish a baby. Hence why Victoria’s Secret used to kick nursing mothers out of their store – and tell women looking for nursing-friendly bras that they weren’t welcome at VS. Hence the need for laws protecting nursing mothers in public. I’m proud to be part of a family and group of friends (both mine and my inlaws) who are supportive and don’t feel a need to banish a nursing mother out of view.
ECB FTW
@6 … uh… pictures of mother’s with their babies are well-known sentimental favorites. the second picture here is I’m sure appreciated by someone.
Is there really a “Send Some Tits to Your Buddies” app?
For lots of people I know, one of the primary uses of facebook is the dissemination of pictures. Plenty of pictures of the babies of friends of mine on that site… if a friend wanted to post an artsy picture of their baby breastfeeding, what is the big deal? Particularly if those pictures are available only to friends and family? I’m pretty surprised that anyone here would have a problem with that…
Fnarf @8 – Exactly. Bravo.
Wasn’t it Bill Buckley who said, “One person’s license, is another person’s strait jacket”?
He probably didn’t have exposed nipples in mind though. America’s congenital sexual prudishness is only surpassed by its refusal to see dead people – caused by any war, any government.
One reason people want to post pictures is to normalize it, so people will stop freaking out when babies need to eat in public. When mothers think it’s disgusting or inappropriate to feed in public they are much less likely to start or continue to breastfeed… something has been proven to be healthier for the baby and the mother.
To follow @7, in my experience, the people who object most strongly to public breast feeding are conservative women who feel it shouldn’t be done in public.
Every straight guy I know loves to see breasts in any form, any time, even with a baby attached.
Wow, Fnarf nailed it at only #8
Seriously, what kind of tool even uses Facebook?
@13 for the win.
And it’s not conservative to be ashamed of breast-feeding, since humans have done that for millennia.
ecb. could you not get a more fake looking rack than that of the BOY TOY variety to make your point. and the mom shot is just so supple and so – well, nice. oh yeah, and hot.
just saying.
I’m all for breast feeding and I know a few women who are so descreet about it you’d never know they were feeding a kid. It’s pretty easy to cover your tit while in public.
Fake boobs ruin everything.
Newborns breast feeding pics who cares but what really freaks me out are the women who are still breast feeding their 3, 4, 5 or even 6 year olds. One of the main advocates who is fighting Facebook over the breast feeding pics ban says she proudly breast feeds her 1 and 3 year olds. Kinda creepy.
@19
Actually, you nailed it.
@24 I was watching some lame talk show a few months ago… Oprah or Tyra whatever. There was a couple woman who were breast feeding their older kids. One lady had a 7 year old attached to her!
Yikes!
Talk about some mommy issues that kid’s gonna have to deal with later.
Birdy num num! I love that Peter Sellers flick
c to the andice and Sad Comment, you are totally ignorant on this subject. Just leave it alone.
24, wtf are you talking about? it’s “creepy” to breastfeed 1 & 3 yr. olds?! it’s creepy to think there’s anything creepy about it, imo. in 3rd and 2nd world countries it’s the norm. throughout all of human history until very recently it was the norm. when is it not creepy? you gotta stop promptly at 6 mos or you’re some kind of freak?
you know what’s really freaky and unnatural, actually? treating the breast as a sex organ. it isn’t. native americans knew that. breasts exist to feed children. that our culture has sexually fetishized them is not a bad thing per se, but let us not lose all perspective, hmmm?
Facebook is the suburbs of the Internet — not surprised at all that this is an issue there.
I agree with #3. Seriously, what kind of weird person posts pictures of themselves breast feeding on their Facebook profile? Can we just agree that this is a particularly strange thing to do in the first place?
And since people are on Facebook, frequently, to meet people or find dates, it is not at all weird for a person to post provocative pics of themselves. That is normal behavior. Saying “Hey, friends I know and friends I don’t know, here’s a baby drinking milk from my boobs” – not so normal.
wow, you guys are pathetic. C to the andice is the only one who has it right. And “facebook makes me sad”? What’s wrong with getting in touch with friends and family and sharing pictures with them? If you don’t like other people’s use of social networking you are one pathetic loser.
Nursing babies are always so adorable. And they often make this awesome chuckling noise right before they latch on.
And the sight of a woman nursing her baby OUGHT to be as unremarkable as the sight of an adult eating a sandwich.
I’m not offended by the pics, but I wonder why post them in the first place. I say the same thing about people who love posting pics of themselves smoking weed. You’re not impressing me.
Also, while I doubt it’s a cause with most of the breastfeeding pics, but I bet some folks do it because they get off on it. Do a google search for breastfeeding porn (or don’t — I recommend the latter) and tell me it’s not possible.
@29, breasts are sex organs. They exist in their current form primarily to sexually excite males for mating. That’s why they’re so large. 90% of the breast tissue is unnecessary for feeding — look at a gorilla’s boobs for comparison. Big boobs are the female equivalent of a bird of paradise’s plumes and quills.
Which doesn’t make their feeding function obscene in any way.
@34: your argument fails, because I can also find porn for foot fetishists, but feet are not obscene. If the existence of internet porn made a thing obscene, photography itself would be illegal.
@28
In what way?
@29
Sorry but this is not a third world country – you gotta ween the tots off the breast sometime right. There is a certain point in which solid food ought to be introduced. Hell using your argument you could justify breast feeding them until you kick them out the door to college. I am not and I emphasize not saying that breast feeding is bad or wrong just that if someone feels compelled to breast feed say their five year old that perhaps mom possibly has some sort of separation issues that might need to be addressed. And yes I do find the visual of a 7 year old being breast fed kinda creepy and troubling. And not from the idea of the breast being “fetishized”. (Even though you rant and rail against some people getting sexual enjoyment from their partners breasts and then turn completely around and say you have nothing against it.) There is a prudish fear of breasts here in the US that you don’t find in many other countries but that is not what my comment was about.
Not everybody uses Facebook the same way. Not everyone has hundreds and hundreds of “friends”. My general experience is that by the time people are old enough to be having kids and posting breastfeeding pics, they are probably more likely to limit something like facebook to closer friends and family.
So, yeah. @31, we can’t just agree that this is not a normal thing to do. If you have a cute shot of your kid breastfeeding, I see nothing wrong with posting it. And, I personally think it’s really strange that people find that weird…
What could be more natural than a baby sucking a teat? Maybe, like so much of our culture, we don’t want to be reminded that we are animals.
36, you said you were creeped out by her breasfeeding her 1 & 3 yr. olds–look back at your sad comment at 24. and do you really think that because a toddler is still sucking teet he/she isn’t yet on solid food? you obviously have never had children. why don’t you reserve judgment on this subject until you have.
Fnarf, why do only some human cultures sexualize breasts? If this were an evolutionary fact, wouldn’t it apply to all? You might consider that humans require fewer extra calories and other nutrients compared to other mammals, leading to differences in breast physiology. Also, humans can use breastfeeding to space births apart, and ensure healthy children in spite of famine or contaminated drinking water.
That’s only the beginning. The role of breasts in culture, reproduction and sex is a lot more complicated than the reductionist American view of things.
Sad Comment, please. You are a clown car vomiting a stream wrong ideas. Please? It really is sad.
@19: So, the millions of people who use Facebook (including virtually every college student alive) are *all* tools?
And all the cool kids, we know, hang out in the comments area of Slog. No tools here…
“What kind of tools spend their days searching on Facebook for photos of breastfeeding moms?”
The same tools who spend their days complaining about sexy Halloween costumes?
it’s obvious that an organ can play two roles, to be both a sex organ and fulfill another function. take for instance, the penis. addressing another point, just because it is natural, that doesn’t mean it is appropriate for public display.
just because something happens elsewhere in the animal kingdom, or in the world, or in the past, doesn’t mean it must be that way now.
i don’t feel very strongly about this one. some people, however, seem to. some feel it is entirely inappropriate for breastfeeding to occur in public. others feel that it a misogynistic to think it shouldn’t happen in public.
i think that people are just uncomfortable or unfamiliar with it. i don’t think it is repressive in all/most to not want to see an obvious display of breastfeeding it public. as long as it is done discreetly, it should be fine.
facebook seems to have a clear and simple policy: no visible nipples. this seems, given the current view on public breastfeeding, an appropriate one. i’m not sure why someone would complain, but no, i do not think it is the same guys who drool over pictures of fake breasted-women also on craigslist. it is probably the same people complaining about both kinds of pics. finally, facebook applies the same policy in both cases: no visible nipples, which takes the wind out of a double-standard argument.
@40, talk about reductionist! Those other human cultures have no other interest in breasts at all, nope, nada, and we’re positive because why, exactly? We don’t even know how most cultures feel about breasts; it’s been a taboo question until very recently.
In Australian Aboriginal cultures, the female breast is a complex locus of identity and art. I’m only halfway through Breasts, Bodies, Canvas: Central Desert Art as Experience by Jennifer Biddle, so I don’t know exactly what the connection is between the ritualized breast painting and the commercial art the women produce (two fantastic examples of which are hanging in SAM, by Dorothy Napangardi, the greatest living painter in any culture), but it’s there.
But that doesn’t have anything to do with evolutionary function. Boobs attract mates even in cultures that don’t make a publicly big deal about it, just as ludicrously oversized penises do (again, check out a gorilla sometime). Evolution doesn’t take place in the conscious mind.
@39
No, I don’t have kids but having a very extended close family and many close friends all with kids (plus a wife who is an OB/GYN). Most of them have breast fed and most weaned between 6 months and a year from what I can tell. I can also tell you that my sister in law was probably the most vocal about chaffing and chapping issues. I can also tell you that my niece’s daughters were probably breast fed the longest and they also are the biggest brats. Everyone in my family cringes when they come to visit. When my father died my niece and her family stayed at my house and their daughters proceeded to break everything that was breakable every time they felt that the adults weren’t giving them the attention they desired. So, don’t discount me or my opinion as being invalid just because I have chosen not to have children of my own.
Right. Breasts exist only to sexually excite men. Ignore the fact that women are the ones who get the most pleasure out of touching them, and that women are the ones who can get orgasms from them (some even from breastfeeding). Just like penises only exist to sexually excite women, right?
No elenchos, I’ll tell you what “sad” is when someone has to proclaim themselves an “intellectual” on their own blog. Usually those who go around making such declarations aren’t.
But if all you can come up with are insults and personal attacks then I’d say that I won this argument with you.
@40: “Also, humans can use breastfeeding to space births apart, and ensure healthy children in spite of famine or contaminated drinking water.”
Tell it to my mom. She was still breastfeeding me when I was 9 months old, and she STILL got pregnant. And I refused to breastfeed after she got pregnant, she tells me. I also refused to eat baby food of any type, and she had to feed me Campbell’s soup. And yes, I turned out OK.
Oh, Fnarf, I’m disappointed.
Infrequent, conservative Utah has the strongest law in the country protecting public breastfeeding, because they’re pro-family. Hippie dippie liberals obviously love that it’s natural and so on. Libertarians don’t want the government passing laws on their bodies. Nobody but outcast freaks opposes public breastfeeding; they are enemies of all, finding a home nowhere. They are, in point of fact, the Taliban, literally and figuratively. And that’s what makes breastfeeding appropriate for public display.
I’m actually tired of this topic; the rest of the internet was all over it days and days ago, back when it was new news. Oh, Slog.
@45. WTF? Because your bratty nieces were breastfed for a long time, then breastfeeding for a long time is somehow bad? Why on earth would you even bring that up?