Breastfeeding: normal, healthy, and...sexy?

I love it. I might even buy the magazine to support the decision to put a photo of breastfeeding on the cover (okay, I'll admit it--I want to see all the other cute family pix Brad snapped, too!).

Here's a link to the reuter's story about it. La Leche League is happy about it. Here is a quote from an article on cnn.com:

"Breast-feeding in public reveals a whole lot less than what has been revealed on the red carpet. ... I think we do need more role models like Angelina Jolie willing to be photographed and say, 'Hey look, it can be done, it oughta be done,' " said La Leche spokeswoman Jane Crouse.

To the concerns about the picture oversexualizing breastfeeding, I say, "Who cares?" First of all, the primary function of breasts is to nurse offspring. That males respond favorably to breasts as a secondary sex characteristic doesn't take anything away from their primary purpose.

In fact, I have no problem with the nursing-sexual link. I don't think of my children sexually while nursing, but I freely confess that the milk letting down feels good. Afterall, the hormones released at let down are the same ones released during female orgasm (and childbirth contractions, fyi). While I'd never call childbirth "orgasmic" (and some women actually do--and good for them!), I do feel the sensations of arousal when I nurse. Far from making me feel inappropriately sexual towards the kids, however, those "good feelings" make me feel bonded to them even more than I already am. And if the good feelings encourage us as humans to nurse, that is healthy for baby and mommy.

So if men at times feel aroused by watching a woman breastfeed, I refuse to fault them or even find a reason to object.

Of course, breastfeeding requires more than the endorsement of a popular celebrity, and is sometimes difficult to establish. Even lactation consultants can give differing advice to new moms, further confusing the picture. (See? Even after this post, I still can't ignore my need to qualify all my opinions!!! Argh.)

Even so, Angelina is a model for moms who might not think they can successfully breastfeed one, let alone two babies (she is nursing her twins). And if her picture glamorizes breastfeeding as well, then, rock on!

What we did with all that RAGE.

RAGE.

I’m mad SO SO fucking mad. I am shaking with rage. I burst into a flood of angry tears over this two days ago and really, I haven’t stopped being sad, and of course I’ve cared about this issue for years and years but right now I am MAD AS HELL. I want to smash my fist into something.

There is no threat to your straight relationship if a woman marries another woman.

There is no threat to your children if a man adopts his partner’s daughter.

If you are pro-family, pro-marriage, then you should be advocating gay marriage, not acting like it hurts your own family.Take your fucking sign off of your front lawn and grow a fucking brain or conscience.

I know a woman, sitting in a hospital in Virginia, watching the respirator rise and fall next to the body of her love, her partner, her best friend, who is lying still after two 9 hour surgeries following a surprise aneurism a week and a half ago. The woman sitting in the chair doesn’t know if her partner will be alive tomorrow. She has a 20% chance of surviving this situation. I don’t know what the odds are for brain damage. This woman can’t work, can’t sleep, can’t eat for worry and fear. She doesn’t know if she should mourn or pray or cry or scream. And on top of that, Virginia is a state where there is a law on the books specifically denying and gay person any legal recognition in regards to their gay partner. The only reason she is getting to call the shots for her partner’s health is that her partner’s parents are deferring to her. Which they could decide not to do at any moment.

If her partner dies, she won’t even get to call herself a widow. It is to the rest of the world, and certainly to the hospital staff and the government, as though this woman lying on the hospital bed is just a really, really good friend.

***

My own sister lives in Washington State with her partner and their twin toddlers. They were married in San Francisco and cried as the day before their commitment ceremony in Seattle, the State of CA revoked their marriage. They were married again in Sonoma this summer in a sunny lavender field out back of my parents’ farm house. I sang. My daughters carried bouquets that my mom made from her flower garden. The toddlers of the brides crawled between their joined hands as they recited their vows. But they do not live in California. They live in Washington, where their only legal link is the fact that one of them is the adoptive parent of the biological children of the other. That is something. Some states wouldn’t let that adoption go forward. But it is not enough. And while their CA marriage is more symbolic than legally helpful (since they don’t live here), it is a sign to any future court or judge that they did all within their power to legally and culturally link their futures and lives together.

My sister and I met our future spouses around the same time. She is blonde with freckles, like me, and is my exact height and weight. We both sing and play sports and love Buffy. We cry easily and think deeply. We both married people who have brown hair, slender builds, and who are intellectuals. My sister and I aren’t the same person, but we are very much alike, and we chose partners who have a lot in common. It is asinine that I get every benefit from the government simply because Scott has a dick and my sister’s spouse does not.

And I feel so much rage that our friend in that hospital in Virginia has nothing to validate her relationship of over ten years as her love lies dying, blood spilling into her brain, potentially erasing all memory of their life together. Soon my friend might be the only one who knows how deep their love went. And there is no legal record that they even knew each other.

Oh, I have plenty of philosophical and moral and legal arguments as to why you should vote no on Prop. 8. But right now, I can't even enunciate them. I feel it is personal, and I am a shaking, angry, righteous bullet of rage. And I am now going to talk to all my acquaintances, friends, and neighbors about this. I tolerate differences of opinion. But I will not stand for this sickening display of a lack of conscience. I will not tolerate it. Not ever.