Bamboola Baby

WARNING: This post contains sexually explicit language. Please read at your own discretion.

Stop censoring women and motherhood.

I suppose conservative minds should be censored instead. After a Czech politician tries to ban home births, Patrick Johnson (a conservative activist from Ohio) tries to ban breastfeeding in public. Yes, that’s right, you read it right. I am not sure what’s crazier – the fact that he actually wants to ban the most natural & the healthiest way to feed human babies, or the fact that he thinks he can control our bodies and parenting choices, or the fact that he thinks nursing is sexual and an offense to God and public morality, or the fact that he thinks it promotes gay pride. Tough decision. Here’s a preview of his sick mind (WARNING: This quote contains offensive language. Please read at your own discretion):

“I think when we allow women to flaunt their sexuality to the public, flaunt their nudity to the public, it’s harmful to marriage. I am sick that women can legally bare their breasts to children and to married men against their will in Ohio. What they did was an offense to God, was an offense to the public morality, and the legislature should act to criminalize what they did.” – Patrick Johnson

All those protests and activism in order to correct nursing moms and tell them where and how they should feed their children and what is legal with regard to their bodies is making me sick. You know why? Because everything in this society is controlled by men. Mostly heterosexual & egotistic men.

There are laws on female toplessness and breastfeeding made up by these men yet there is not a single law related to male toplessness and bottle feeding. Everyone is talking loud about how female breasts are sexual – to whom? To heterosexual men! And what about us? Is anyone concerned with what is viewed as sexual by women? Has anyone ever wondered what we find sexual and tried to prohibit it by law? I like nice, muscular, broad shoulders on a man – that’s sexy to me. I am pretty sure I am not alone. What if we all tried to pass a law prohibiting male toplessness because it’s sexual to us. Ridiculous, right? Maybe not, because I see men running topless on a beach, in the parks and in the city streets and women are turning their heads the same way men turn their heads after big boobs and round butts. So what’s the difference? Why is female sexuality criminal and why is male sexuality normal?

You say some find our breasts disgusting? Guess what I find disgusting – a topless man sharing his floppy breasts, hairy chest and a muffin top with the world. Ain’t no one trying to pass a law against that either.

Please stop the double standard. Please stop controlling and censoring women. Please stop the gender inequality. Please stop telling us what we are allowed to do with our own bodies.

If you tell us to keep our breasts covered and to hide our nipples while nursing, then please stick to your own rules – don’t expose your chests in public either or it may get some pussies wet (if you’re hot) or it may make us puke in our mouths (if you’re not) and please make sure no one sees that plastic nipple when you’re bottle-feeding your kid because many lactivists will go apeshit from the sight of that. Go feed your own kids in the stinky germ-heaven called the bathroom.

Why are men passing laws regulating womanhood and motherhood? And why is this OK? This man has the nerve to speak about passing a law prohibiting female nudity, including breastfeeding in public – he has the audacity to speak about something so foreign to him that it makes my head spin. He has never grown a human being within himself, he has never carried a person inside his body, he has never brought a human being into this world, he has never felt the physical & emotional urge to feed that human being, he has never felt a single let down, he has never felt the joy of holding a content milk-drunk baby in his arms. He has never felt love. A mother’s body is her baby’s natural habitat and nursing is the definition of love.

Maybe it would help to change the vocabulary we use when referring to nursing. Let’s call it what it is – it’s feeding, not breastfeeding, just feeding. Natural feeding. A biological norm. Overemphasizing the word “breast” only adds to the sexual hype surrounding nursing. There’s nothing sexual about nursing. GET OVER YOURSELVES AND YOUR OWN SEXUAL FANTASIES! The only thing that is actually sexual is sex. Female breasts are NOT sexual organs, they are not supposed to make anyone horny, their primary purpose is to feed and nourish a child. If you find nursing sexual, disgusting or offensive, then you, my friend, need help. Sexualizing feeding starts in your own head. Just stop. Don’t even compare the two – you sound stupid. If my nipple or some part of my breast bothers you, then get out of my way. Because guess what – you eating a nasty burger may be bothering me for a change and I don’t ask you to be discrete about it either.

The thing I find the most absurd is the fact that we live in the society where female body is often used in national and international advertising campaigns and in entertainment – we see near-naked women everywhere we turn – music videos, over-sized images on the walls of buildings, in the malls, on the magazine covers etc. Take Victoria Secret – they display nothing but half-naked sexy women yet they have the nerve to kick a nursing mother out of their store! Or this magazine we got in the mail a couple of months ago. Now I don’t have a problem with this cover. I grew up on a continent where nudity was viewed as normal and topless women on a beach were no big deal. So really, seeing a topless woman does not bother me one bit. But if it was a nursing mom on the front page, it would be so “controversial” and it would make headlines in some major magazines and there would be blog posts about it followed by some opinionated comments telling the mom to be discrete and such BS. Like that time when they showed a nursing mom on the cover of TIME magazine. It made national news and disgusted the nation. I have never ever seen a nursing mom show that much skin. Ever. Yet it remains one of the most sexualized, most talked about and most controversial topics. This double standard is blowing my mind.

If women choose to clap their butt cheeks in music videos or show their breasts on magazine covers, society accepts it. If women choose to nurse their babies, society yells at them to stop doing it an hide. Since when is motherhood shameful? What message are we sending to our children? That women are sexual objects only good for one thing? It all goes back to unequal rights with regard to gender, and men objectifying and controlling women – controlling their sexuality and their choices.

We are NOT sexual objects. You don’t get to tell us what we can or cannot do with our bodies. You don’t get to pass laws concerning OUR bodies, banning us from doing things you can legally do, and prohibiting what’s natural and healthy.

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

We will not be silenced when you speak against equality and human rights. We will keep nursing your children, wherever we want and wherever they need – our breasts belong to us, no one can decide about our bodies or feeding choices. Women matter. Mothers matter. Nursing matters.

#NormalizeSociety #NormalizeNursing #NormalizeBreastfeeding
#NursingIsNormal #NursingIsNatural #FreeTheNipple
#StopCensoringWomen #StopCensoringMotherhood
#Equality #HumanRights #WomenAreStrong
#WomenMatter #MothersMatter #NursingMatters

This is me nursing in public. Not to show off, but to comfort and feed my baby.

Top left – nursing during my sister’s wedding ceremony, summer 2013
Top right – nursing my teething toddler in a carrier while chasing my older son, summer 2014
Bottom – nursing on a “Breastfeeding Bench” in a zoo in the Czech republic, summer 2014