A baby breast-feeding. How terrifying!

This just in: An exposed lactating breast is causing a bit of a stir. The offending breast, shown in all its glory on the cover of this month’s Babytalk magazine, is attached to a blissfully contented babe to illustrate the cover story, “Why Women Don’t Nurse Longer.” Many readers took issue with the cover art. One mother was concerned about her 13-year-son seeing it. “I shredded it,” says Gayle Ash of Belton, Texas. “A breast is a breast—it’s a sexual thing. He didn’t need to see that.” Amen, Gayle. God, if he’d seen that, the next thing you know, he’d be robbing convenience stores for the Playboys and Penthouses. While you’re at it, Gayle, you’d better take away his computer and any other device that could connect him to the outside world. Oh, and forget cable, as well as any NFL halftime show. The editors of Babytalk tell MSNBC they were surprised at all the fuss. Not sure I believe that. More likely they figured, put a bare tit on a magazine cover, and it’s going to get noticed. Smart thinking. Better than showing a mother cradling her bundle of joy with circles under her eyes the size of doughnuts from four months of midnight and 3 a.m. feedings. I remember asking my wife why she stopped doing it after what seemed like a relatively short time, and she said something like, “If the critter was chomping at your breast five times a day every day, you’d know why, you idiot. It hurts!” Not a pretty picture. Via The Consumerist, who have their own complaint: that the breast isn’t big enough.

—Posted by Steve McClellan

August 1, 2006 | Permalink