Can’t resist breaking from my holiday blogging break to both share one of my favorite humorous pictures from 2004 and comment on the current Facebook breastfeeding drama:

The social networking site has, over the past year, asked some woman users to remove their breastfeeding pictures from the site, saying that they are obscene, and violate the Terms of Use of the site. According to Facebook, the pictures of breasting, which reveals the ‘areola’ - the dark skin around the nipple - violates the site’s policy on “obscene, pornographic or sexually explicit” material.

Anybody who thinks breastfeeding photos are ‘obscene’ is being silly. Strike that, they are being stupid. What’s obscene about babies eating? Sustenance. Staying alive. Now if these women are breastfeeding adults, well, then maybe you have something there that some people might find obscene – but I don’t even think that’s ‘obscene.’

I’ll take this even further: people thinking naked breasts are obscene are being silly too. I never understood the whole flap over Janet Jackson’s nip slip at the Super Bowl. A fine of $930,000 for an accidental shot at her naked breast for a half second?

I’m not some big nudist advocate or anything but think clothes are best for keeping the elements out and showing your personality through style, not for covering up how we came into the world.

But people do get weird about this for some reason and it’s almost never men (why is that?) from the stories I’ve read. Back in 2005 Barbara Walters said women breastfeeding in public made her uncomfortable prompting me to opine that there were far more important things in the world to discuss than breastfeeding. And I couldn’t resist repeating the catchphrase that should be my mantra on the subject: “Let the breasts fly!” I’m happy to update readers that despite being in my 40s, my opinion on breasts hasn’t changed one iota:

I respectfully request that any women who are breastfeeding in my vicinity that they not be uncomfortable if I see their breast. I’m not going to go all spycam or over-hormonal male on the situation but if a breast is brought into broad daylight then the woman in question better not get all uncomfortable about the exposure. If someone is that sensitive about being exposed then go somewhere private to feed your child.

In case you didn’t know – I didn’t (at least don’t remember) – there is a US Right to Breastfeed Act, HR 1848 that became law in 1999 allowing women to breastfeed on federal property. Despite agreeing with women’s right to breastfeed in public, I’m not sure a law was necessary. There are too many laws out there that could be replaced by common sense. Breastfeeding in public should be common sense and not a big deal.

Facebook is fine disallowing breastfeeding pictures

Now back to Facebook. What about websites who don’t want to have pictures of naked breasts up to and including breastfeeding on them? Hey, that’s their call. Sorry lactivist groupies, you can bash them for having a site policy you disagree with but they have a right to have a site policy that prevents these pictures. Calling them obscene goes too far, yes, but that doesn’t change their right to do it.

If Facebook doesn’t want pictures of ducks in hats on their sites, that’s cool. I am all for websites being able to make their own calls on content posted to their websites as long as it’s legal. I’m not aware of any bare breast websites – including breastfeeding sites – ever being taken down for obscenity violations, are you?

I wonder how many Hmm readers know that there has been at least one naked breast picture (gasp!) on MakeYouGoHmm before? Yes, in fact we had a photoshop it post to cover Janet Jackson’s naked breast in 2004. Nobody (sniff, sniff) took the challenge and shared back their twisted creations, but if you want to see that uncensored version of the Janet Jackson nip slip picture above, just follow that link and photoshop until your heart content. Would be nice to see some Fark style mashups there. Just don’t go making truly obscene artwork with that picture.

MakeYouGoHmm naked breast policy

Hey, did you know you can include a picture in comments made here? This has been a secret feature for awhile now that I’ve slipped pictures into comments here and there. Shhh, don’t tell anybody but you can and in context, well, you’re welcome to do so. Just use BB-style code - e.g [img=url] - to include pictures. You’ll have to hotlink though, no upload (just use Flickr or your own web hosting), so make sure that’s a cool. Images will be removed that violate the comment rules (no spam basically), but non-erotic naked breast pictures are just fine. Breast art? No problem. Who decides what is spam, what is erotic, etc? As always, we do.

The MakeYouGoHmm naked breast policy: not for erotica, not for sensationalism, not for pleasure. We will have the absolute opposite policy for our sister site planned for launch in 2009: NakedYouGoHmm.

Really, seriously, why shouldn’t non-erotica naked breasts be posted here? If you have good reasons then list them in the comments but I was able to think of any good ones in 2004.

By this blog censoring breast photos (unless for dramatic purposes) we’d be continuing to fuel a silly problem. So, no, I think the breasts – non-erotica, mind you - will continue to fly at MakeYouGoHmm.com as long as I have anything to do with this website. Readers could change my mind on this, but it will be challenging. Feel free to try below, if you like.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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