Like hundreds of thousands of other people, we at Red Shtick Magazine are outraged at Facebook. The popular social-networking site has been removing photos of kids eating. Of course, the children were feasting on breast milk straight from the font, but that’s beside the point.
The Palo Alto, California-based company has pissed off the wrong crowd with its anti-mammary stance and terse warnings about decency policy violations. A virtual army of breast-feeding moms and breast-feeding activists, known as “lactivists,” are letting Facebook know that it has put their titties in a twist and their nipples in a knot, which is not a nice thing to do to lactating women.
Within only a few weeks, over 180,000 Facebook members joined the group “Hey Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene!” Thousands of these (hopefully) women also held a virtual nurse-in by posting pictures of themselves nursing their kids.
Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt (whose name sounds like a word for a breast covered in feces) said some of the breast-feeding photos posted to personal profiles were removed by the website to ensure the site remains safe for all users, including children.
“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,” Schnitt said in a statement. “The photos we act upon are almost exclusively brought to our attention by other users who complain.”
Who the hell complains about seeing breasts? Frat boys upset because the women attached to them are seen using them for what nature intended instead exploiting them for Mardi Gras beads on Bourbon Street?
Sure, Facebook was created by and for college students, and nursing mothers sharing such photos with the rest of cyberspace may seem like the most uncool thing that could be done to ruin the hipness of their beloved networking site, but young people need to see what real breasts look like after childbirth and before plastic surgery. This generation needs more exposure to breasts with stretch marks and irritated nipples, if for no other reason than to help lower the unwanted pregnancy rate. Besides, you have to grow up sometime.
Amy K. Spangler, a 59-year-old lactation expert (or is it exspurt?) from Atlanta, begs to differ with Facebook’s stance. “It isn’t nudity,” said Spangler, who teaches a breast-feeding class at Emory University. “We’re talking about a mother feeding her child. Breastfeeding will never be perceived as normal until it becomes common, and it will never be common as long as women are made to feel like they need to breastfeed out of the public eye.”
Spangler continued, “Women should be able to breastfeed their baby anytime, anywhere, anyplace, anyhow – even in your Facebook.”
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