I used the term :sexual" as the medical profession does, referring to a system of chemical and anatomical responses normally associated with intimate social bonding and reproduction. The problem in so many of these types of conversations is the 'moral loading' of words.
. I hope I have done that to the satisfaction of those who wish to reread my posts isolated from the unwarranted responses they unfortunately illicited
Bull!!! Pete reread your comments they were not just speaking of the medical scientific definition. Whatever back-peddle all you like, it does not change what you were saying and said.
Here are a few:
urinating and sex are also natural yet as a society we have decided they are private matters.
The breast is sexually arousing for some very complex reasons that are inseparable with the experience we had as infants or at least the instincts that drive the infant to the breast from the womb.
Many heterosexual women, according to surveys, are aroused at the sight and sound of suckling.
Sex is not dirty nor shameful nor in my opinion is any other body function (including urination for that matter) so my comparison to breast feeding is valid.
She whipped out a breast and suckled her child in the seat next to me. Through out the program she kept turning to tell us how she liked what she was hearing. I had to get out of there and take a walk.
The discomfort felt by some may in fact be a defense mechanism that seeks to push away that which stimulates unwanted feelings.
Many pediatricians forwarn mothers of this in ffact so they don't freak out. THIS does NOT mean the nursing is wrong or that it is harmful in any way, it is just biology. Perhaps this imprints upon the person so that sucking a breast is sexually satisfying?
I do not feel the fact that nursing is a sexual act (about 41% of mothers interviewed by Masterson felt some arousal)
Mothers should not feel ashamed if they or the infant experience arousal while breastfeeding as this an autonomic responce to innocent and natural contact.
What, do tell, did people did prior to formula and the male making women?s breast into something so sexualized that a woman can not perform the most natural of tasks?
Men need to be desensitized!~~ Corvin
The stormy reaction I illicited is I'm sure due to the passionate desire to protect children from abusers as well as a defensive posture at some perceived insinuation that mothers are perversly using their children for gratification when nursing.
You are the one who implied that woman and children were turned on sexually by nursing and that is perverse since you have no clue about it quite obviously. Reading does not give one first hand knowledge.
I share both your stalwart resolve to protect youth from abusers as well as the beauty and appropriateness of nursing.
Great don?t make it into something it is not. It does promote bonding and the only feeling most mothers feel is that of relief and pain.
Yet I feel no little indignation at being addressed as an ignorant jackass and pervert for providing mothers with a perspective that obviously had never occurred to some. I also needed to clear my good name.
Don?t you think mothers are fully aware of what is happening to her body without your pointing out something we supposedly don?t know from a man and whose perspective is skewed IMO?
Ok, sure there are perverts out there who get off on watching or hearing a breast feeding mother, which is your problem and theirs. Thanks for the heads up Pete. They ( men who feel such) need to reevaluate why something so natural would elicit such a perverted response one where you fully admit having to take a walk after watching and hearing a mother feed her child. It is those men who need to adjust their viewpoint we do not have to change for men who can?t control themselves.
We are feeding a baby for crying out loud not trying to entertain men.
Edit to add:
Pete
Please look up information on 'conditioning' the breast starting months before breast feeding to make them tough. Suggestions are at first using a soft wash cloth rubbing the nipple 3 times a day for 15 minutes gently until you move on up to being a little more rough. Then you move up to soft toothbrushes for 15 minutes 3 times a day and then hard tooth brushes, to make the nipple tough so you can handle the pain better when the baby starts to suckle.
Cassi
