Blurred line between pornography and motherly love

Facebook has thousands of women fiercely angry with them over photos of moms breastfeeding their babies. Everyone knows that breastfeeding is the best way to start a new human off in life and that it’s a perfectly natural thing to do. You’ll see men everywhere saying that. They say that until it’s time to feed that baby and mom isn’t at home. Then it’s “Please use the restroom for that sort of thing.”

Facebook made an arbitrary decisions as to what photos of breastfeeding are breastfeeding and which are pornographic when they removed images and banned some women for posting “obscene content.” Now don’t get me wrong, I think pornography in any venue is inappropriate for children but when did a bare breast become pornographic? Men go bare breasted all the time and nobody flickers an eyelid. That’s how it should be for breastfeeding women too.

If Facebook says the photos are obscene and pornographic, shouldn’t they then turn these women over to the police for investigation of child pornography? I mean if one is guilty of pornography and there is a child involved isn’t that instant lockup?? It gets more bizarre by the moment and it infuriates me.

Nearly 7,000 Facebook moms who are now calling themselves “lactivists” (I love that) have created their own group called “Hey, Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene!”. One of their members noted that while Facebook doesn’t allow breastfeeding photos, they did accept payment for and advertised a dating site with a banner of a bare breasted model. Go figure how they concluded that was ok.

In Australia, any venue that asks a breastfeeding mother to cover up or to go away can be fined up to $40,000. I realize Facebook is a virtual public place but wouldn’t the same laws apply?

Group member, Sally Millwood, from Queensland, Australia, said: “I know from first hand experience breastfeeding can be a tough road to go down and, if you have success at the end of it, it’s an amazingly proud and important achievement to be shared.”

Facebook spokeswoman Meredith Chin said Facebook - which has 31 million users worldwide - did not prevent mothers from uploading photos of themselves breastfeeding their babies, but it did remove content that was reported as violating Facebook’s terms of use.

“Photos containing an exposed breast do violate our Terms and are removed,” she said.

It’s not clear what constitutes an “exposed breast”, which has the lactivists baffled. Facebook did not respond to emails requesting further clarification but several group members have reported that their images were removed despite the fact they contained no nipple.

Where does the feeding stop and the boob begin?? A peek of nipple? Which of these photos is offensive to you?

In addition to removing particular photos from the site, Facebook has permanently revoked the membership of some of the mothers and has said their decision is final and they will not reconsider reactivating deleted accounts for any reason. What is wrong with mothers sharing what should be a very normal part of their lives with their babies.

Shouldn’t we be encouraging this practice instead of making women feel dirty and ashamed of feeding the next generation of human beings? Facebook has been offensive in its reaction to these photographs and should be ashamed of how they treat mothers at a very important time in their lives. They’re the ones really looking like boobs in all of this.