"Boobs feed babies"

[pjthompson]

I love and respect my friends who disagree with me, but I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. I don't think the message to our kids should ever be, "Parts of your bodies are bad and you should be ashamed of them." Negative body image messages, it seems to me, should be the exact opposite of what we tell our kids.

Only, yanno, SNL said it better.

"They come for the boobs, they stay for the books, everybody wins."

Comments

[marshallpayne1.livejournal.com]

I saw your post last week on Katy Perry, Pam, and didn't see what all the fuss was about either. But I do see yet another generation of parents who will raise their kids to be just as uptight about the human body as they are. I thought we got over this back in the 60s. Apparently not. For some reason we just can't shake that Victorian-era mentality. Perhaps that's why steampunk is so popular. ;-)

[pjthompson.livejournal.com]

*sigh* I wonder if the pendulum is just swinging back that way? I grew up in one of those families. Body image/body shame was a big issue, so this is a subject I take quite seriously. Body parts are not bad things. They are human things.

[asatomuraki.livejournal.com]

Oy. My niece was a D cup at 12, and at school, everyone treated her like a slut. Including teachers. They didn't want to let her sit with her best friend on a field trip,because he was a boy and they assumed that their relationship was sexual. She got mono and had to have a home teacher for months (she kept trying to get up and do stuff too soon and relapsing), and when she came back everyone whispered that she'd had an abortion.

Because looking at her made them think sexual thoughts, she must be a slut.

I had never been more tempted to take a baseball bat to a school and just beat everyone until my arms were sore. Didn't do it, but oh, little gods.

[pjthompson.livejournal.com]

That's heartbreaking to hear about your niece. I had a friend who developed early like that and man oh man, it's brutal. And that was a good long while ago. It seems we haven't learned a damn thing at all.

[asatomuraki.livejournal.com]

Yes. To be fair, it was kind of a hillbilly school. I'd like to believe it would be better in more enlightened locations.

[frigg.livejournal.com]

heh...I refrained from commenting on that post because I'm Scandinavian and we have a different body culture. :)

[pjthompson.livejournal.com]

Yes! And thank goodness for that.

I know very good, very sincere people who take the opposite position here. I know they've been thoughtful about it. They are as entitled to their opinion as I am mine, but the way this was portrayed in the media, both local and national, made me cringe. It was part nudge-nudge-wink-wink and part Puritanical pucker mouth. Anything to cause a sensation.

[stillnotbored.livejournal.com]

I need to go back and read the comments on that post... Damn job keeping me from the good stuff. *g*

But I ditto what Marshall said. Nothing annoyed me more when my kids were little than people who freaked over the slightest hint of sexuality in terms of what their kids saw on TV/movies, but blood, gore and beating the crap out of people was fine and dandy. Made me nuts.

[pjthompson.livejournal.com]

Yep!

[kmkibble75.livejournal.com]

I'm among those who didn't see the big deal here... It's not like they were pointing out her breasts or anything. If they were being sexualized in any way, then yes, I could understand the uproar. but they weren't, so I don't.