Female humans typically have two mammary glands, also called breasts. These glands provide milk for females to nurse their young. However, in many Christian countries, especially the United States, female breasts are sexualized. Evangelicals, in particular, have irrational beliefs about female breasts. Male humans also have underdeveloped mammary glands, but I can’t ever remember hearing a sermon condemning men for exposing their breasts. No, the focus is on female breasts, especially if the preacher sees a comely woman walk into church, distracting him from preaching the Bible. Nothing like boobs to distract a preacher from the Word of God, right? 🙂
We live in a culture where female mammary glands are sexualized; that breasts are treated as genitals are. Thus, Evangelical preachers demand women cover up their breasts lest their very existence distract men from God or cause them to lust. As readers will see in a moment, this includes women exposing their milk-producing mammary glands as they feed their infants. Women are expected to totally cover their breasts in public or church lest hapless Evangelical men lust.
Take Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen. Yesterday, Thiessen wrote a post titled Illogical Arguments. Fearful of seeing boobs in public, Thiessen demands nursing women cover their breasts and not nurse their babies where anyone can see them.
Thiessen writes (all spelling, grammar, and punctuation in the original):
When it comes to breastfeeding people have different opinions. Many unbelievers [including many Evangelical women] feel that women should be allowed to breastfeed in public. Most of their arguments are illogical and very limited. Take for example this point some unbelievers raise:
Firstly, breast-feeding is perfectly natural. It is one of the most natural things in the world. Numerous species across millions of years have breast-fed their young.
This is illogical because first, humans are not animals [humans are animals, as any non-Evangelical biology book will tell you]. The latter do not have a moral code to follow nor even know what morality is. Second, animals tend to have sex in public. If one wants to be consistent and not a hypocrite, then one must call public sex acts natural and should be allowed for public viewing without stigmentation [??].
Third, there are rules of decency and morality that humans must follow [really? where can these rules be found]. Animals do not have those rules or know what they mean. Why lower humans to the level of animals when we are clearly superior to them and have a different set of rules to operate by?
There are very good reasons why public breastfeeding is not allowed. Morality and decency are just two of them. [So, public breastfeeding is immoral? Which Bible command says that] Another reason is that public breastfeeding is very selfish. it is all about the women going me me me. [No, it is all about the baby, who, when hungry, says me, me, me.]
….
That is selfish and does not take into consideration anyone else’s views or feelings about public breastfeeding. [Yes, Derrick, your views or feelings do not matter.] Doing this natural act privately does not make a woman second-class or inferior, it simply shows that the mother considers other people. It is very awkward walking in a public place and coming across a woman breastfeeding. [Maybe for you, Derrick, but this is not a universal feeling.]
Women should not be putting others into that state. Then private breastfeeding protects women from being further objectified sexually as well as stopping women from tempting men and women to sin. [If you, Derrick, are objectifying breastfeeding women, that is your problem, and not theirs. If you, Derrick, get a boner when seeing a partially exposed breast in public, that’s your problem. Grow up.]
….
Morals and decency are not submissive to parental experience. parental experience is submissive to morality and decency. Actually, babies do operate by a schedule and parents have known about this for millenniums. [Says a man who knows nothing about raising children.]
It is just that the modern world has interrupted that schedule due to the busyness of adult lives. It is also interrupted by the false idea that women are made second-class because they cannot do their normal schedules until their children are old enough to not breastfeed.
Then opposition to this act is not about men’s rights. It is true that wives must obey their husbands [says who?] and no man in his right mind wants his wife exposing herself and putting herself in danger by whipping out her breast. [I must not be in my right mind; not that Polly ever “whipped out her breast” when feeding one of our children.] The husband and father do have the right to say where a woman can breastfeed. [No, they do not — ever.]
The woman has given her body to the man she has had sex with. It is not hers anymore, she does not have rule over her body. [Yes, she does. It is her body, not her husbands. You seem to not understand bodily autonomy. I am sure female commenters will straighten you out on this issue.] It is their [husbands] business what a woman does. What she does reflects on him and can either undermine or enhance his reputation as well as his qualifications. [OMG! Polly undermind my reputation by feeding Jason, Nathan, Jaime, Bethany, Laura, and Josiah in public.]
When it comes to motherly duty, there has never been a rule or guideline in those duties that women can publically breastfeed their children. It is not part of their duty. It is their duty to breastfeed but not in a position that makes them a public spectacle or embarrasses their husbands and family.
….
Then feeding a child is not the only priority of a mother. [When the child is hungry, it is.] Her top priority is her husband [no, the child comes first.] and she must be submissive to him, even in breastfeeding. [Good luck with that, Sherlock.] This illogical argument is nothing but an attempt to sin and defy God. [Really? Breastfeeding in public a sin? Chapter and verse, please. Women defy God when they breastfeed in public? Again, chapter and verse.]
Unbelievers are not content with pleasing God and want to do things their own way.
….
There is nothing wrong with scheduling one’s day so that the mother can be in a private location to breastfeed her child. Rescheduling does not undermine her priorities but gives her peace of mind. She is protecting her husband, her child, and herself.
Exposing oneself in public does open the door to more crimes against women. [Only from men like you, Derrick, who are lurking in the shadows.] One reason for saying that is that the woman is not sure who is watching her or who gets a fixation on her. Instead of making women more vulnerable to sexual crimes, we need to protect them better.
One way to do that is to teach women how to schedule their breastfeeding time so that they are not in danger of being victims of crimes. Why should society change because some minute minorities want public breastfeeding? [Do you seriously think that public breastfeeding is a “minute minority position? You need to get out more or travel to other countries where people don’t sexualize female mammary glands.]
No, it is time to put the minute minorities in place [Good luck with that. I dare you to tell a woman breastfeeding in public to put her breast away. I guarantee you that you will get more than your bargained for.] and keep them from encouraging and helping people to sin against God and others. [Derrick, if a woman breastfeeding in public causes you to sin, you are a pervert.] It is very unintelligent to say that non-parents should mind their own business on this topic. [Yes, mind your own fucking business.]
Non-parents are included and this is part of their business because public breastfeeding affects them as well. [How does it affect you, Derrick, other than you can’t keep your mind out of the gutter?] When you make it public, it is not a private matter anymore. Plus, the non-parent’s are under the same rules of decency and morality and those are impacted by making this natural act public.
As you can see, Thiessen sexualizes female mammary glands. He even goes so far as to say that women who breastfeed in public are vulnerable to sexual assault. When and where a lactating woman feeds her children is up to her husband, not her. As I have mentioned before, the female body is hyper-sexualized in Evangelical churches. Men are weak, pathetic horn dogs who can’t control themselves if they dare see a woman’s cleavage or, God forbid, her milk-filled mammary gland.
My partner, Polly, gave birth to six children. She breastfed all of them on demand until they were weaned. Polly sat on the front pew of the church, nursing her child while listening to her husband preach. She was discreet, but everyone knew what she was doing. Not one church member ever complained about her doing so or suggested Polly was being immoral. As a pastor, I saw countless women nurse their babies while I was preaching. I found it to be quite normal, never a distraction. Well, one time a woman nursing her child was a distraction. As I was preaching, a church member sitting three rows from the front, exposed her breast so her five-year-old daughter could stand there and nurse. I found her doing so quite amusing.
Breastfeeding in public is a normal, healthy human behavior. There is nothing sexual about the practice. Evangelical men such as Thiessen who sexualize the practice are the problem, not women. If Thiessen can’t keep his mind on Jesus while a woman is nursing her baby nearby, I suggest he immediately go to the nursery to protect his infantile self from lust.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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Tee would be appalled in the Netherlands and I assume Belgium and France as well where virtually ALL beaches are optionally topless. It’s apparently so routine it only attracts attention of American tourists.