I spent 3+ hours combing through the personal accounts regarding the issue; most of that was reading the intelligent and what should have been extremely moving letters to the LJ abuse folk, and the subsequent replies by those same LJ abuse folk.
The problem was not, in fact, that LJ was keeping with supreme court standards; those standards were cited in many letters, including the details of a number of specific court cases involving both indecency standards on a national level and their relevence to breastfeeding in particular, as arguments AGAINST LJ's decision. The LiveJournal folk basically said "We are not the government, we have our own standards, and we are classifying 'breastfeeding' as indecent exposure." The vast majority of the images in question that I saw passed the indecency exposure guidelines (i.e. no nipples, no aerola) with flying colors. In fact, women who were aware that their images DID show one or the other did not argue on their own behalf becuase they knew their images weren't up to snuff to begin with. By the end of my reading I was rather disgruntled at the closed minded intolerance that the LJ people showed. It was disappointing to say the least, but I expected something along these lines would happen once the ownership changed hands a few months ago.
I don't know many women who bring their nursing children to work. Most women that I've encountered that are still relying on breastmilk are on maternity leave. So, to answer your question, no I haven't seen anyone here breastfeeding, but that's because it's rare that the circumstances allow for the happenstance.
As for public breastfeeding, babies don't really get hungry on a schedule. They grow so damn fast that you can't reliably predict when they're going to get the munchies and plan accordingly. This means that women who breastfeed exclusively are going to have to stop wherever they are to take care of business. As natural and wholesome as this sort of act is, I don't see why women should be FURTHER inconvenienced by having to hide away somewhere to do this as if it's a crime, in much the same way drug users do when it's time to shoot/snort/smoke up. As for ME, when I see someone breastfeeding (and the time of year for that is upon us; oddly enough you don't see it so much in the winter. I guess they bottle the stuff) I simply look away respectfully.
And I don't know about you, but I'm terribly amused that as a guy I'm the one debating you, one of my favorite women, on what most might think to be the opposite sides of the debate than where we should be. Heh.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-05-24 12:42 pm (UTC)The problem was not, in fact, that LJ was keeping with supreme court standards; those standards were cited in many letters, including the details of a number of specific court cases involving both indecency standards on a national level and their relevence to breastfeeding in particular, as arguments AGAINST LJ's decision. The LiveJournal folk basically said "We are not the government, we have our own standards, and we are classifying 'breastfeeding' as indecent exposure." The vast majority of the images in question that I saw passed the indecency exposure guidelines (i.e. no nipples, no aerola) with flying colors. In fact, women who were aware that their images DID show one or the other did not argue on their own behalf becuase they knew their images weren't up to snuff to begin with. By the end of my reading I was rather disgruntled at the closed minded intolerance that the LJ people showed. It was disappointing to say the least, but I expected something along these lines would happen once the ownership changed hands a few months ago.
I don't know many women who bring their nursing children to work. Most women that I've encountered that are still relying on breastmilk are on maternity leave. So, to answer your question, no I haven't seen anyone here breastfeeding, but that's because it's rare that the circumstances allow for the happenstance.
As for public breastfeeding, babies don't really get hungry on a schedule. They grow so damn fast that you can't reliably predict when they're going to get the munchies and plan accordingly. This means that women who breastfeed exclusively are going to have to stop wherever they are to take care of business. As natural and wholesome as this sort of act is, I don't see why women should be FURTHER inconvenienced by having to hide away somewhere to do this as if it's a crime, in much the same way drug users do when it's time to shoot/snort/smoke up. As for ME, when I see someone breastfeeding (and the time of year for that is upon us; oddly enough you don't see it so much in the winter. I guess they bottle the stuff) I simply look away respectfully.
And I don't know about you, but I'm terribly amused that as a guy I'm the one debating you, one of my favorite women, on what most might think to be the opposite sides of the debate than where we should be. Heh.
-elf-