Breastfeeding and the Awkward Male

A couple of weeks ago – there is no point keeping things as up to date as all that – there was a micro-furore on popular social media sites regarding the rights of women to breastfeed in public.  It was well justified, in my opinion, following the public humiliation of one new mother at the calloused (and callous) hands of a bigotted and opinionated member of the public.

Naturally the outcry of the general public was immediate and harsh, and within a few weeks we saw the largely under publicized and fairly insular campaign to raise awareness of the right to feed one’s child in every circumstance.  Insular because in the vast majority of cases, they were preaching to the choir, and the point of this publicity was to aise awareness outside of the breast feeding community.  So what is my interest in this?

Well, as a man there are usually some things which are off limits.  As soon as I was weaned off the breast myself, before my first birthday, breasts became a thing of enveloped mystery.  My mother was never prudish about such things, and there were many occasions on which I saw her naked, but other breasts were a huge secret.  They existed, obviously, but on another – almost ethereal – plane.

When I reached puberty, the concept of breasts changed again.  Now they became (partly as a result of the rarity of seeing them outside of the popular press – the Sun and Sport being considered unsuitable reading material for young schoolboys – and surely as a result of millennia of evolutionary pressure to find them attractive) a sought after vision.  And they were kept from me by clothing, bathing suits, and the stern disapproval of the surrounding adults.

I know in other cultures breasts are allowed to wander the countryside free and uncovered, but in 1990s Britain they were generally reserved for magazines, nervously avoided nudist beaches and festival teenagers.  I watched Glastonbury reports with interest.

And then I reached the age where myself and my peer group were enjoying personal relationships with ladies.  The breast became a goal, one even the most nervous and fumbling teenage boy could hope to one day achieve.  A beautiful, sensitive and pert bag of cells and tissue which could bring a smile to many a young face.  It was, without a doubt, a sexual mile stone on the march to the full monty – it was even referred to as Second Base – as if one’s first Home Run was only a matter of getting the right swing and timing.

A few years later, friends are getting married.  The ladies are enjoying the attention at weddings, and naturally one thing leads to another, often many times in one night.  And where does that, eventually, lead us?  Back to the top please…

Babies.  Many , many babies.  Little bundles of joy, and other collections of various emotions, many of which include frustration and tiredness, and all of which I am assured is ‘worth it’.  And all of a sudden, there is a change in the air.

Years ago, I traveled for many hours to meet a school friend and his wife, with their new baby girl.  Within a few hours, I had been asked in to the nursery to say goodnight to the little cherub, only to be introduced, for the first time, to her mother’s breast.  And it was natural, and beautiful, to see a woman breastfeeding for the first time since a brief glimpse of a friend of my mother’s in the early 90s.

The woman in question, a devout catholic and fantastic mother, suffered no embarrassment at all being before me, with a nursing blanked modestly draped over her shoulder and the child feeding gently at her bosom.  Since then, my sister-in-law has done the same, and again there was not an ounce of embarrassment for her.

So why do I feel embarrassed?  Well, in all honesty, I think my history with breasts has been an engaging factor.  At first they were kept from me, then they were made available on a reward basis, usually in exchange for cinema tickets, drinks or other attentions.  They became, purely in my mind, simply a beautiful sexual object, related to the fertility and maturity of women and linked – perhaps by tendrils of evolutionary excitement – to the attractiveness of the holder.  And so now, I am confused.

Please don’t misunderstand me.  When I see a woman breastfeeding, I am aware that it is an act of love, nourishment, bonding and care between mother and child.  There is nothing sexual in the act.  I find it engaging, in the same way as learning about a foreign culture, and beautiful in a very innocent way.  But naturally, being in the environs of a lady so disposed, I also feel I have been caught out.  I am in the presence of a women who is – according to most cultural references – disporting her sexual attributes.  Except she isn’t.

So I am embarrassed.  For me, it’s a natural thing.  If a breast becomes visually available without the expectation of sexual activity, I am subconsciously confused, and this confusion manifests as nervous activity, a reddening of the face and furtive, not-knowing-where-to-look, dry-mouthed variation on the theme of horror.

Is this right?  Probably not.  But is it natural?  For me, it is as natural as feeding from the breast is for those ladies who do so, and if the tales of strident perseverance on the part of nursing mothers are to be believed, more natural than many.

So what do I do about it?  Well, if the reactions of those fathers among my friends is any indication, when I have children of my own it will be different.  They seem to have no issues with breastfeeding (and again, by issues I mean my OWN issues, not a disagreement) and can continue to speak naturally with a nursing mother with a – for me – unattainable level of calm and serenity.  Me, I simply sit in an embarrassed silence.

There are many out there, however, who take a different approach.  Because they personally find it embarrassing, they feel breastfeeding is an activity which should be carried out in private.  As if the sparing of their impotent blushes is more important than the nutrition of a new-born child.  They seem to believe that this act – the most natural in the world – may be responsible for the fall of civilisation – after all it is only one stem from breastfeeding to walking naked down Watford high street at two thirty on a Saturday morning…

Rubbish.  Whether the majority of women choose to cover themselves to keep warm or to preserve modesty, their bodies are their own.  No one has the right to tell them to cover up, or to show more flesh than they feel comfortable doing.  So when a woman chooses, in an asexual or any other way, to feed her child in public, you can either agree that she has every right to do so, or remove yourself from the environment to preserve your own sensibilities.  You have the right to leave.

Or you can do what I have every intention of doing, which is remain quietly in a corner, going rather pink by degrees, and stammering a little.

And please, don’t think of taking this exhibition as a form of derision or criticism.  It is not.  You have every right to feed your child in public, and in that I will support you.  In the meanwhile, I have every right to be embarrassed.  I hope you will be equally supportive.

The Entitlement of Opinion.

Right, here I am stating my opinion.  In a post about opinions, and how they are really not all that great a thing after all.  More than a little hypocritical, I will agree.

I do want to make a general point here about the validity of opinions, but before I do I think I should set out my stall a little more neatly than usual.  We are all entitled to our opinions.  There, I’ve said it.  We are all not only permitted, but within the context of education and society we are actively encouraged to hold opinions on everything from which football team is better to the inherent dangers of vaccination.

Unfortunately I think we go too far in pursuit of freedom of speech however.  We seem to have reached the very strange situation where not only is an opinion permissible, but the validity of each and every opinion is perceived to hold equal weight.  It has led, among other things, to the BBC offering “Half an hour of news and comment” instead of a proper news programme.  The Vox-Pop has suddenly the same impact as the professional opinions of the learned and qualified.  And I think that is dangerous.

While your freedom to speak your mind – whether banal and uncomplicated or offensive – is important to me, what you are actually saying (in many cases) is not.  If I want to hear opinions on the evolution of mankind, I will search out the missives of those who have studied it in depth, those who can quote not only the sound-bite and infamous generalities, but truly understand the impact they have.  Which is why, when I wanted to know more about genetics, I started reading Richard Dawkins.

OK, here’s where some readers will undoubtedly leave me, or at least cease to stand alongside me.  This man – largely but not universally upheld as a great scientist – causes a rift in opinion largely because his name is also synonymous with the great debate concerning religion.  As an advocate – sometimes very outspoken – of secular life in general and atheism in particular, he naturally is seen as the enemy of Christianity and organised religion.  And I couldn’t be more happy about that.  He was largely responsible for my own personal enlightenment, but I’ll gloss over that for the moment.

His works, in particular The Ancestor’s Tale and The Selfish Gene are not, specifically, a gospel for godlessness, but they do lead the reader to the natural conclusion that there need not be a god in order for life to exist.  In fact, in contrast to his assumed personality on Twitter and in situations where he is actively debating organised religion, he is positively welcoming the churchgoer.

So, here we have a credible vision of how the human race could have evolved.  An on the other hand, we have a performing monkey.  Sorry, that’s ridiculous.  Instead, we’ll have dictated creationism – the belief that the world came about EXACTLY as described in the bible.  Not much better than the monkey, possibly.  Now, I have studied the bible.  Well, I have read it and thought about the stories it contained, which is possibly more than most.  And from the earliest age I can remember, reading a children’s bible, complete with brilliant illustrations, I was unable to take it at face value.

Please bear in mind I was probably around seven or eight at the time.  At an age where distinguishing between allegory and truth – certainly that truth delivered by my parents or other notables who may have passed such a book on to me – was probably a tricky issue.  To me, it was a good story, presented in the same manner as Grimms Fairy Tales, or the works of Robert Louis Stevenson – bound and bedecked with beautiful pictures of animals, men (usually with beards) and women (usually without) frolicking in wild gardens and being unequivocally caucasian.

OK, so the issue of the first couple’s race didn’t bother me then, and nor does it now.  It’s a story.  That’s all it ever was to me, a great tale of people being thrown out of a garden, almost drowning, floating down river in a basket and parting seas which were actually red, rather than only being named as such.  As a child, I tried to assimilate the teachings it contained, and I don’t think my religious education did me any harm.

Right, on to the problem.  There are people out there, who call themselves Christians, who seem to take these writings as a literal truth.  What is written actually happened, just over six thousand years ago.  Now, we could look at their evidence in favour of this proclamation.  It’s written in a book, which indeed is based on some very old texts, some of which still actually exist.  We can choose to ignore the evidence presented which refute it – usually very effectively.  Any such written evidence is drawn from other, just as ancient texts, or from accounts of the meetings of the Councils of Nicaea etc, which ‘prove’ just as eloquently as the bible itself that the text we have now is in effect an “approved” text.  Some would think that were enough.

But no, they want more.  So we use something much newer to the majority of us than these parchments.  We use a combination of logic, reasoning, testing and review which lead the best thinkers of the ages to create ideas of how the world works.  They call these ideas Theories.  Which is probably where the scientists go wrong.

To the layman, including of course creationists, a theory is an idea.  The science community have a different word for this type of idea – they call it a hypothesis.  Once they have designed (all right, thought up) a hypothesis, they test it.  And the way they test it is not only to attempt to show it is correct, but also try (a lot harder in many cases) to show it is wrong.  Once they have tried it, and shown it is as right as they can make it, they give it to their mates.  Now, sometimes their mates are friendly, and other times they are more like the “frenemies” of modern parlance.  Either way, they try to mangle this hypothesis too.  Genuinely, they try as hard as possible to destroy the (often times life’s-) work of their muckers.  And if they fail, then the hypothesis becomes gradually more and more accepted.

Sometimes, indeed you could say often – it takes years for a hypothesis to become accepted.  Once it is, it is generally given the title of a Theory.  It’s still open for debate, and as methods of testing become more and more accurate, they can be shown to be wrong.  When they are, a new theory may arise to take its place.  It is, and always will be, the best possible answer.

Which leads me back to my main point.  Opinions.  When we want to attempt to see within a problem, or discuss a topic which may be controversial, it seems fairly reasonable to call on the most educated (and sometimes eloquent) among the multitude of opinions available to present the case for a particular theory.  And we listen in amazement as our world is – suddenly – more beautiful.

Then we go wrong.  It seems fair, in any debate, to call for a voice of dissent – an opposing view to counter the argument.  This happens even when the argument is as simple as “the sea is wet” but never mind.  My main problem is, the majority of opinions which are counter to the well thought out, and extremely well tested theories of evolutionary biology, and certainly the most vocal ones, are from the creationist church.  People with no genuine scientific interest in testing their ideas, or even discussing them at all.  And yet, because opinions are all believed to be valid, we have to accept every counter-point as a valid one, and even give credence and (tellingly) air-time to these people.

So, I feel slightly sorry for Dawkins and his troupe of well meaning and enlightened colleagues.  While he may have studied for decades to reach the peak of his field, and be considered a renowned expert by those whose opinion I’m sure he values, the general public’s opinion of him reflect what he is possibly best known for:  Arguing against god.

And because their opinions matter just as much, that will be the truth for years to come.

Now, he may be happy with that, and I would agree with many others that religion is the cause of so much suffering and pain worldwide, and that there is no evidence for the existence of anything supernatural (note that I did not say this is evidence against god…) but I do think his work on gene-based evolution is one of the most beautiful works in modern scientific history.  And it has been overshadowed.

I don’t know Prof Dawkins, although I would like to meet him one day, I do have a couple of questions regarding speciation he may be able to answer.  I do however hope this man, who introduced us to the word meme and laid out probably the most credible explanation of our own origins, can eventually come to mean more than that to us all.  He is just one example of the way in which, because even uninformed, biassed and divisive opinion is now considered the most important trinket out there, our minds become clouded by disinformation and rhetoric rather than true learning.

I am, though, hopeful.  Science is enjoying yet another renaissance.  The age of the geek is upon us, and with modern society ever more reliant on those technologies which would not be possible without the science I love, I think the future may be one where opinions are weighted, more credible when they come from a reputable source.  Perhaps this is our opportunity to demand so.

So turn off the vox-pops.  Disregard the ‘balanced view’.  Listen to those who have shown they are trustworthy, and – above all – give yourselves and your children the tools to combat propaganda, hate, and fear of the unknown:  Education, patience and understanding.

Viva la Evolution.

The Art of NekNomination

Oooh – a craze – let’s blindly follow it.  Or not.  Either way, these internet-based phases are bound to rub some people up the wrong way.  Now, however, people are dying, and the resulting carnage is being blamed on a meme which is largely innocent.

For those who don’t know, let me explain what NekNominate is. Simply put, one person receives a nomination, has a drink (a pint of beer) on camera, and nominates two people to do the same.  They then post it on YouTube of Facebook.  Can you see now, why this is such a terribly dangerous activity.  For many years I have been going to the pub and having a pint, without realising that on EVERY SINGLE OCCASION I was dicing with death.  I thought I was enjoying a few refreshing suds.

But now parents across the country, indeed the world, are blaming this stunt – I will repeat – drinking a pint of beer – for the deaths of their kids.  Tragic it may be, but one pint of beer does not kill the huge, indeed vastest majority of people.  OK, if you have an allergy to the old booze, probably best not to do it.  But even the most featherweight of drinkers are not going to fall in to an alcohol induced coma as the result of a pint of the landlord’s finest.

No.  What IS killing these poor, backwards wretches is stupidity.  Fatalities come in a number of guises, but stupidity is a deciding factor in the majority of these.  Drinking a pint is drinking a pint.  It is NOT drinking a pint and then jumping in to a river.  It’s not downing a beverage, and then ‘chasing’ it with a bottle of vodka.  The one-upmanship is fine, but killing yourself in the process is really hoisting yourself by your own petard.  Or ‘retard’ – as The Thick Of It would have it, probably justifiably in this case.

A friend – who will remain nameless – dealt with his NekNomination in style.  He poured a pint of Guinness, waited for it to settle while explaining what NekNominate was, then drank said pint (in about two seconds – he may be sensible but he’s no slouch) and nominated two friends to continue the chain.  That was a textbook NekNominate.  Well done.  He didn’t then stab himself in the chest, drown himself by taking a walking holiday on the Somerset Levels, or have a drain-cleaner chaser.  In other words, he imbibed a pint, and then inexplicably failed to kill himself.  If only everyone else could be so sensible.

Losing a friend or family member so young is a tragedy.  I would like to say I was spared such anguish in my youth, but like the vast majority of us I lost my first friend before the age of 20.  A school friend dropped dead on a sunny weekend afternoon, and for a while the world became a darker place.  So no, tragedy did not leave me behind.  On the other hand, we didn’t seek it out either.  I know how some of these people are feeling, and I sympathise.  I really do.  But please, stop blaming these torturous, painful bereavements on a craze – it’s the stupidity which has taken its toll, not a nomination.  And blaming the person who nominated them is surely causing far more grief for them than it is saving for yourself.  Consider this – if you are a parent who has brought up a child who – when challenged to do so by a member of their peers – will jump off a riverbank in to a raging torrent, who has really failed here?

The question my mother used to ask on these sorts of occasions rears its little head.  “Well, if Gareth jumped off a cliff, would you do it too?”  I never knew this would be taken literally.

The only thing we can do to prevent these deaths is ban people from filming themselves having a drink.  I don’t see how that is possible within a free society.  Of course, a knee jerk parliamentary reaction may be to ban alcohol, which I am not willing to consider at the moment.  Or – and here’s a thought – stop being fucking idiots.

Here’s how I first phrased this on the demon Facebook:

“Drinking a pint can be dangerous if you inhale it. Downing a pint can kill you if it is overproof rum or everclear. Life has risks and we manage them using intelligence.

If you down a beer, that risk is tiny. Doing the same and then jumping in to a freezing cold river or running across a 6 lane highway increases the risk exponentially.

Neknominations may be a little childish, but they can be a bit of fun too. They don’t kill people. In fact, I’ve seen them done in an entertaining and mature way. Thanks for showing us the way, Chico. No, it’s not drinking 20 ounces of 4-6% abv beer (for US citizens, 2-4%) that kills people. Being a dickhead kills people.

So, when in doubt, remember this handy little guide:

Don’t be a knobber.

Simple, eh?

Enjoy your beer. Whatever speed you drink it at.”

CJ

Extended Optimism

Well, they’ve done it now.  A beautiful creature, one of the ‘Big Five’ no less, has been slaughtered in Copenhagen in the name of “Science”.  Now, before any readers jump to the wrong conclusion regarding my motivations for writing this piece, I should explain something:

I am not a hippy, vegetarian, animal rights protester or particularly squeamish.  Nonetheless, my initial response to the headlines was probably one of displeasure, even disappointment at the revelation that a creature was to be destroyed because of the accident of its birth.  Then I decided, on a whim, to try to see both sides of this story.

On the one hand, we have the Animal Rights lot.  Well meaning – well most of them – and with a loud voice too.  Their point – we don’t have the right to kill such a magnificent creature, and it is wrong to do so. There were also comments relating to the cruelty of zoos in general, and tying Copenhagen in with the infamous “Zoo of Death” in Indonesia.

On the other hand, we have the scientists, who were arguing quite cogently, if more quietly, that the zoo needed to clear space for the ongoing breeding programme, and that as a result their only option was to destroy the animal.

“Oh Yes,” cry Swampy et al, “why does he have to be killed?  Why can’t he go to another zoo, where he can be cared for?” – a question I immediately felt was both intelligent and obvious.  My ego shining through a bit there, eh?  Well, that has been answered too.  Apparently, the Giraffe in question is a very poor specimen, and in order to maintain a high quality of stock he should be destroyed in order to make room for other, better quality examples.  Therefore IF another zoo or wildlife park has the space available for this particular animal, then they should get another, BETTER giraffe in his place. To pull on emotional strings from another direction, it’s like choosing to breed a whole new generation of human beings using ONLY people who have appeared on The Only Way is Essex.

The argument boils down thus: On one side, the rights of every animal to life a decent life, and on the other, the need to best safeguard the species, including unborn generations, so that it can continue.

OK, so that’s the basics out of the way.  It sounds like I have made my mind up, and as a result, everyone can hang their own and either join in with me, or go to hell.

Not the case.

In fact, I think this particular one is so divisive, I couldn’t say for certain where anyone else would come down, including my floweriest of mates.  In fact, it’s so subjective, I am likely to be swayed by any reasonable argument right now.  One thing I think we can all agree on though, is that it would have been a lot better for everyone if this creature had never been conceived at all.  Except a few lions and other carnivores in Copenhagen zoo, that is.

Right – on to my point.

The big stumbling block here is that every side has made the mistake of thinking that the world agrees with them on some fundamental points.  The animal welfare lot think that the zoo and everyone they oppose is a mindless murdering bastard, bloodthirsty and wanting to kill for the sake of it, and that EVERYONE else is in love with the individual animal which was destroyed.

They use their own emotional response to judge whether something is right or not, and the reasoning of the zoo ‘professionals’ does not enter in to the equation.

On the other hand, the directors at the zoo rely on safe, scientific choices – they use blind reason in the same way as our tie-dye chums use their visceral responses, but without recourse to public ‘opinion’. (Please bear in mind that while I agree every individual has the right to hold an opinion, the rest of humanity has just as much right to ignore it.  When I want to build a power station, I will consult an engineer, not an arsonist with ‘a good idea’.)

Do I think one side is right and the other wrong?  No.  I think both sides could do with trying to empathise with the other.  The zoo should be considering the emotional response to this catastrophe, and the protesters should actually consider what the zoo is saying, without resorting to attacks on emotional levels.  The protesters were the ones publicizing this, and then they are the ones to complain that the zoos actions will cause offence to millions of people worldwide.  If it is the feelings of other people they wanted to protect, why publicise it in the first place?

The events, unfolding as they did in the public eye, were the outward symptoms of a tragedy which – once the animal was born – could not be avoided.  Either it would have to be destroyed to make way for other animals, or another, possibly better specimen, would never be born. One animal, or the species.  I’m not arguing that this was as simple as that, nor that this creature was the be-all-and-end-all, but where one comes down on that line is a personal choice, and how one deals with those on the other side of it is just as crucial as the arguments you use.

Perhaps science should consider the emotional needs of the world, or perhaps their opponents should at least listen to reason… There needs to be a middle ground.  I’m off to find it.  Bring a tent.