Does This Offend You?

Apparently, it's offended a lot of people, as Babytalk magazine has received around 5,000 angry letters in response to the recent cover:

Several readers said they were "embarrassed" or "offended" by the Babytalk photo and one woman from Nevada said she "immediately turned the magazine face down" when she saw the photo.

"Gross, I am sick of seeing a baby attached to a boob," the mother of a four-month-old said.

Another reader said she was "horrified" when she received the magazine and hoped that her husband hadn't laid eyes on it.

"I had to rip off the cover since I didn't want it laying around the house," she said.

I'm amazed that something so natural, so healthy, and so necessary to the survival of our species for much of human history has become so offensive and controversial. According to the AFP article:

A national survey by the American Dietetic Association found that 57 percent of those polled are opposed to women breastfeeding in public and 72 percent think it is inappropriate to show a woman breastfeeding on television programs.

Our culture has become so accustomed to the sexual objectification of the human (especially female) body that we hardly even notice it. We have come to accept the media's unhealthy and unrealistic image of the ideal human body. But we can't cope with breastfeeding, a basic function of human anatomy.

That's sad, and a little scary.