Editing note years later. This is one of my earliest posts on the subject. If I were to write it today, I’d want to make it more clear that the problem, or fault, with just baring one’s breast to nurse a baby doesn’t belong to either mother or baby. It’s not surprising that we usually don’t feel comfortable doing it here in the States, because people are weird about it, and that makes it potentially not safe for us. But it’s not the breast or the baby that’s weird.
Interesting discussion over at Amy Welborn’s blog about this photograph showing President Chavez of Venezuela talking with a woman affected by flooding near Caracas. The woman in the photograph is breastfeeding a young toddler in such a way that her left breast is entirely exposed, except for the nipple.
Should we nurse this way in the United States? Should she nurse the way women in the U.S. do, behind closed doors/under a blanket/from under the shirt without exposing cleavage? I think the answer is no to both. I don’t think anyone here should nurse under a blanket, either, frankly. I wish we could, modestly, flop a breast out to feed a hungry baby, but we can’t. Nor do I agree that we should, in a effort to change attitudes and make people see breastfeeding like this as the normal, healthy, God-created action that it (in fact) is. Why not?
The fundamental concept to understand here is that modesty is a type of the virtue of temperance. Temperance is the virtue of avoiding extremes of behavior. Eating with temperance avoids the extremes of malnutrition and gluttony; arguing with temperance avoids the extremes of timid deference nor belligerence. Modesty, specifically, is temperance in the presentation of the self to others. Modesty calls me to dress, act, and speak in a way that authentically expresses my true self and allows me to perform the duties proper to my state in life without drawing undue attention to myself. If I am modest, I avoid both shamelessness (in which I draw undue attention to myself) and prudishness (in which I suppress myself or fail in my duties in an effort to avoid being seen at all). Ironically, prudishness can also draw undue attention; think of appearing at the beach in a burqa.
What is the true self, the image that accurately projects us to the world? It is to be seen as an image of God. We are created in God’s own image, and to be appropriately modest is to present ourselves so that the image is as clear as possible. This means we mustn’t hide aspects that are easily seen by all as aspects of God himself. But it does mean we should downplay aspects that many people will only see as distortions.
Because the behaviors classified as “modest” depend on the disposition of other people towards them, and because modesty (being a kind of temperance) always modulates a tension between two extremes, those behaviors are culturally and situationally variable. If it’s typical in that part of Venezuela to expose the breast while breastfeeding—if people view the exposed breast feeding a child, without distortion, as normal and part of God’s plan for feeding babies— the mother in the photograph isn’t being immodest. Good for her, and good for that culture, because it’s sure more supportive of breastfeeding when the umbrella of “modestly” stretches over a wider spectrum of nursing styles.
Here, though, it’s immodest, because the female breast is overwhelmingly perceived with a great deal of distortion, as an object of sexual titillation rather than as an organ for nourishing babies. The two perceptions don’t go hand in hand here; it’s titillation-for-males first, food-for-babies far behind. American men and women do not typically look at that woman with her wonderful, life-giving breast and think, “God is good and nourishes us like that mother nourishes her child.” They do not really see her at all, nor can they see God in her, distracted as they are by the distortion in their hearts.
Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.” One who cannot see God where God is lacks purity.
This whole culture sorely lacks purity of heart in its perception of the female breast. And the umbrella of modesty, it is sad to say, depends heavily on the umbrella of purity. Where the culture’s heart is pure, the culture’s behavior can be modest. Modesty is a virtue precisely because it protects us from being damaged by others’ impurity, and helps keep others from temptation.
Like many, many breastfeeding mothers, I wish the culture would change so that breastfeeding openly would not shock or titillate people, so that I could expose my breast to feed my child without being objectifid. I wish that the umbrella of modesty would widen. But I know that brazenly exposing skin while nursing—deliberate immodesty—will not change the culture. We cannot create purity by discarding the virtue of modesty. The purity of heart has to come first. If we discard modesty and expose our breasts more often, people will be less shocked but no less titillated. What will happen instead is that it will become more acceptable for women (particularly mothers) to be sexually objectified. We might, for instance, see a mainstreaming of pornography depicting distortions of breastfeeding.
We can’t create purity by being prudish, either, hiding nursing away from everyone so that no one ever sees a child nurse. That kind of immodesty prevents the culture from changing, because it suppresses the image of breasts as an organ of nourishment.
If we breastfeed not prudishly but openly and modestly—if we are matter-of-fact
about our breastfeeding, don’t hide, make it obvious that we breastfeed (as mothers should) but also make it obvious that we can do so without titillating people—then more people, men in particular, will recognize that the purpose of breasts is primarily to feed babies. The sexualization of the breast, divorced from their function, is what got us into this situation. By being clear about the function of the breast while denying satisfaction to those who would objectify us, we CAN change the culture. When people once again can look at the female breast and see God—when they can look at it in all purity—then we can nurse, exposed, in all modesty.
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