What are you doing? Like, what is your purpose right now? Are you just going balls-out to locate some customized human predicament that is functionally identical to all the features of breastfeeding? Then what? Hopefully get someone to say they value breastfeeding differently than whatever fringe thing you come up with? Then what, you get to declare that this person is being "completely arbitrary"?

Spare yourself.

Well this isn't exactly my goal, but it's close. The point is that many of the reasons that Pongo and, now you, have given, are, quite simply put, arbitrary. It seems like you believe that there is some sort of natural right to public, uncovered breast feeding that is justified by the inherent features of the act.

I guess the main difference between me and pongo (and you, I guess) is that if someone said that the thought of public breastfeeding is gross and they wish that the women covered up, while I would disagree, I wouldn't characterize them as some sort of unreasonable douchebag (which is what Pongo seems to be doing).

A natural right? Do we need to get this lofty? We're implicitly endorsing values like [insert what it says in the U.S. Constitution plus Liberalism in general], therefore individuals are granted certain (many) freedoms in public. From there, Pongo formed her replies to a flurry of questions and challenges regarding public breastfeeding.

As a main difference, this just seems too nitpicky and pointless to me. Are we really composing all these posts because you're concerned that Pongo inside her heart is characterizing some hazily defined person in a way that seems too subjective or unprincipled or inconsistent to you? Like your goal is to get in there and make micro-adjustments to what you perceive her attitude might be towards people who say public breastfeeding is gross?

Actually, a lot of the vitriol in this thread has seemed to be rooted in certain posters' desire to come in here not because they have a problem with breastfeeding, but because The Massive Problem Of Pongo's Perceived Attitude towards icked-out strangers DESPERATELY NEEDS CORRECTION. You should search out cres's post on the matter. Absolutely epic.

There's a whole psychological angsty male thing to this thread that's just like hyperbolic rage not about the topic, but about Pongo speaking her mind too forcefully (which she doesn't remotely, and she's never uncivil in this whole thing) or something. So then these dudes are like jumping down her throat about the sheer awfulness of her tone or attitude or some ****.

Anyway, you're just being a bit of a nit.

Holy **** I'm tired of sounding like her unsolicited defense attorney. I'm out, and please God make it stick this time.

Someone always has to be the voice of reason. You got stuck with the role. lol

Well, I never claimed anything more than this. If you feel it's nitty, so be it.

Hi Pongo, interesting topic! I completely agree with you in this regard. I feel its the right of any woman to breastfeed her child in public without the burden of putting a ponderous cover over her and anyone who is arguing against you is pretty much a complete prude.

I could definitely use some advice from you though. As you may or may not know, as long as you're on public property (roads/sidewalks/anything built by tax dollars), you can be legally photographed by anyone in the United States. I am a photographer and I feel breastfeeding is a natural and wonderful experience to behold, so much so I've created a website dedicated to this beautiful act. Unfortunately, many of the times I've seen a lady breastfeeding uncovered in public, and I've taken out my DSLR to capture the event, I've received a hostile and frankly illegal reaction to me shooting it. I just don't understand it. Clearly since she's chosen to feed her child in public, she's consenting to being recorded - therefore she should have no problem with it at all! I mean, you obviously wouldn't mind if I took photographs of you feeding your child. Can you explain to me these women's attitudes?

- C, webmaster of womenbreastfeedinginpublic.tumblr.com

Reading this thread makes me want to suck on some titties.

Pongo,

You mentioned earlier in the thread that you plan on breast feeding your child until your child turns 3. Do you plan on breast feeding your 3 year old in public? Or will the public feelings cease at a certain age?

These kinds of posts hurt the cause more than they help. To sound convincing, you would have to hold that people generally embrace being recorded, and their likeness reproduced, no matter what they're doing and that they make a specific exception for breastfeeding.

Why would you put this forward and expect to be taken seriously?

No, just trying to find your positions. If the law said breastfeeding in public was illegal, and someone told her to cover up, you'd also be fine with them telling her to? Is your position "defer to whatever the law is"?

Unrelated story.

This morning while commuting to work, I ran into a situation that made me think about this thread. To enter the highway, traffic from my direction enters the on ramp on the right, and this entrance often gets backed up fairly significantly. Traffic in the right lane backs up, and eventually enters the ramp before an intersection, that traffic coming from the other direction can make a left turn into and on the ramp. Traffic coming from my direction has a yield on the ramp for that traffic, which merges together and eventually hits the highway. Traffic entering the highway from the other direction is very light and usually there are no cars entering from that direction.

Today, I'm waiting patiently in the line of cars merging onto the highway, and notice a car speed past the line in the left lane, and then turn right at the intersection onto the portion of the on ramp used for traffic entering from the other direction. As such, they skip the line and the people entering normally have to yield to this person.

I immediately thought to myself, "Wow, I just got Pongo'd".

Something probably legal, but certainly done with a sense of entitlement and lack of concern for their fellow man in their heart.

Much has been made of the breastfeeders' "sense of entitlement" and lack of concern for their fellow man. Can it be said of the others that they have a similar sense of entitlement to see only what they want to see in public?

When two people are clearly at cross-purposes on opinions like this, whose interest should ultimately prevail? Why?

Here is the technique I personally use to decide how I should behave in situations like this:

If I can make a minor concession, even if I don't think that I should HAVE to be forced to make it, in order to make a potentially larger number of people happier/more comfortable, I generally just do it.

That doesn't address whose interests should get right of way, as it were. At all.

Still, "A UK Department of Health survey found that 84% (about 5 out of 6 people) find breastfeeding in public acceptable if done discreetly" (wiki). Unless it is your opinion that the comfort of "more" people is specifically 15% of the population, which will always outnumber any single mother/child pair but never all mother/child pairs, which "more people" are you looking out for?

Not breasfeeding in public is a minor concession, in the practical sense. More minor still is to look away and get on with your day. If you're going to advocate for minor concessions, why not the most minor one?

I think the root of the problem is what is considered discreet as well. Some of that 84% may consider what pongo does as discreet. My guess is that at least some of it wouldn't. Especially since it's not terribly hard to just be more discreet, unless you have the world's softest baby (or most entitled mother).

9 pages lol.

it is a social norm in the west that we accept inconveniences arising from the behavior of mothers and babies that we don't accept from other people in equivalent circumstances. this would include the horrible inconvenience of seeing an inch of public boobflesh as a mother lifts her shirt. sorry if you don't like it, but there it is. perhaps some of you might feel more comfortable in Afghanistan, or somewhere with menstruation huts and the like.

The debate doesn't turn on how only Pongo pongs.

I don't disagree that this 84% could be further sorted into phylums and classes according to where specifically they place "discreet." Generally it means out of the way, not noticeable, and categorically excludes intentionally drawing attention to oneself. That one may be noticed doesn't mean they've been indiscreet.

My opinion is that for me, personally, if I know that something I do in public would make 15% of folks uncomfy, I'd look for reasonable ways to modify my own behavior to cut that number down or eliminate it.

Others won't though, and feel like if it ain't illegal, I'll do whatever the hell I want. Sometimes this is justified, sometimes it isn't. Hence, this thread.

I'm not overly interested in you, personally. It's not totally irrelevant but as long as we're all making sweeping arm gestures and speaking for "society" it does have limited application. You've twice ignored specifying whose interests should prevail when there are different (and mutually exclusive) opinions at stake, but two totally different remedies available that would resolve the "problem" equally.

You have also ignored why the minor concession made to you (observer) should win out over the concession made by the observer (look elsewhere), when arguing that minor concessions are generally the polite and civic-minded thing to do.

You tried to justify this on the basis of the comfort of "more people." Most people actually support public breastfeeding, so you couldn't have meant them. 15% of people don't support it, and 15% of everyone is certainly "more people" than the two who are party to a breastfeeding, but still less than the overall number of people who don't care.

Why would you hang your hat on the "more people" group that you belong to in the context of calling out other people for themselves acting self-interestedly?

PR- It's not some type of equation to dial in, it's a subjective judgement.

You look at a few things:
* How much work is required by me
* How much benefit other people get from it
* What are the alternatives

A perfect example might be farting in public. Everyone has to fart. Holding in a fart sucks sometimes and can be painful. But in general, if you can avoid farting in front of people, it's a good thing. Some people won't care about it, and they only slightly inconvenienced if you let one slip. So a good policy might be, if I can find a place that is more isolated to fart, do it. If I can't, try to hold it. Unless the pain becomes too great to let it go.

My policy would be much different around a group of my friends or my wife. I might just let one rip without thinking twice.

It's perfectly legal to fart anywhere I want, and it is an ESSENTIAL function. I wonder if pongo holds her farts, or just lets them rip on the bus.

This thread is pretty painful, but actually kinda fascinating and somewhat enlightening. I really have never seen such bull****tery:

1: Breastfeeding is the essence of normal behavior, and has been always, everywhere people have ever been, since the dawn of man.

2. Anyone who is squicked out by breastfeeding, especially a grown man (snicker), is a pathetic, laughable prude and deserves social derision. And here's the thing - that's exactly what they would get in these forums in any context other then this one.

3. Likewise, anyone here who says that they are perfectly OK with public breastfeeding, but demand discretion for the protection of said pathetic, laughable prudes is absolutely full of ****. Period. I have been on these forums for a long time and can't quite think of any circumstances where pathetic, laughable prudes have received anything less then derision, much less sympathy. That they do here is simply an artifact of OP being a woman discussing a wimmins' issue.

4. Further, there is nothing the least bit exceptional about the tone or attitude that OP strikes here. At the very least it is well within the standard set elsewhere in these forums (including, notably, this very thread). If OP were male, using the same tone, and discussing any other issue, it would go unnoticed (and certainly wouldn't spawn an 800 post thread). If this strikes you as wrong, you are self-delusional and might benefit from a couple of minutes of reflection, because - and again, here's the thing - LOL at you.

But everyone objects to other people's farts, while only a minority of people object to breastfeeding. This is why arguing from analogies doesn't really work for this -- it is possible to argue the merits and demerits of breastfeeding on its own.

Still, floating along with this leaky metaphor for a moment, an element of discretion is minimizing the exposure of other people. Everyone understands farting in public but the expectation (out of consideration and pride) is that you'll limit the number of people who come to know about this -- you'll fart discreetly, by removing yourself from the group, walking down the hall, whatever. Everyone knows that you're farting but at least you're not forcing them to live with it.

Likewise breastfeeding discreetly does take into account the overall comfort of everyone and minimizing the impact on people around you. It is an imperfect solution, but it's as close to perfect as you can get while still upholding individuals' rights. Not much to be done about the fact that some of these individuals hold without justification that their personal comfort (narrowly defined) is the most important consideration to weigh against all others, on either side of the argument. Excluding extreme opinions (this mythological public menace of in-your-face feeders and those who think that a validated opinion means a majority opinion) is the only way to discuss this rationally.

Hi. I wasn't trying to ignore you -I thought I addressed your questions. The key point for me here is indeed the 15% of people (totally made up, but w/e, the actual number isn't relevant) who might be made uncomfortable. The mistake I feel you are making is comparing 15% to 85%, when that isn't the case. If something I do has the potential to make 15% of folks I encounter uncomfortable, vs. 0% if I make reasonable concessions, 15% is bigger so I'll probably just modify my behavior slightly to make other people potentially happier. That's all I'm saying.

Many people will opt not to modify their behavior to make some percentage of strangers happy, regardless of how impactful the modifications might be, or how reasonable the sensibilities of others. Pongo has made it clear that she is in that camp, which many here find to be objectionable.

Incidentally, I fall into the 85% camp (or however many people don't give a **** if someone breastfeeds in public), but I am in the camp of people that think that folks who don't consider the feelings of others and perform ANY behavior just because "the law says I can so **** all ya'll" is a blight on society.

True. But this......

.....doesn't follow. At all. People debating the extreme points of an issue in an overly confrontational acerbic tone is exactly the kind of kindling that can turn 80 post threads into 800 post threads.