Breast Feeding In Church?

[Storm Rider]

I am beginning to think that I have tumbled into a group of puritans of the worst kind. Come on people we are talking about nursing an infant. Where did such a warped sense of modesty come from? Who said that every man or boy that sees a mother's breast will automatically devolve into a hypersensitive, sexual monster? This is just baffling to me and the family in which I grew up. Granted we did live on a farm and were accustomed to seeing life evolve, but dang, some of the comments I have read are just foreign to me. Each of you needs to buy and display a sculpture of the "David" and the painting "Liberty leading the People" in your homes.

[canard78]

Sadly, the Church seems to be a major producer and distributor of this kind of 'porn':

Just brilliant )

[canard78]

I am beginning to think that I have tumbled into a group of puritans of the worst kind. Come on people we are talking about nursing an infant. Where did such a warped sense of modesty come from? Who said that every man or boy that sees a mother's breast will automatically devolve into a hypersensitive, sexual monster? This is just baffling to me and the family in which I grew up. Granted we did live on a farm and were accustomed to seeing life evolve, but dang, some of the comments I have read are just foreign to me. Each of you needs to buy and display a sculpture of the "David" and the painting "Liberty leading the People" in your homes.

Big ole +1 for you Storm Rider.

[ERayR]

And that's fine -- I feel the same way -- but then your culture is distinctly not 'Western culture' as defined: the culture of Europe and Europe's former settler colonies.

I am a bit ego-centric. My culture is western, west of the Mississippi river.

[Yep]

Sadly, the Church seems to be a major producer and distributor of this kind of 'porn':

Thank you for the out of context response here.

Here is the beginning of the quote you used:

The male torso is a sexual part of the male as well, and the media has made great attempts at peeking the female sexual interest by displaying it as such. Given the attention that the male torso receives in the media and the reasoning behind this attention...

When I watch a movie or television show and a man is shown naked from the waist up and the camera slowly moves from his torso, which is typically oiled or wet, to his head, I consider it as next to porn. There is no arguing with this aside from unfounded denial. The media is trying to make men's bodies a sex object the same as it has already done to women's. Our daughters are growing up with this leering and ogling being ok, and not only ok, but accepted and encouraged. I for one have always been thankful for the modesty of our young women, but I believe Satan has found a method that will work. I believe that we will see more and more of this becoming even more crude. I believe that if they haven't started speaking to the young women about this that we will within the next 5 or so years.

There is often a difference between art and pornography. There are things that are not immodest regardless of the fact that in another forum they would be. However, society does make them so. The male torso was not treated by the media in the same manner even 15 years ago, it is slowly being used more and more as a sexual tool to gain women's attention. I was at a swimming pool once and saw a young man move out of the pool, it was a moment that hollywood can barely match, but is trying to. I watched as nearly every woman gawked, out of twenty or so women that were around the pool only one did not gawk. These women were mainly LDS and mainly women that were probably temple worthy. Had the same exact thing occurred but in reverse, the opinion of men behaving in the exact same way would have been one of disgust, and it should have been. Society, mainly due to the media, is making the male torso something that is needing covering.

I do not want my daughters to become as the stereotypical man. If we do not move against this influence, if we do not make statements concerning it, we will see a time soon when the stereotypical woman will be just as coarse as the stereotypical man. My daughters are better than that, and I hope I and my children and my children's children do not have to work hard to allow my grandaughters, great grandaughters, and so on, to be women of the same caliber as my daughters are. I don't see this as the case, even now I have to work harder than my parents did at keeping my daughters strong. I do not like to see that this is becoming the case, but the media and society are trying to make men and women equal in their degradation. I do not want my daughters to have a more difficult time maintaining their virtue, and I preferred it when I needed to worry more about their modesty than about the modesty of the men around them and in the media.

[thesometimesaint]

Undoubtedly. But the look is all it takes, nah?

While I am nearsighted, I do have eyeballs. The sexiest organ in the human body is the brain. All the rest is just plumbing.

[Yep]

This has to be one of the oddest ideas I've ever encountered. Do you honestly believe that any unendowed person -- whether child or adult -- who wears anything whatsoever that wouldn't 100% cover the garment is 'immodest'? Do you likewise believe that an endowed man or woman who wears a bathing costume or plays on a sporting team is likewise being immodest?

No, but I do believe some are. Intent plays a big role. However, if the audience to the sight is one that abuses the sight, then yes. One is immodest if one intentionally peeks the sexual interest to an unnecessary degree. It is necessary for us to attract a partner and to maintain that attraction upon gaining a partner. But there is a point that crosses into intentioinal temptation. This does not dissolve the responsibility of those that might be in audience to maintain a proper attitude and avert their gaze if the situation needs such. Often this discussion devolves to a lack of responsibility on one side or the other, the responsible party is oneself. This does not devoid others of the responsibility of consideration of others in their own modesty.

Many bathing suits are unduly immodest, men's and women's, some are, yes. I believe that this is true of endowed and unendowed individuals. Receiving one's endowment does not change the degree of modesty requirement, it simply adds to the responsibility to maintain that degree of modesty.

I could be wrong, but I would respectfully suggest that this 'misunderstanding' and disregard may be due to the fact that Church leaders simply haven't taught us these principles. In fact, as pointed out already, Church-owned institutions don't seem to have got this memo, either, with sportsmen at these institutions still publicly competing in, for example, shorts. And singlets. And probably swimming in less.

I have not seen these sporting events that require the degree of immodesty that I have described. I do not know about the idea of swimming. It is an advantage to dress as they do, however, it would seem that the waist on a men's suit would cause more drag than the collar on a woman's one piece, due to the head's location, it would mediate drag in a higher collar whereas a waist doesn't have the same luxury.

Interesting. For all these years, I thought our former stake YM president was the only LDS on the planet who'd ever reached this conclusion, but apparently he's not alone. Of course, he's also the man who forbade his daughters to wear jeans because the illustrations in the dress and grooming section of the old For the Strength of Youth booklet didn't happen to show any females in jeans. Not sure what's happened in his head since the new booklet has come out with different illustrations, but his daughters are all grown and out of the home now (they tended to move out very quickly) ... and quite possibly wearing jeans and one-piece bathing costumes.

My conclusion comes from what I describe in my other post as to the degradation of women.

[Stargazer]

Undoubtedly. But the look is all it takes, nah?

My mission president told us that we could not prevent the birds flying over us in the sky, but we could prevent them from making nests in our hair.

[Stargazer]

I already told you, if nothing is to be seen, I have no problems with it. I have problems when things CAN be seen.

Let's try this:

This woman is in hijab. She is covered completely except for her face. She is beautiful (imho), and it wouldn't take the least effort for my hetero brain to go completely off the rails if she were to walk into the room, exactly as she is in this photo. Don't tell my wife.

Men are visual, eveyone knows this. Even when we are happily married we have to be careful where and how we use our eyes. But this is no reason to make our wives, daughters, mothers, and female friends have to walk around covered in a tent. We just have to get our own brains under control. Of course, it is nice if the women around us recognize our difficulty and don't make it more difficult by dressing immodestly. But a mother discreetly nursing her baby should not feel ashamed for doing so, and the men around her should get a grip on their eyes and brains.

[ERayR]

Let's try this:

But this is no reason to make our wives, daughters, mothers, and female friends have to walk around covered in a tent. We just have to get our own brains under control.

First if one is prone to such thoughts dressing our wives, daughters, mothers, and female friends in a tent is ineffective. Thus: We just have to get our own brains under control.

[Cobalt-70]

Let's take a person who is addicted to pornography (or any other sexual addiction, like masturbation). As you know, in order to get over addictions, one has to avoid triggers. One of the best places to avoid triggers is church because people where modest clothes and have good language, preventing large amounts of triggers from bothering that person. Now let's take a look at breastfeeding. It is not intended as a sexual act. But it acts as a trigger for the person who is addicted to pornography, sending swarms of images that they wishes to keep locked up to their head, and ruining the sanctified enviroment they think church is.

Your are (1) labeling the 90+% of LDS young men who masturbate as "addicts," and (2) labeling the bodies of young women as "addiction triggers." This attitude, which I know is widespread among the LDS church, is a perfect recipe to foster shame among LDS youth, and unhealthy attitudes about their bodies. For the psychological health of LDS youth, this has got to stop.

[Cobalt-70]

Let's try this:

This woman is in hijab. She is covered completely except for her face. She is beautiful (imho), and it wouldn't take the least effort for my hetero brain to go completely off the rails if she were to walk into the room, exactly as she is in this photo. Don't tell my wife.

It's a fact of nature that the more "modest" a women is, the more layers that a man can fantasize about unwrapping. And it's all relative. In the Victorian society where women covered their ankles, men used to get off on ankles. In closed LDS societies, people still seem to feel that shoulders are considered risqué. But I don't hear about shoulder fixations in the rest of American society. And nobody outside of America has the same fixation that Americans do about boobs.

Edited February 28, 2013 by Cobalt-70

[Questing Beast]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP7Ulkq4i7E

[mercyngrace]

[media=]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP7Ulkq4i7E

I'm not sure the whole economy would collapse but I'm sure there would be some national sagging.

Just sayin'.

[ERayR]

It's a fact of nature that the more "modest" a women is, the more layers that a man can fantasize about unwrapping. And it's all relative. In the Victorian society where women covered their ankles, men used to get off on ankles. In closed LDS societies, people still seem to feel that shoulders are considered risqué. But I don't hear about shoulder fixations in the rest of American society. And nobody outside of America has the same fixation that Americans do about boobs.

That's why the Islamic dress their woman the way they do. Right?

[Garden Girl]

I have not seen these sporting events that require the degree of immodesty that I have described.

Olympic Beach Volleyball.... totally unneccessary skimpy bikinis....

GG

[justin_c4]

Always made me feel a little uncomfortable.

[ERayR]

Always made me feel a little uncomfortable.

And whose problem is that? Are you advocating making it the mothers and baby's?

[TAO]

Let's try this:

This woman is in hijab. She is covered completely except for her face. She is beautiful (imho), and it wouldn't take the least effort for my hetero brain to go completely off the rails if she were to walk into the room, exactly as she is in this photo. Don't tell my wife.

Men are visual, eveyone knows this. Even when we are happily married we have to be careful where and how we use our eyes. But this is no reason to make our wives, daughters, mothers, and female friends have to walk around covered in a tent. We just have to get our own brains under control. Of course, it is nice if the women around us recognize our difficulty and don't make it more difficult by dressing immodestly. But a mother discreetly nursing her baby should not feel ashamed for doing so, and the men around her should get a grip on their eyes and brains.

Again, I'll say this... I don't mind if I can't see anything. That's what discreet would mean, right?

Edited March 1, 2013 by TAO

[TAO]

Your are (1) labeling the 90+% of LDS young men who masturbate as "addicts,"

Becasuse it often turns into such.

and (2) labeling the bodies of young women as "addiction triggers."

No. I'm labeling the nude bodies of women in general as "addiciton triggers." Understand the difference.

This attitude, which I know is widespread among the LDS church, is a perfect recipe to foster shame among LDS youth, and unhealthy attitudes about their bodies.

What's wrong about shame? A little bit of shame is okay, as long as it is not excessive.

For the psychological health of LDS youth, this has got to stop.

I think what I am saying is healthy.

[Bernard Gui]

If a woman is parading a bare breast around the chapel then I guess the Bishop might need to have a word. The truth is that a woman can easily breastfeed where she's sat in the pew with next to nothing on display.

I'm glad a nursing room is an option, but it's by no means a requirement. There is no violation of temple covenants by breastfeeding. Just like there's no violation of covenants at the beach or pool.

Next to nothing?

Sacrament meeting is not the same as being at the beach or pool.

[Bernard Gui]

Chastity and pure thoughts do derive from another's modesty but the individual's own integrity.

If we make a teenage boy's ability to have clean thoughts dependent on another's modesty then we have lost. There is far more immodesty, instantly accessible, than a breastfeeding mother in sacrament.

We don't solve obesity by shutting all the burger bars.

The dieter who loses weight with a lock on the fridge hasn't really 'won'

The person who embraces healthy eating and leaves the chocolate cake in the fridge and reaches for the salad is the true winner.

If I become immoral, I can only blame me.

Thus Paul's admonition not to be a stumbling block for a brother. Modesty is a result of charity for one's brothers and sisters.

[Bernard Gui]

My view: Breast feeding is generally not immodest. Revealing clothing generally is. The difference being the intent of the exposure.

Can't agree with this.

[Bernard Gui]

And that's fine -- I feel the same way -- but then your culture is distinctly not 'Western culture' as defined: the culture of Europe and Europe's former settler colonies.

Are you saying the only European based culture has this problem?

[Bernard Gui]

Just brilliant )

Just art.