We just don't know what to do with boobs...

Once again, women cannot win. I have no idea if Louise Burns was "attention-seeking" when she pointed out Claridge's bizarre attempt to make her breastfeed more "discreetly" by suggesting that a napkin wigwam should be draped over her baby. And, frankly, I really don't care.

Dressed demurely while having a meal in one of London's most expensive hotels, she was never going to be a poster girl for oppressed women of the world, but I doubt that was her aim. The napkin situation is hardly on par with FGM or a Boko Haram mass kidnapping, but just because far more horrendous things are happening to women elsewhere, that doesn't mean we can't have an intelligent conversation about breastfeeding in public or exposed breasts in general.

Except that hasn't happened, has it?

Seriously, she was not being "ostentatious" (nice one, Nigel...), there was no visible nipple, rivers of milk weren't gushing all over the table and leaving puddles on the floor. Has anyone bothered to ask whether any diners were so offended by the sight of Ms Burns unobtrusively feeding her child that it put them right off their cream tea?

Then the idiots came out in full force.

"Why can't she breastfeed in the toilets?" they ask. Er, because eating in a toilet, even a posh one at Claridges, is unhygienic.

"If she can breastfeed in public, I should be able to take a dump/urinate/masturbate in public!". No. Not even remotely comparable. Go away.

"Why can't she express milk into bottles?". Why can't people stop dictating to women what they do with their breasts?

Then there are the people who are fine with Page 3 girls but not OK with public breastfeeding. For what it's worth, I have no issue with either use of boobs because, as I've just written, WHY CAN'T PEOPLE STOP DICTATING TO OTHER WOMEN WHAT THEY DO WITH THEIR BREASTS? Offended by a nursing mother? Don't look! Offended by Page 3? Don't buy The Sun! I realise this makes me some sort of minority feminist. I don't care.

This ludicrous brouhaha came in the same week that additional idiots experienced a mass gross-out because Madonna, at the age of 56, had the temerity to get her boobs out. Then there were some who are opposed to Page 3 but found a bare-breasted Madonna to be empowering for older women. At what age do bare boobs stop being exploitative and start being empowering? Christ, this is confusing.

And let's not forget the poor, muddled people who are fine with Page 3, not fine with public breastfeeding, and also want to ban the burkha. I ranted on this a while back - the niqab and the Plimsoll line of modesty - women's modesty is something that every dickhead has an opinion on even though it's nobody's damn business. Get your boobs out and you might be a slut or a bimbo without a brain or you're a cause of sexual assault. Cover them up and you'll probably be OK, unless you cover them up in something Islamic, in which case, you are causing sharia to creep in. Get them out to breastfeed and you're an attention-seeking exhibitionist Earth mother who knits her own lentils. Get them out on a beach in Spain by all means - but only if your boobs meet a certain standard of perkiness. We've all seen how the media treats a woman if her "bikini body" is not up to scratch. If you didn't attain the perfect bikini body before your holiday, obviously you must not go topless, you grotesque cow. But don't cover those chest puppies up too much... It's a fine line between a muu-muu and an abaya.

And there was the inevitable disappointment of a woman coming out in full support of the pearl-clutchers, such as Melissa Kite writing a dizzying spew of overreaching bile for The Spectator about the "frenzied glorification of motherhood". That headline was posted, apparently without irony, above the pictures of Ms Burns looking about as far from a frenzy as choir practice, but nothing could stop Ms Kite's irrational barrage of hate. Still, we've come to expect this sort of woman-slagging-off-another-woman nonsense on a regular basis. Behold Sarah Vine's awful riff about Jack Monroe's sex life in the Daily Mail. She could have disagreed with Monroe's politics without coming across as a nasty homophobic prude, but that would not satisfy the awful appetite out there for pieces where women say horrible things about other women and, thus, the death knell of feminism can be sounded yet again.

So, in this catfight context, it was inevitable that another woman was going to come out and put Ms Burns, the scandalous breastfeeder, in her place.

Every time there is a breastfeeding debate, someone always points out that the disproportionate outrage turns women off breastfeeding. Quite. Condemning nursing mothers as exhibitionist hippies who just feed their kids the way nature intended because they are brazen attention-seekers is ridiculous and unconstructive. Equally, shaming mothers who bottle-feed as abusive or lazy is just as pathetic.

Finally, on a dark and tragic note, the Claridges saga coincided with the death of Charlotte Bevan and her four-day-old daughter Zaani. They were found dead on a cliff face at Avon Gorge, two miles from St Michael's maternity unit, where Zaani was born. The noise surrounding Claridges has driven this story out of the news cycle. While this is most likely a blessing for Charlotte Bevan's grieving family, the outcomes of the hospital inquiry into these deaths will be worth attention. A line of inquiry relates to Charlotte Bevan stopping her anti-depressant medication so she could breastfeed as a possible contributing factor. It is possible that a troubled woman has paid the ultimate price for her desire to choose breastfeeding.

As such, if you're making a mindless racket about women who choose to breastfeed in public or do anything with their breasts of their own free will, you might want to take a long, hard look at yourself and work out why these women make you so angry. The problem is with you, not the owners of the breasts.    


Photography by Petr Kratochvil

"I saw your boobs!" "I saw the Outrage Olympics!"

The internet is still buzzing over whether Seth MacFarlane is a hate-filled misogynistic pig after his turn at hosting the Oscars the other night. In particular, the "I Saw Your Boobs" song has attracted much outrage. That'd be the pre-recorded stunt in which Naomi Watts and Charlize Theron, two of the actresses named in the song, were willing participants in the joke.

The overwhelming reaction to this song was a festival of missing the point. As Seth MacFarlane and the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles tunefully rattled off a litany of silver screen breast appearances, pearls were clutched all over the place. Special outrage was saved for his name-checking of actresses who showed their breasts while playing characters who were raped.

Was I the only person who saw this as a satire on the rationalisation process actresses go through when they appear nude on camera for serious roles? How many times have we heard actresses say with a perfectly straight face that the nudity was essential to the storyline or the development of the character? It's artistic nudity as opposed to X-rated movie nudity, so the narrative goes. And, just as the "I Saw Your Boobs" routine demonstrated ironically, it's seldom career suicide to go naked for a serious role. The song listed amazing performances by talented actresses who are clearly valued for more than their breasts.

When I worked at FHM in Australia, the "would you go nude for a role?" question was asked of pretty much every actress who appeared in the magazine when they appeared for a shoot in either lingerie or a bikini. Even a ditzy soap opera star who was hardly likely to end up in a remake of Monster's Ball would give the cookie cutter "If it's appropriate for the role..." answer.

It's certainly more refreshing to hear about actresses who question the need for nudity and have won the battle to not get their breasts out. In today's Metro, Mia Wasikowska says that she has indeed turned down nude scenes and questioned their relevance to the script.

Actresses who chooses to go nude for a scene of sexual abuse don't do it to titillate the audience. But once that scene is out there, there is nothing to stop moviegoers from being aroused even if it is a thoroughly traumatic scene. As such, supposedly high-end men's magazines, such as GQ, have run galleries of breasts in movies and there are countless websites and forums dedicated to leering over naked actresses and flagging up films that feature breasts, bums and vulvae.

No actress has ever said: "Yes, I got naked because I knew it would get bums on cinema seats, turn people on and make the studio pots of money." but that doesn't stop some people from seeing movies because they want to see breasts. People can be creepy.

Perhaps now we can have a conversation on why breasts even need to feature in rape scenes at all. These scenes are always hard to watch, and the sounds and facial expressions of both victim and perpetrator can speak volumes without anyone's private parts being exposed. Such a conversation sounds like a rather po-faced outcome of a comedy sketch, but comedy should exist as a catalyst for serious discussion.

It is stunning that the joke needs to be explained. Did everybody miss the irony of a group of gay men singing about the joys of seeing boobs? Yes, it was a bit puerile but taking the piss out of the earnestness of actresses who've gone nude is a perfectly valid topic for satire. The mention of us seeing Scarlett Johansson's boobs on our phones was a bit unnecessary as that was breast exposure without her consent, but the rest of the song's content was fair game.

Are you wondering why the song wasn't called "I Saw Your Dick"? Off the top of my head, I can recall seeing three actor penises: Harvey Keitel in The Piano, Kevin Bacon in Wild Things and Michael Fassbender in Shame. That is three penises since 1993. Or an average of one cinematic willy every 6.666 years.

There's a gender divide in getting naked to get credibility. That is absolutely worth a spot of satire at the annual festival of frocks, red carpet body snarking, insincerity and nauseating self-congratulation.


Image courtesy of www.kozzi.com

Not all boobs are created equal

Breasts have been getting plenty attention lately. First, there was the mass hysteria of Kate Middleton's royal breasts getting snapped by a paparazzi photographer. Then she was deemed a jolly good sport after she was greeted by bare-breasted women in the Solomon Islands.  Meanwhile, there is a campaign to get The Sun to drop the Page 3 girls. And, in case you weren't aware, October is Breast Cancer Awareness month

The outcry over topless Kate Middleton was hypocritical and hilarious. Unless she was a vocal campaigner against topless sunbathing, those photographs were not in the public interest. But the sanctimonious outrage of newspapers and magazines who routinely get copy sales and clicks from stories about famous women's body parts was pathetic. Close-ups of cellulite, speculation over baby bumps, scrutiny over weight gain, mock concern over weight loss, expert commentary from cosmetic surgeons as to whether implants/Botox/fillers/facelifts have happened - apparently these invasions of privacy are completely newsworthy and not at all demeaning. But as soon as a French magazine published topless royal boobs, the pearls were clutched so hard they were ground to a fine powder.

Then Kate met topless women in Solomon Islands and she was congratulated on how well she handled that encounter. Naturally, she smiled demurely and averted her eyes. Did anyone seriously she think she would point, guffaw and say something completely heinous like: "I was hoping to get mine as tanned as yours!" like a grotesque female equivalent of Prince Phillip?

And the women of the Solomon Islands were consenting to being photographed bare-breasted. As are the women on Page 3 of The Sun. There is a reasonably lively online campaign to get The Sun to ditch the Page 3 Girl. As of today, about 40,000 people have signed up. But The Sun is a business, not a charity. If they are not haemorrhaging advertisers over the Page 3 campaign, the topless lovelies are likely to stay, regardless of online signatures from people who probably don't buy The Sun and don't click on the website.

The Sun could quite possibly lose the Page 3 Girl from the print edition (but keep her on the website where there is money to be made from mobile phone downloads at £1.50 a pop...) without any real impact on revenue. Perhaps that large chunk of page 3 would be better dedicated to actual news. Hell, what is more offensive here? The bare breasts or the little caption alongside featuring a made-up intellectual quote attributed to Michelle of Essex? Because obviously a woman couldn't possibly be hot and have the capacity to form an intelligent opinion, right?

There is a part of me that is always amused whenever I have a greasy breakfast at the cafe around the corner from my house and the tradesmen reading The Sun don't appear to particularly notice the Page 3 Girl. I've never seen one of these men openly leer at her. She has become part of the British landscape - it could be argued that it is good that breasts are not freaking out people in a puritanical manner. Others might argue she has become invisible and that is equally degrading to women.

Page 3 mostly strikes me as something that was a bit cheeky and mildly amusing in the 70s but these days, it's all a bit tired, like some lame joke your dad might tell every Christmas as he carves the turkey breast. On those grounds, I'd probably retire the Page 3 Girl if I was editor of The Sun. But I'm not, and I doubt Dominic Mohan is losing sleep over the Stop Page 3 campaign.

These last seven paragraphs have been devoted to tits as titillation, to the morality and public interest of photographs of breasts. The debates that rage over these issues focus on breasts as sexual things, as objects to perve on great and small. But it's Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The notion that most of us are already aware of breast cancer is a cynical viewpoint steeped in westernised privilege.

There are plenty of places where there is poor awareness, poor screening and a culture of shame surrounding breast cancer. It is the opposite end of the Page 3 spectrum. A fabulous, feisty friend of mine in the United Arab Emirates used to give breast cancer education sessions to Emirati women and she told me how so many of them would get embarrassed. Women would giggle, run out of the room when the video was played and freak out at the thought of self-examination.

Supporting breast cancer education in countries such as the UAE, and indeed anywhere in the world where it can be culturally difficult to talk openly about breasts, would be a fantastic way to get behind Breast Cancer Awareness Month (or, indeed, at any other time of year because, you know, cancer doesn't stick to a schedule). Please get in touch with me if you'd like to do this, I have contacts.

Or you could make a direct donation to a research facility rather than buying something pink and then finding out that only a tiny proportion of profits actually go where it's needed. Or buying pink-branded make-up for breast cancer only to discover that it contains carcinogens (this has actually happened...). Be smart about your cancer charity donations. A direct donation is better than a Facebook in-joke about handbags or shoes to raise awareness. The voyeurs will certainly appreciate the preservation of breasts, but good human beings will just be glad if women's lives are saved.