What I've been thinking about the whole "Breastfeeding default icon" thing.

[xiphias]

First off, a lot of you may notice that a bunch of people deleted their journals today. Don't worry, most of 'em will be back tomorrow. They're deleting their journals for one day as a protest against the rule that says that you can't have a breast with visible nipple or aureole in your default icon, even if there's a baby nursing on it.

Okay, first off, I don't get what deleting your journals for one day exactly shows, but, whatever. I just wanted to mention that, since I've already seen two people on my friends list going, "WTF? Why did so-and-so delete zir journal? What's up with zir, is zie okay?" Yes, zie is okay, but zie is participating in a kind of, well, pointless protest.

Here's how I look at it. In my ideal world, nudity would be a personal choice ANYWAY. People wouldn't get all worked up about bare body parts. Just wouldn't bother people. So there wouldn't be a rule against bare breasts in LJ icons, because nobody would be bugged by bare breasts in general. I'd kind of hope that people would be more comfortable with the ideas of sex, too, but I'm cool with sex being perceived as a private thing only, so that deliberately sexual things wouldn't be appropriate in in LJ default icons -- I just feel that naked body parts shouldn't be perceived as necessarily sexual. With or without the presence of a baby.

Personally, the way I was raised, my sister and I had identical rules on clothing. Neither of us was allowed to go around topless. At once point, I was going out to Rocky Horror, and my mother looked at me, told me I was NOT going out of the house that way, and made me change into a longer skirt. So I DO feel that it's unfair and wrong that you can have pictures of MALE bare chests and not FEMALE bare chests -- I just feel that the appropriate solution is to ban the display of male bare chests in default icons. What can I say? I'm a prude about some things.

I do feel that women should be allowed to feed their children wherever they are. I feel that to deny that is to make nursing mothers into second-class citizens, because it restricts their movements. But I'd be comfortable setting aside separate areas to feed children, so long as they were ubiquitous, comfortable, easy to get to, and ANYONE feeding an infant, whether nursing or bottle feeding, whether male or female, was expected to feed their children there.

In the Victorian culture, you'd NEVER see a mother, or wet-nurse, feeding a baby in a more-or-less public place. And that acted to confine women to the home when they had a child, restricting their movements, eliminating their ability to participate in public life. That is simply not acceptable.

I also understand the importance of symbolism. I understand how restricting the symbol of a picture of a nursing infant as a default picture feels like restricting the identity associated with that symbol, and therefore the action.

But still, the point remains:

It's a freakin' LJ icon.

Look. I understand how emotional people are about this issue -- there are good, strong evolutionary and biological reasons, as well as logical reasons, which mean that it's IMPOSSIBLE to NOT have this issue be important. Besides the fact that restrictions on breastfeeding have the effect of making women choose between nursing children and being involved in the outside world, the act of breastfeeding ITSELF produces oxytocin and other neurotransmitters which DIRECTLY create emotion. So you've got a valid logical reason which is reinforced by the most direct emotional inputs imaginable.

And yet:

SixApart is making deliberate rules to stay under the radar of American anti-porn crusaders. In general, I dislike doing things like this -- it feels like knuckling under to bullies. But. . .

It's a way of avoiding the fight. And it's a fight that ought to be fought. And LiveJournal and SixApart are restricting the actions of their own users, in order to make an attempt to avoid being drawn into the fight.

Is that cowardice?

I used to think so.

When I was younger, I felt that injustice is injustice. It must be fought wherever it is encountered, in its largest manifestations to its smallest. No matter what it is, no matter how small, or how large, you have to do everything in your power to right it.

The LJ default icon thing IS an injustice. It's a fairly small one -- it RELATES to big issues, but, in itself, it's small. And, when I was younger, I'd have felt that it must be fought with all your might.

I'm tired now.

And I understand tiredness. I understand trying to marshal your strength, trying to avoid the fights you can avoid, so that you can fight the ones that have to be fought. I understand picking your battles.

And we have so many battles.

I'd love to be able to fight this one. But it's just not happening.

For me, I say, "Let SixApart and LiveJournal place arbitrary restrictions on default user icons. And then don't use your default icon -- use the rest of your icons. Let SixApart and LiveJournal try to stay out of the porn fight in the United States -- I don't think that they will manage to do it; I don't think that these restrictions will work to keep them out of the battle if the anti-porn folks want to stick it to them, but whatever -- let them try. They're doing the wrong thing, but. . . let them. I don't have the strength to fight everything, and this is one I can let slide. If we could stop the big things by stopping them when they're little, that would be one thing. And when things are going well, you CAN stop things from going massively wrong by fixing the little things before they spiral. But right now, things ARE going massively wrong, and things like this? They're collateral damage. Work on the big things -- there's just not enough energy to fix everything."

Comments

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

Well said.

[alcinoe.livejournal.com]

Of course, if folks don't take a stand and say "breastfeeding is NOT porn" nothing will ever change.

<-- spoken as someone who was forced into a "private" corner to nurse her child because it might "offend" someone.

I am not saying that the deleting of journals isn't pointless, but I do feel that the idea, even by someone as small in the scheme of things as blogging, you are saying that it is okay to view nursing as porn. Personally, if I were nursing, I would choose a famous sculpture of a nursing mother and use THAT as a default icon, to show that there is nothing about breastfeeding that one should be afraid of.

I guess that I have seen so much injustice when it comes to nursing that it does bother me on a fundemental level. LJ and sixapart should take a page from New York were the law is such that ANYONE can remove thier shirt in public.

[ailbhe]

People have been suspended for medieval paintings of the Virgin Mary feeding the Baby Jesus. I don't think a statue would fare much better.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

No. I'm not saying it's okay. I'm just saying I'm too tired to fight it.

[alcinoe.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. I am not of the belief that people should feel compelled to protest this at all. I am just saying for those who wish to, it is a valid thing to protest against. At the very least they are being heard if the plethora of posts on the subject can attest.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Protests primarily exist to make the protesters feel good. Effecting change requires protesting in a fashion that will make the power-holders notice. Removing journals for a day at most promotes awareness of the issue. Canceling a paid account permanently and demanding a refund would be a step toward actually affecting the stakeholder, but the lack of people doing this says something about the protest.

But at this point I generally don't even lecture people who protest minor points. While it's true that it takes a bit of their attention away from other, perhaps more important issues, it's also true that "protest time" is not a fungible quantity, and that participating in one doesn't necessarily remove time from others...

[gingicat]

Some people have moved their journals to greatestjournal in protest, actually.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Evidently they haven't been tooting their own horn loudly enough. Have they informed LJ management of why? Did they have paid accounts here? Both are excellent steps to ensure their actions are heard...

[gingicat]

I have no idea; this is hearsay from a friend of mine who's a member of boob_nazis.

[cheshyre]

Just looked at the community, given your link.
There's a thread by members who think the protest is crazy and overblown and counterproductive. Among self-proclaimed boob_nazis!

And doesn't LiveJournal have a relatively peaceful and quiet feeling to it today? Maybe more of these folks should stay away more often. :).

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i actually think that this is a silly way by six apart to try to evade the anti-porn brigade -- and they're doing no such thing anyway because even anti-porn people are smart enough to look past the default icons to the rest of the site which is amazingly liberal (try some of the art sites instead and you'll find that you can't display many, many things there that you can, in fact, display on LJ). i think overall LJ does great in the grander scheme of freedom of expression. i also think they should allow the breastfeeder default icons because in california, where their headquarters are located, breastfeeding in public is legal.

i have, however, also no patience for the militant boob folks. too many of their arguments strike me as inane. and their actions are ineffectual. have individuals write reasoned letters to six apart (i did). create a petition and collect signatures, and then send that to six apart. if you want to be louder, leaving LJ in protest, dumping your paid account might make a noise that'll be heard if enough people do it (i'd save that as a last resort). but making more work for the abuse team? the LJAT doesn't make policy. deleting your journals? who do you think even notices other than your friends? *rolls eyes*. it's just all so very LJ -- tons of drama, people working themselves into a frenzy, but not doing a thing that might actually have an effect. they behave like teenagers, and not very bright ones at that.

six apart is not the actual enemy here.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

At least at one point LJabuse had changed the rule to "we don't care what the female breast is doing; no areola in default icon"

True, male areolas are allowed uncovered, but I don't see how at that point it's still a breastfeeding issue.

bleh. I also don't get why breastfeeding as default icon is so attractive, but :shrug:

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

oops; you did just say that.

So it's a matter of "how dare you tell us that adding a baby to a picture of a breast with a nipple/areola showing isn't sufficient to make it no longer a breast with a nipple/areola showing?"

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

It's an attempt at hitting SixApart where its wallet is, although I don't think it's a particularly /good/ attempt at it.

[(Anonymous)]

"But right now, things ARE going massively wrong, and things like this? They're collateral damage. Work on the big things -- there's just not enough energy to fix everything."

What is massively wrong? Iraq, global warning, little preparation for a bird flu pandemic, North Korea with nuclear bombs, ... Nipples on an LJ icon or in a football halftime show is nothing. Porn is nothing. Don't get distracted.

[sarianna.livejournal.com]

I hate to come across as...um...prejudiced (anti-boobism?), but I'm actually uncomfortable with the breastfeeding photo userpics in communities. I don't have a problem with discreet breastfeeding of children in public at all, but the key word there is "discreet." She's a stranger, and this culture dictates that one's under-clothing bits aren't to be flung about for everyone to see. Yes, my closest friends have a clothing-optional apartment ("Clothing is not a form of self-expression unless it's optional!" reads the sign at the door), but that is only as long as everyone there consents to others' nudity...

Is any form of nudity okay, regardless of whether bystanders consent? Does a breastfeeding child automatically negate a need for consent?

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i don't like to see breastfeeding either, but that has nothing whatsoever to do with nudity -- it's because i have a squick about messy eating, and babies, well, tend to be messy eaters. i don't like sucking sounds either. however, i consider it my idiosyncrasies, and would be mortified if any mother were to take that as a guide for her feeding habits. if i don't like something, i can look elsewhere. discretion? that's not always easy, and depends much on baby and on breast size -- some babies don't latch on well, and the mother needs to carefully check.

this culture dictates. which culture? LJ is read all over the world, and there are subcultures (those enamored of madonna), who fling their underclothing above their outerwear quite deliberately. hiphop clothing seems to enjoy bearing much underclothing, as well as a hefty serving of buttcrack. construction workers work with their shirts off. pop idols wear extremely little, and there are many, many teens emulating them. i figure it desensitizes us about unimportant stuff, which is all for the better. culture changes all the time, and hey, some people have got to push the envelope.

i feel that way in general about encountering other people in public places -- if i don't like something, i can look or go elsewhere. that holds true for colour-clashing clothing, and makeup to rival tammy fae baker, why shouldn't it hold for naked bodies? the social contract means that i don't kill you, injure you, steal from you, and the like, do i really have to accept random strangers as my fashion consultants too? :)

now, noise, noise is another matter. if only people were more discreet about yapping on their cellphones...

[marquisedea.livejournal.com]

...and made me change into a longer skirt. HA! That is excellent.

I feel similarly on this issue. I always thought it was unfair that men can go shirtless in public and women can't. But noooo it would cause traffic accidents, boo hoo!

I think it should a consistent rule either way. And there are some pretty nasty dudes out there *coughinreverecough* that I would much prefer keep their damn clothes on and spare us.

[nematoddity.livejournal.com]

Weirdly, this came up on a random icon search through Google, of all places, but I'm really intrigued now...can I link to this in my journal? Which is now, and which was when you wrote this originally, undeleted?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Please do.