"Have you no shame?"

There are many things you notice when you leave your own country for the first time. If, like me, you end up living abroad for a long period, you will start to see more and more interesting differences between where you were born and where you currently live. Because we are human, we tend to put these differences into positives and negatives.

The other day, I read an article on CNN.com - http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/07/27/nursing.cover.ap/index.html - that sums up one thing that is truly wrong with American thinking and culture. The article is specifically about the cover of a parenting magazine that has a close-up picture of a baby suckling its mother's breast. The article also covers, in a more general sense, the way Americans (mostly women) feel about breastfeeding in public. There seems to be a large number of people in the U.S. who feel that seeing someone breastfeeding her child is "gross," and "inappropriate."

I showed the article around to some of my Brazilian friends (both men and women), and they thought nothing of the picture. Regarding breastfeeding in public, there is simply no issue with it at all.

I must say, that, as an American, the first time I saw how nonchalant women are down here in breastfeeding in front of others, I was a bit shocked. After all, I had had very few experiences with seeing a woman breastfeed in the U.S. But after thinking about it for a time, I began to see the truth. It is not the Americans who are right in this, it is the Brazilians.

Let's get to the point here.

The point is not that breastfeeding is bad. Numerous studies have shown that children who are breastfed have a variety of advantages over those who are only bottle fed.

The point is that Americans' puritan beliefs, ingrained in us from times long ago, tell us that "seeing" a woman' breast is sexual and that sex is bad.

Just take a look at what one mother in the article said…

One mother who didn't like the cover explains she was concerned about her 13-year-old son seeing it.

"I shredded it," said Gayle Ash, of Belton, Texas, in a telephone interview. "A breast is a breast -- it's a sexual thing. He didn't need to see that."

Think about that statement for a second. Think about the sheer ignorance of it. This woman "shredded" the cover of a magazine that had a picture of one of the most basic, loving, and natural human exchanges on it because she thought her 13-year-old son did not need to see it.

Honey, I got news for you. In today's world, while you are shredding that cover of a partially exposed breast, your "little boy" is on the Web downloading a video of some woman doing ass to mouth and getting cum splattered all over her completely bare breasts.

Jeez! Wake up and smell the coffee!

Did it ever occur to Americans that it is exactly the suppression of sexually charged information that leads to so many pregnant teens and sexually active youths? What is wrong with us when we say that seeing a woman's naked breast is a bad thing at all?

I remember once I saw a news program like 20/20 and there was a shot of a woman at the doctor for a mammogram. Because her breast was exposed to the camera, the FX people pixilated the nipples so that we would not be burdened with that horrible image. Shit… a 5-year-old boy can walk into the bathroom, lift up his shirt, and look in the mirror to see what nipples look like. What the hell is getting covered up? Why?

I would love to know if anyone out there knows of any studies that show the relationship between healthy sexuality and repression of sexuality in the pre-teen years.

For now, I will sit in not-so-silent judgment of all those who would suppress what is natural and good in sex and still not raise an eyebrow at the blood and gore violence so prevalent in the public media.

Little Johnny can't see that woman's nipples because it might fuck him up for life. But watching that cop show that shows blood spurting out of the bullet wound in the criminal's chest is nothing. What is wrong with this picture?