Breast intentions or porn?

[Erica Chan]

This article ties in rather nicely into several feminist debates, so I thought I'd post it and let everyone have fun dissecting and debating. So yes, don't be afraid to post and let everyone know what you think!

Breast intentions or porn?
Published: 8:29PM Friday December 03, 2010. Source, ONE News

A heated debate is raging over an online magazine posting images of readers' breasts on their website.

The NZ Girls Lovely Pair campaign invites readers to display their breasts - with and without bras - in order to raise money and awareness for breast cancer.

The promotion has been slammed as a cheap stunt by youth sexuality educator Rachel Hansen, who labelled it "irresponsible" and "an absolute marketing ploy".

"As soon as you go onto the NZ Girl website you are blasted with advertising, it is absolutely ridiculous... to say that they are not making money out of this campaign," she said.

However NZ Girl founder and director Jenene Freer, who debated the subject with Hansen on TV ONE's Close Up tonight, says such criticism is inaccurate and denies the site has a commercial agenda.

"This isn't a marketing stunt, we're not making any money out of this... once the campaign has finished we will take the images down.

"Ten thousand women have looked at the breast health awareness article as a result of this," she said.

Over the past three days 170 women have posted images of their breasts on the website, and $3,000 has been donated to charity.
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"They're just breasts," Freer said. "50% of the nation have them. Everyone needs them at some point in their life. They're a body part, I can't get my head around why such controversy could be created around such a thing."

Several of the campaign's participants agreed with her, including Lovely Pair Number 12 Anya Merryfield, who posed with some coverage.

"I love my boobs because they're round and jiggly and do all the things boobs should do," she said, adding that she, for one, was certainly not embarrassed by the concept of putting her breasts on display for the world to see.

"My photo's got my face on it, totally not ashamed of that whatsoever. It's what I'd wear to the beach or to work, same level of cleavage really, so I have no reason to be ashamed of my body or how I feel about my body."

However Hansen says the campaign sends a wider message, and is not just about the individual participants.

"I am absolutely in favour of breast cancer awareness campaigns, however, this has to be balanced out with the harm that it causes.

"Calling it the Lovely Pair campaign is just a stark reminder to those women who do not have a lovely pair," she said.

Lovely exploitation?

Hansen also says her concern lies with how the images are used elsewhere.

"I'm just concerned that NZ Girl is absolutely exploiting women because it is ridiculous to believe that every woman who uploaded her photo is fully aware that it could be then posted on explicit pornography websites," she said.

However, Freer disputes claims that the site is exploitative.

"Women have full control over their images, and at the end of the day they put them live.

"It's an informed decision by intelligent women and [Hansen is]...patronising in saying they do not have the brains as well as the breasts."

Merryfield also dismissed criticism directed at the site over the use of the images for pornographic purposes, saying the photos were purely to raise awareness.

"Mine are one of the ones that have [appeared on another website] and to be honest I don't really care. I took the photo for this campaign, I knew that that could possibly happen."

Lovely Pair Number 40, Louisa Curry, agreed. "There is actual real pornography on the internet, I don't want to alarm anybody but there's a lot of porn on the internet and these shots to me aren't pornographic," she said.

But for Hansen the exploitation issue also lies in how old the person is that the breasts belong to.

"One thing I'm concerned about as a youth educator is that they have no way of verifying the age of the women who are uploading photos of their breasts," she said, adding that while the terms and conditions stipulated members had to be 18 or over to participate unless they had parental permission, the site was still bending the law.

"I'm sorry, regardless of parental consent, underage child pornography on a website is actually illegal to host," she said.

Freer maintains no laws have been broken, and that the conditions were reviewed by a lawyer before the campaign began.

And while Hansen insisted the campaign is damaging, Freer remains unapologetic, saying the support she has received makes the controversy worth it.

"We have had so many women who have had breast cancer who have found this empowering," she said.[/size]

[emilykate]

Attitudes to breasts can be astounding at times, but I'm unsure of my own position on this campaign.

Many such campaigns draw controversy, but no one assesses what damage this controversy does, or whether the support attracted can make up for it.

Remember the Facebook campaign earlier this year, where many women made their status updates read 'I like it [completed with the place they put their hand bags when they get home]', e.g., "I like it on the dining room table". Naturally, many were outraged - there were the women who didn't have handbags and disliked the gender stereotype, women who questioned the intentional sexualisation as something so basic as putting down your handbag and women who wanted to know exactly how this stunt raised any real, meaningful breast health awareness. Shockingly, many responses ('comments') I saw on Facebook (by one gender more than another - need I make it clearer?) from 'friends' were hurtful, degrading, insulting and disrespectful to the Facebook user posting the status update in question, and to women in general.

I'm going to make a few general comments on breasts:

• I am not ashamed of my breasts or uncomfortable with them. I understand that this is certainly not the case for all women.
  
• I wholeheartedly support the right of mothers to breastfeed in public - I hope to have the ability to do just that one day myself and horror at the thought of anyone taking offense to me feeding my child, staring at my breast/s or viewing them in a way that is sexual (does anyone perv on plates or cutlery? No? Then way on a woman feeding her child?) suggesting I should be more 'modest' or - worst of all - 'do that in a private place', meaning a public toilet. If you wouldn't eat your lunch there, why should my baby?
  
• The stunt most likely to get me to take active responsibility for my breast health would be for a friend to casually say to me "I had a breast check the other day - all is well, high fives!"
  
• The biggest incentive for me to donate to campaigns/charities/etc has been finding out that a family friend had breast cancer.
  
• Whilst it is by far more common in women, men can have breast cancer too. They may not be able to breast feed, but they also have breast tissue.
  
• Breasts are there as a part of parenthood and child rearing, and yet they are seen first and foremost as a 'sex thing'. This annoys me, because...
  
• On forty-something degree days, when it's boiling, it is still socially expected that I wear a singlet top or similar. And yet, men can go topless. Why, on these occasions, are a woman's breasts so different from a man's chest? Why can't we behave with maturity and accept what is practical in this situation? Why would I be shamed, rebuked, arrested for doing the same thing as most men do in this situation? (As a friend once put it to me: 'I wouldn't tell a soup spoon to put a t-shirt on, because that would be stupid. But breasts are just different' - he couldn't explain to me how they were different, but apparently his 'logic' stands... hmmm...)
  
• There is pornography involving breasts, and there is photography, art - and often there are very fine, even blurred, lines between the two. Sometimes I think it is a case of how the viewer chooses to view what is before them, as much as how the photographer/artist/model/person whose breasts they are presents the situation or piece.
  

Returning to the article, it may be worth noting that NZ Girl is, I think, aimed at women in their 20's-30's; it is not a teen magazine. And yes, there's plenty of advertising. Topics deemed 'popular subjects' include 'GHD', 'Melbourne', 'Socks and hosiery', 'recipes', 'Bonds', 'Interiors' and 'Wedding'; make of that what you will.

The quote from the article that really stood out for me - not so much in its original context, but in general - is...

"They're just breasts," Freer said. "50% of the nation have them. Everyone needs them at some point in their life. They're a body part, I can't get my head around why such controversy could be created around such a thing."

I'm not sure if it's the campaign that's insulting, so much as attitudes to breasts in general. Interested to hear other people's take on the piece.

[Erica Chan]

Hey lanley,

Amazing post. As for my take, I'm conflicted. I know there was another campaign on an American campus somewhere that was entitled 'Save Second Base!' which I completely disagreed with on a similar basis to you - the fact it was making it purely about the sex. That makes this one a little more blurry - from the viewpoint of the people running the campaign, it's not sexual at all, but from the viewpoint of others it is soft porn. I think this goes back to what you said about how the way some people perceive things really says something about the way they think.

For that same reason, I'm also disgusted when people make noises about how it's wrong for women to breastfeed in public, as if it's a shameful or dirty thing. I may not have the confidence to breastfeed in public if it came down to it, but I fully believe that people should be allowed to, because that's just a personal thing of me being not very comfortable in my body.

And I remember that Facebook thing, vaguely. And given it was described to me at the time all about women just describing where they put their handbags and I didn't even know it was supposed to be connected to raising breast cancer awareness, I'll totally agree with it being stupidly sexualised and not useful at all. And it's sad that the people who questioned it were greeted with such scorn.

I suppose the problem is with people hiding behind the mask of healthy body acceptance and 'they're just breasts/I'm proud of them/50% of the population have them' to cover the fact they are sexually exploiting women. I'm not saying that's necessarily the case here, but it's something that needs to be taken into consideration.

Hmm... I suppose what it's taken me a few long paragraphs to agree with you that attitudes to breasts in general are certainly insulting.

[lanley]

*blush* That wasn't me who posted!

On a largely unrelated note, I remember a few years ago when 60 Minutes did an article about some young women who were washing cars in bikinis (for money...I think) and that some people were offended by this. My family and I were all stunned that anyone would object to, as the women in the article pointed out, seeing women wearing what they often wear to the beach! Until the narrator finally pointed out that the women all worked for a strip club in Oakleigh and from memory, where they were washing cars there was a massive billboard promoting the club...changed our perception of the situation!

Well, I suppose it is kind of related, because at first I tbought this campaign was fine, and then the issue of age was raised, which is a serious one. Still, even then I think it partly depends on whether you think that 'pornography' includes pictures of people who are just naked, versus people who are actually having sex. I think the law would be pretty clear on that in the context of minors, though...