IT'S ABOUT BREASTS!

 01/07/2005

I promised not be surprised by the plain damned foolishness of politicians and bureaucrats, but am again amazed There’s been another exposed breast like the Jackson-Timberlake affair; followed by demands the media pony up huge fines to "protect" public morality. Somebody in Washington is not thinking clearly. Such fines only cater to narrow, hypocritical interests and actually work against genuine morality.

Now, I am a lifelong admirer of the well developed breast; they do not greatly affront my morality. One might consider Justin Timberlake’s attack on Ms. Jackson’s wardrobe an objectionable act, as I certainly did, but I doubt the display of Ms. Jackson’s breast did any great harm. Certainly, not to the extent of the $700,000 dollar fine. Am I wrong to think the fines are intended more to appeal to a political base than to improve morality.

Am I wrong to suspect the vast majority of the men who witnessed the event got early views of human breasts as I did, by perusing old National Geographic Magazines. Or that somewhere in memory each man holds a fond memory to the young lady who first afforded an unobstructed personal view or genuine "touchy-feely" of the forbidden objects.

Unlike our recent attorney general, John Ashcroft, I don’t feel shame, disgust or indignation at the sight of a naked breast. And most of the World doesn’t either. Europeans do not feel morally threatened by an occasional bared breast. Rather, they are astonished and amused by the puritanical stream that runs through American society. Statues and paintings featuring "sinful," bare breasts are common and normal to most Europeans. They are featured in advertising, and no one seems the worst for it. In fact, real "live, naked, nude" people even appear on beaches, on billboards, in television, movies, and in magazines. I expect that Europeans are more appalled by our treatment of prisoners, the poor and the aged or our overbearing attitudes than by the occasional exposed breast. Many Asian and African share the European views.

Might it be that American concepts of sexual morality are root causes of the perverse sexual behavior of some of our citizens? Undeniable discrimination against women is endemic to our culture. Might it be that attitudes against women are a direct effect of ideas, primarily religious, that define women as lesser beings subject to the will of the opposite sex? One only need compare the rates of abuse, assault, rate and murder of women in the United States and in Europe to think it so.

I recently read of a woman threatened with arrest for breast feeding her child in public because men might become excited. Pardon me for pointing out the hypocrisy; there is nothing improper with a woman feeding her baby as nature intended. But it is decidedly wrong that a man who cannot control his sexual feelings in public. Arrest the man, if you must arrest, but let’s stop the hypocrisy. Breasts have been and will continue to be around for a long time; there is no demonstrable evidence that they are inherently evil. It is time to again expose lady justice to the World.