Get out the smelling salts--another breast is in full view

"I was shocked to see a giant breast on the cover of your magazine."

"I immediately turned the magazine face down."

"Gross."

"I shredded it. A breast is a breast--it's a sexual thing. He [13-year-old son] didn't need to see that."

"Men are very visual. When they see a woman's breast, they see a breast--regardless of what it's being used for."

"I don't want my son or husband to accidentally see a breast they didn't want to see."

"Gross, I am sick of seeing a baby attached to a boob."

These are some of the things people said about the oh, so shocking idea that a photograph of a woman breast-feeding a baby should be on the cover of a magazine about babies.

There were also several people who supported the idea of including a breast on the cover of BabyTalk, whose cover story is about breast-feeding. And several who said they supported a woman's right to breast-feed, but didn't want to see the photo.

Women sometimes say they want to breast-feed their babies, but know they will have to do it in public, and do not want to deal with the negative attitudes of those around them. They also do not think they should have to take their babies into a restroom in order to feed them.

Last year, a breast-feeding mother was kicked out of a Metairie, Louisiana Starbucks by the manager. "I'm sorry," he told her, "but you can't do this. Personally, I don't have a problem with it, but my customers will." The woman told the manager she was sure it was illegal (in Louisiana, it is illegal) to refuse service to a breast-feeding woman, and his brilliant answer was: "Well, I don't don't know about that, but you can't do it here."

She has since filed a discrimination suit against Starbucks. It turns out that not only is it illegal in Louisiana to kick a breast-feeding woman out of a coffee shop, it is also against Starbucks' official policy.

But I digress. The fact that people are repelled by the sight of a woman's breast is just one more example of misogyny in this culture, and much of it is internalized misogyny. And as for the woman who is convinced that all men are going to get turned on--something I seriously doubt--by the sight of the BabyTalk cover--for the sake of argument, let's say she's right. So what? If passing a drugstore newsstand gives someone a moment of pleasure, whom is it hurting?

A 2004 survey showed that 43% of Americans thought women should have the "right" to breast-feed in public.

A society with a multi-billion dollar pornography industry that repeatedly depicts the breasts of women who are being dehumanized and degraded is the same society that goes berserk if someone spots a woman's breast against a baby's mouth. Obviously, some women do not understand what breasts are for.