Respect Authority

There are few things I’m not interested in on Facebook. After all, without the status updates of people I barely know, photo albums from long-lost middle school friends and awkward wall-to-walls between mind-numbingly boring couples, what would be left to peruse on the five-year-old social networking site? Actual updates on my actual friends? Psh.

So it’s with mild trepidation, and no small sacrifice to my perception of civil liberties, that I say recent spats over Facebook’s stance on breastfeeding photos have me straddling a fence between what I consider socially nauseating and legally fair game.

Facebook has long barred its now 140 million users from posting what it calls “obscene, pornographic or sexually explicit” content, a limitation I’ve only personally seen the effects of once, when a male high school friend’s waist-up (and more ironic than seductive) naked shower photo was pulled. But in yet another turn of events that proves the world would be a better place without indignant young mothers, the Facebook policy has come under fire lately from women who say their inability to post photos of themselves breastfeeding is a hindrance to — well, to their ability to post photos of themselves breastfeeding.

Kelli Roman, a 23-year-old with two children whose profile picture (naturally, of herself breastfeeding) was removed by Facebook administrators, has become the poster …woman for a larger campaign against what she considers a close-minded restriction on content. Not one for subtlety, Roman’s Facebook group, “Hey, Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene!” has attracted nearly 100,000 members, all apparently irate that they can neither post, nor view, photos of one another in this particular mammalian act.

Here’s where my dilemma starts. On the one hand, I have no real problem with people uploading photos of themselves with babies attached to their boobs. I have to imagine I’m not actively friends with anyone who would feel compelled to do such a thing, but if I did have a friend who chose to post such a photo (Lou) you can be sure I would find it much easier to un-friend them, thus removing myself from the receipt of such photos, before starting a stink with Facebook over explicit content. (Don’t worry, I’d send a little message like “Friend me again when your child’s eating solid food.” I’m nothing if not courteous).

That said, I can’t say I really understand this particular motherly compulsion. Photos of the new baby, with the new baby, next to the new baby — these make sense. But why a mother would feel it a necessity to put up photos of herself breastfeeding is beyond me. I mean, if you really think your friends are waiting with bated breath to see a newborn clamp down on your nipple, use e-mail. Shit, invite them over. Moreover, while Facebook’s awareness of inappropriate content is almost entirely contingent on some do-gooder reporting an offensive photo, the site’s spokesman said photos are only removed if they show “visible nipple or areola,” meaning as long as the infant’s head is well-positioned, you should be in the clear.

What this really boils down to is the never-ending and God-awful annoying habit new mothers have of whipping out their boobs every chance they get — a practice I think is about 40% driven by baby-feeding necessity and 60% driven by their desire to lambaste anyone who might object to the public display. It would seem pulling down shirts in restaurants, or treating an entire ladies room to the disconcerting sound of a breast pump is no longer enough. And sending less-than-discreet personal photos to a handful of interested female friends — not enough either.

Unless all 433 of my online friends can log in to an image of me offering up my right boob to a hungry child, well then shit, my rights are being violated and you can bet your ass I’m going to start an un-creatively named Facebook group about it. After all, this is 2009.