Show Me The Booby (Other Sociology Textbooks)

Member Name: zoe_page_1

Product:	Other Sociology Textbooks
Date:	18/06/03 (158 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fascinating without being gory

Disadvantages: Jilted style at times

** Though not a textbook, this is related to Sociology. I'll get dooyoo to move it if they manage to add the book itself for me as a separate product.

Review of - Fresh Milk: The Secret Life of Breasts



“Breast milk is worth approximately $50 a liter”


Did you know that some people find that breast milk tastes “like the milk left in the bowl after eating cereal”? This makes some sense to me, since breast milk is supposed to be full of nutrients, and I remember reading an article on the subject recently which said you should always drink the milk (or juice or whatever) that you pour over cereal since a lot of the good stuff washes off the flakes when you do so. What’s left when you’ve eaten it is a vitamin (and salt and sugar) enriched version of whatever liquid you chose. A vague artificial attempt at creating a substance as beneficial as breast milk, if you will. The breast milk / cereal milk comparison is just one of a number of issues raised in this book.


“…any girl can squirt milk by pushing out that little gland behind your nipple”


Fiona Giles first sprang to fame with her book “Dick for a Day”, a look at what women would do if they were put in that position, but I’ d not heard of her until a few weeks ago. The mother figure sends me newspaper clippings when she writes to me here, and one of these, taken from the Weekend section of the Saturday Times, included a look at Giles’ new book: “Fresh Milk: The secret life of breasts”. The extracts in the article intrigued me, and when I saw that one of the online sellers here in Germany was offering it at remarkably low price, I ordered a copy at once.


“Since 1993 Norway has included human milk output in its annual reports of national food production”


The book looks solely at breastfeeding, but in a way no other te
xt or manual on the subject ever has. It’s not to do with breast being best, or how to get your newborn to latch on and stay there. It’s the culmination of a research project by Giles in which she personally interviewed women and men all over the world, and sent questionnaires to many more, all concerning the other side, the less talked about aspects of breastfeeding, or, as she puts it, the secret life of breasts. It’s a work of non-fiction, but it still reads a little jilted at times. Like a mini-dissertation might, for example, or a school project. Each chapter looks at Breastfeeding from a different perspective, but all contain sentences such as “Many of the women interviewed thought x. One went on to say, “I feel especially that….”. As such it is not a “sit down and read” book – more of a “flick though to find what you’re looking for” one. It doesn’t flow and there’s no easy progression from one section to the other, but this isn’t that much of a problem. The book includes tales from people who have something to say on the subject, written entirely in their own words, with Giles merely including the odd linking section, or summarizing what others have told her on the same topic. Everything is explained in layman’s terms which, together with the rather scientific approach, results in it being rather odd to read. Not bad, or hard, or impossible, just odd. The odd bit of breastfeeding terminology is thrown in here and there, but you quickly learn what they mean, and many mothers and fathers would know the terms already.


“She went to this all night party and her breasts got really hard so her partner emptied them for her by sucking all the milk out”


What sort of stories does the book contain? Giles seems to be interested in everything - apart from straight forward, easy to do breastfeeding. There are horror stories of cracked
, bleeding nipples, mastitis and thrush. Tales of the anguish filled attempts to find pleasant, attractive nursing bras. The initial inability to get the babies to nurse, but the continued will to keep trying. These are just the “normal” parts, though. We also here of mothers who manage to produce enough milk to feed their adopted children as well as a birth mother could. Men who learn the best way to comfort their infant is to let them suckle on them when the mother is unavailable. Other men who take it one step further, and begin to produce milk themselves to help with the feeding. Women who feel annoyingly turned on when feeding their newborns, and men who like to feed from their nursing wives. People who much prefer their porn to be of the squirting milky kind. The mother who was understandably outraged to find a stranger had breast fed her daughter without her consent. Members of both sexes who have used breast milk for cooking when the regular stuff ran out. One single man even acquired some breast milk especially so he could try making ice cream with it. There are women who have breastfed twins and triplets, or older and younger siblings simultaneously. Then, there are the tales of those women who breastfed their children for years – until after they had started school in some cases. Some tell of a code their kids came up with for when they want to feed, others simply wait for the little ones to lift up their shirts and start pawing away at the outside of their bras.


“(to wean) I painted spots on my breasts with a felt tip pen and told my daughter my breasts were sick”


In between the case studies there are smaller questionnaire summaries, with some rather bizarre questions. “If your breasts could talk, what would they say?” she asks. She also has transcripts of what children – from toddlers to teenagers – have to say on the subject, and what they remember from the time. Each sto
ry in the book is true, though this may be hard to believe for some. It contains a wealth of information crammed into a few hundred pages, with what Giles believes to be the most important bits highlighted and summarized. If you want to check her references, there’s a bibliography at the back, along with an appendix which contains, among other things, various recipes involving “mother milk”. Anyone for breast milk pie? Most of the stories in the book come from women, and those that do come from men only feature unusual instances – none talk of jealousy of watching their wife and infant bond, and not being able to join in, or the relief that since they’re not the child’s sole source of nutrition, they can go off for the day, come home late, or pop off for a round of golf without worrying all the time that the little one is going hungry.


“The WHO recommend no child should be weaned before the age of 2 ….. it’s been shown that around the world anything from 2 ½ to 7 years is normal”


Giles includes reference to a number of works of art, and quotes from numerous poems and pieces of fiction which refer to the action of nursing. I had no idea there were 2 poems featuring the subject, let alone 2 dozen or so. She also comments on the differences between breastfeeding throughout the world. Australian herself, she has lived in North America too, and also includes examples from Europe and from central and south America, highlighting what is normal practice in these countries – to help other mothers in the village feed, for example, or to employ wet nurses to feed your child while you are unable to, be it due to being out at work, or being at home but physically being unable to. She also points out the sad, but true fact, that breastfeeding is viewed as something to be kept hidden from sight in many western countries, and to be got over with as soon as possible. I know if a 4 year old
next to me on the bus started feeding I’d find it a little strange, though this is common practice in some places. Breast milk is known to be better for babies, and assuming you’ve started your child on “normal” food as well, there’s no reason to stop feeding altogether until they want to.


“All things being equal, breast milk is best for babies. Yet all things are not equal, not by a long shot”


There are no photographs or illustrations in the book, no doubt for fear of attracting the boob obsessed types after a quick fix. It’s probably also to do with the time the book was written, and the age of those contributing. We have all sorts of parenting books at home, but the breastfeeding pictures I remember included people so frumpily dressed no-one would find them attractive. The pert breasts of the young women featured in this book could be another story though.


“The one thing I’d really like is for each of my 2 best friends to feed on me”


I found the book fascinating in a gob-smacking way. I don’t have children of my own, and although I was breastfed for ages, it was a long time ago, so I don’t have any direct experience in the subject (apart from that one 5 year old who decided to try breast feeding with me last year, but let’s not go there). I’d recommend the book, but cautiously. For people (or the partners of people) who have breastfed, fine. You might enjoy it. You might not. But it can’t hurt to try. For those who didn’t want to, or didn’t manage to breastfeed, though, I think it could be a different story. It’s just my opinion, but I got the feeling it could anger or upset some people in this position – especially the tales of successful breastfeeding performed by those not even the child’s birth mother. I may be wrong, but
if this is you, I’d approach the book with caut
ion. No attempt is made to make bottle-feeding mothers guilty, but the potential for jealousy is certainly there. For men, in particular squeamish men, it might be a bit over the top and full of things you *really* didn’t want to know, but it would make a lovely gift for one of those 21st Century men, if any indeed do actually exist. And finally, for women without children, it’s not as off-putting as you might expect. It’s interesting and thought-provoking but perhaps not the most practical book to buy for a pregnant colleague whose breastfeeding days are fast approaching.


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Fresh Milk: The Secret Life of Breasts by Fiona Giles

£8.99 rrp, £7.19 from Amazon.co.uk at the moment (though this is the American import and is a very flimsy covered version)

ISBN: 0743211472

Summary: