I'm not sure what a baby breastfeeding has to do with older women dating younger men, but the idiotic dating site CougarLife.com seems to think there's a connection. The site, which hooks up older women (or "cougars") with young cubs, has a billboard in Los Angeles advertising its services with a picture of a woman breastfeeding a baby who, via painted thought bubble, is asking readers, "Jealous?"
Just to drive the sexualization of breastfeeding home, the mother's breast is blurred out. Sigh. Seriously people? No wonder some women are so convinced that breastfeeding is like incest that they refuse to do it. I think it's all well and good to beautify the human body, but let's not fetishize it to the point where a baby getting its feeding is not only used to sell a dating site, but sexualized to the point where he's having dirty thoughts about his own mother.
It's this kind of thing that makes it so difficult for moms to breastfeed in public. As long as the breast is seen as something that's meant solely for male pleasure -- and not for its original intent, which is to feed babies, in case you've forgotten -- then it is marginalized as some kind of out-of-the-norm behavior. Seriously, isn't it odd that big breasted women with their tatas hanging out are routinely used to sell everything from motor oil to fast food in this country -- and yet a woman's tatas are still seen as offensive in hanging out in service of keeping a human being alive? Something's wrong with this picture.
Not surprisingly, the billboard did draw some fire, with people on Twitter criticizing the company by saying, "That's so offensive to nursing mothers. It should be removed." Says another: "Nursing mothers? Offensive to any mothers. Or women. Or anyone who was ever a baby." Another: "This woman isn't DATING the baby, she's FEEDING her child." (Another person thought it was offensive but to the cougars, saying it implied they wanted to "f**k children.")
But CougarLife.com isn't sorry. In fact, they seem quite gleeful over the controversy, posting a pic of the billboard on Twitter and saying, "It's a joke, not a d*ck ... don't take it so hard." Stay classy, Cougar Life.
Nevertheless, reportedly pressure got to be too much and the ad is slated to be taken down this morning. Cougar Life has not apologized.
Do you think this billboard is offensive?
Image via CougarLife.com