Lactation support conference in Ireland - the quiet part out loud

I wonder whether by using the word 'lactation', he has the (not very) plausible deniability that when he talks about sexual gratification and kink, of course hes not talking about involving babies being fed, purely the act of producing and secreting 'milk'.

Yeah, right.

On another note, I dont understand the disapproval of donor breast milk upthread by a PP. Some tiny prem babies, including my own, cannot tolerate formula - their tiny unformed bodies cannot process it. If i hadn't been able to express I dread to think what would have happened because our hospital didn't have a milk bank facility. They can literally be life saving.

Lifestyle questionnaires for donors and screening the milk, just like they do for blood donations ensures its as safe as possible. Its no different to donor blood! If you accept the concept of lifesaving blood donations, why not milk?

No Mother is using donor milk just because she 'prefers' it to formula - that's a horribly ignorant thing to say and implies its an unnecessary lifestyle choice.

I had a good look at the ALCI website. Someone is very busy on there. No longer are the two posters for the conference visible. Nor is there a link to purchasing entry tickets. Ardilaun Hotel Galway not mentioned. I highly suspect the hotel has been contacted, that’s the way these things work in Ireland. It’s a small family hotel, well known in Galway, and yes I’ve been there and will be actually in Galway the week after the conference. (I live on the continent).

The membership is clearly 100% women. The listed professionals are all women, I’ve only a doubt about one named individual that doesn’t have a photo. Photos from prior conferences are 99.9% women. Breastfeeding professionals. The .01% is a male presenter from the conference 2 years ago. Plus a picture of a couple with a pregnant woman.

What strikes me is how strong is the word Lactation, rather than Breast-feeding. Also striking is the avoidance of the word Woman. I’m beyond wondering is it an error, or my heightened senses, because I’m certain it’s deliberate.

The link for board members is missing.

When they talk about chestfeeding by men isn't it more likely that this refers to women who identify as men?

For the purpose of such materials, and throughout ALCI Education Events, the terms Breastfeeding and Mother are chosen without bias or prejudice.

I know others might not agree, but I do give them credit for agreeing that 'mother' and 'breastfeeding' can be used as neutral terms that don't imply anything about identity/personality/behavour/preferences.

However, I'm baffled that they don't understand why it's necessary to exclude fetishists/the fetish adjacent from their conference, or why they think somebody with these links is the best person to advise the people who are overwhelmingly likely to be seeking their advice - women, regardless of how they identify.

It's all very Jolyon Maugham 'helping black and brown people'.

I don't know. But he's already set up a thing called breastfeeding for kinksters.

The entire concept would be illegal. I'm sure it's only a question of time.

It is amazing that he feels he can say what he says with impunity. The problem is that he's purely talking about the reactions of the men in these circumstances. Is stating that a sufficient defence against the kind of criticism you're making?
I'm not looking to split hairs, I just wonder if listing the benefits to men falls into the strict legal category you're suggesting?

I'm sure there's truth in that.

But be that as it may, it's illegal to encourage people into the sexual abuse of a child. It doesn't matter how much they fondly imagine it's progressive.

A big part of this movement is that it's been adopted by apparently the cleverest most intelligent people. Certainly the most upwardly mobile educated and credentialised classes.
I read a blog which stated that these are precisely the classes who believe themselves to be so above reproach, the least likely to self reflect, the most unwilling to consider alternate points of view.
This combination of self-selected ruling class can only see their viewpoint, people with views that differ are there not to be convinced otherwise by argument, but to be educated to think straight.
Inviting this fellow would have been all part of this, he's self identified (sorry for the pun) into the credentialised groupthink culture, and this means the organisers have a blind spot on his more, how shall I call it, outré opinions.
To be so convinced by your own cultured worldview and effete superiority that you as a breastfeeding body can bury the "ick factor" when you read he talks about biological men being encouraged to chest feed babies amongst other things to derive sexual gratification, is an absolute sign less of group think than group.psychosis.
But the arrogant conceit you're "better" than the dissenter class is a powerful all-consuming drug.

Until this thread I was unaware of breast milk being couried etc. My firstborn was in the neonatal unit for 10 days, the nurse knew I wished to breastfeed, so she fed my baby from a cup instead of a bottle until I managed to get there from my hospital room the next morning. From the babies I saw there I learnt that breast milk was liquid gold and the marvellous nurses were really grateful that I donated mine to help those babies thrive.

There was no watching me, there was a special room for me to be with my baby (and husband).

I’m really outraged that something so special, so important for women and babies is now something equated with sexual deviants in men. Will these men with sexual perversion ever leave us women anything which is pure and beautiful. The senior consultant, a wonderfully talented man, demonstrated my baby the day we left to a junior doctor and emphasised the importance of breastfeeding. There was nothing wrong with my baby, they were concerned about low birthweight, so it was nothing to me to donate my breast milk to the hard working dedicated nurses doing everything to help the poor mites i saw in the neonatal unit.

What's fascinating about the conference organizer's "defence" is that even when the quote of "sexual gratification" is made known to them, they don't immediately disagree and show horror.
No, they're too busy saying nothing can stick to them.
Cowards in every way, covering their backs rather than being humble and apologetic.

Worrying, isn't it? Why aren't they bloody shocked??

Well, now the spotlight is on them. They will be scrutinised wherever they set up shop. Time will tell whether it was cowardice, or complicity.

From the statement "Families accessing lactation services have diverse [...] feeding goals".

Well, there's diverse and diverse isn't there?

The feeding goal - the only feeding goal - should be nourishing the child. That may have diverse elements - establishing feeding, increasing supply, mixed feeding, extended feeding etc - but the ultimate goal is getting the best food into the baby as effectively as possible.

Other goals, like gender euphoria and sexual gratification, are a diversity that should be absolutely nowhere near it.

I'm obviously exaggerating to make a point, but the point still holds. The organizers didn't call the speaker to account when his views were made known, and even now, there's no contrition, just the legalese of "our utilizing his services in no way means all his views ally with ours".
They know they're so in hot water, so drawing a legal distinction is all they have.

Angle, I'm just as baffled as you are...
...not!

Earlier on today I did contemplate tagging a few of them into the discussion, but it probably counts as bullying, so I didn't.

What the actual F????

Steady on, Marc! - this is a very serious matter, but Nazi sympathiser/synagogue/Jewish charity would be a hugely different level of serious.

This is an example of the damage that the 'LGBTQ+ acronym does to the LGB community - men attempting to appropriate women's biological functions is not a lesbian and gay thing, it's a trans thing, and yet again 'Gender Diversity' = transgenderism.

But you can see how it will be portrayed - pearl-clutching right-wingers cancelling an LGBTI+ speaker. The ALCI statement is clinging to the 'diversity' line, and specifically refers to the Irish govt's 'LGBTQI+ [sic]' strategy as justification.
LGB✂T is urgently needed.

But it's not like the ALCI's invitation to JE was an oversight, and they didn't check what he was going to be talking about .
They make it clear on their website that 'chestfeeding' by men is part of their 'ethos'
ALCI Ethos
ALCI is dedicated to the Protection, Promotion and Support of Breastfeeding for all persons. ALCI is inclusive to all persons and the intention of our written material, protocols, statements and position statements is to remain inclusive to all breastfeeding, chest feeding and human milk feeding individuals. For the purpose of such materials, and throughout ALCI Education Events, the terms Breastfeeding and Mother are chosen without bias or prejudice. ALCI fosters a positive ethos and operates a policy of equal respect, regard and fair treatment for all Council Members, Members, Attendees, Speakers, Exhibitors, Hospitality Staff and Visitors.
Term and Conditions of ALCI's Events - ALCI

So even if they were not aware of JE's comment about sexual gratification, they deliberately invited him as a promoter of 'human milk feeding individuals'.

The hotel were very wise to decide that having talk about men chestfeeding was controversial enough, but if he is on record as having associated that activity with sex, that would be a PR disaster for them.

This is like a Jewish charity inviting a speaker to a synagogue who's bio includes the phrase "the Nazis didn't get everything wrong, what we can learn from them", and then throwing their hands up that they can't be held accountable for these views.
What's fascinating about the conference organizer's "defence" is that even when the quote of "sexual gratification" is made known to them, they don't immediately disagree and show horror.
No, they're too busy saying nothing can stick to them.
Cowards in every way, covering their backs rather than being humble and apologetic.

I have read the UKAMB website and a US equivalent one too. They screen the donors by doing a blood test and lifestyle questionnaire; then they test the donated milk for certain pathogens like E Coli, before and after pasteurisation. I'm glad they do that obviously but there'd still be a chance that the donated milk isn't actually hers, or is diluted with formula, or she's started drinking since that blood test, or lots of other (albeit unlikely) possibilities that wouldn't be picked up by the pathogen test. You may well say "yeah but why tf would a donor want to do something like that", but that's not how safeguarding works, we can't just assume the best intentions of everyone. Why tf would any mum let her male partner try to breastfeed, right? So stranger things have happened.

"Jacob's profession work and educational experience focuses specifically on supporting gender diverse and LGBTQ+ families within lactation care"

Except according to his website his actual focus is non-gestational parents and according to his CV he isn't really too bothered about whether they are parents. And that's before you get to kinks. Are there no female LGBTQ+ lactation consultants who could give advice based on their own experience?

"Nor does inviting a speaker constitute endorsement of every view that speaker may hold"

WTF???!!!

I'm talking about how wrong it is for the baby that there is milk specifically being naturally produced for that baby that is going to waste while its new mother induces some with drugs.

I don't know if wetnursing is any crueller to the birth mother than removing at birth.

I don't know how breastmilk can be screened but I will read more about it.

It seems possible it would be additionally cruel to the actual mother to expect her to be a wet-nurse but also to have to regard the baby she is feeding as not hers. A refinement of what I suspect would be torture anyway; making it go on for even longer. For how long would she be expected to nurse her own baby on someone else's behalf? Three months, six? A year? Longer?

The whole setup is simply wrong, wrong, wrong, but that would pile even more wrongness onto it.