There is a lot we don't know about pain and breastfeeding. It is, I agree, patronising to say 'if it hurts you aren't doing it right' but what if we turn it around so instead of saying that, it comes out as ''ok, you're telling me breastfeeding hurts; lets see if we can fix it so it doesn't'. Please - have I to stop saying that to women, in case they start getting cross with me?
I know that in a very small number of cases, breastfeeding hurts and there is no cure except time. But I have been a breastfeeding counsellor for a long time, and (almost) every woman I see can, with the right support and info, feed with either no pain or less pain. I really don't think they are lying to me, or that I have some sort of hold on them so they say what they think I want to hear. I don't touch them, I don't touch their babies, but I do listen to what they are telling me, and I do look at what their baby is doing and what they are doing.
I hear and see many women who have been told their baby is feeding well, and there is nothing that can be done. It is so not true in almost every case.
The truly patronising thing, IMHO, is to tell women 'you can't be doing it right' and then just leave them to it! Or to tell them they are 'doing it right' and they should just put up with the pain as it is meant to hurt.
It has nothing to do with the inevitability of pain resulting from constant sucking on a sensitive part of the body - the pain usually results from the tongue compressing the nipple against the roof of the mouth. This is a way of getting milk out the breast, but it is not the most effective and it is the most painful.
Just as feet shouldn't hurt when they're used for walking unless you wear ill-fitting shoes or tread on sharp surfaces....breasts and nipples shouldn't hurt when they're used for feeding