Petitioning Parliament to ban males from attempting to breastfeed infants

[zibzibara]

I am considering starting a petition on the https://petition.parliament.uk to ask the government to make a criminal offence for any male attempting to breastfeed an infant from his own nipples.

I've never started a petition before and am wondering if anyone has any tips on how to write this so it doesn't get rejected and encourages people to sign? Would love to hear any advice anyone here can offer!

I'm also concerned about my personal info being revealed on the petition website, does anyone know if there's a way of withholding identity when the petition gets published?

Men, coming between mother and child, in order to try to ‘experience’ motherhood for themselves, are abusing that child and any mother or any service which supports him, is supporting and promoting child abuse. It is simple.

What would motivate a man to get a baby to lick and suck his erogenous zones?

It is so obviously not in the babies best interest.

Baby’s

OP you need to flip it round as a PP said and look at it from the perspective of child protection. Look up the definitions of abuse in here, and make the argument for it being added specifically as a form of physical abuse. I'd argue also emotional but physical is easier to prove:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachmentdata/file/942454/Workinggtogethertoosafeguardchildrenninteragencyyguidance.pdf

Take care folks. While I agree wholeheartedly that what that man on Twitter was doing using a baby as a prop was vile and in my view bordering on abuse, many apologists came on quickly to tell us we were being unkind and the thread was pulled due to it becoming "uncivil ". So should they pop along here try not to get drawn in to the nonsense.

It’s difficult because as others have pointed out, there’s nothing in particular that can be criminalised if people don’t see the situation for what it is.

It’s like people saying “those children on Jimmy Saville’s lap look very uncomfortable” but everyone is shouting about what a great guy he is.

Keep it short and focused. Be clear about what you're asking. Check out other successful petitions and their wording. Then if it passes share it everywhere, talk about it all the time and share it everywhere.

Domperidone, the drug that induces lactation in women (and some kind of nipple secretion in men) can limited to use in women, as was it's purpose. This is an obvious argument to make. It's reasonable to ask the government to enforce this in the NHS and private practice through NICE guidelines and NHS England.

If it was me I would do a bit of research on the Goldfarb technique before writing. I understand that men need double the dose to induce the nipple fluid and there is no research to confirm that the increased dose means the drug doesn't cross the blood-brain barrier in infants.

NICE guidelines wouldn't really stop anything necessarily in private practice I don't think.

I agree with this. Activists like to deliberately obscure discussion, if we make an effort to blank them and not be drawn in by their bait we can keep the discussion on track.

You could try to get a maximum dose of the drugs set (for baby’s safety) Men need far more of the drugs so that would have the effect of banning them.

There are GC lawyers on Twitter who might be able to help if you DMed.

I think this petition would gain publicity, very useful, but not actually achieve much. What we actually need is a medical world, including breast feeding support groups etc, who are not captured and who dare to tell the truth. This we do not have. They all seem to be happily ignoring reality.

You'd have to word it very carefully, as would law makers if it got that far. We see the law of unintended consequences every day now.

If even 'female' and 'male' have lost their proper scientific sense, how could you ensure that trans identified females with a GRC (so legally men) who breastfeed their babies aren't prosecuted?

Whilst I have all kinds of warning signals going off regarding the 'breast feeder' we run the risk of becoming as crazy as the TRA's. Did anyone confirm that the person had taken cocktails of drugs? Perhaps a letter to the Secretary of State for Health but tackling these sorts of things is best served by tackling women's rights, not trans bashing.

It’s about child abuse.

A pp mentioned Jimmy Savile upthread. I thought ‘lessons have been learned’ about Savile and how abuse can go on in plain sight if no one challenges it. Aren’t there policies and procedures now in place to stop another Savile?

If Savile got kids to suck his body parts on camera there may have been an outcry.

The cocktail of drugs is a side issue.

As is the feelings of revulsion and disgust we feel when we see innocence abused.

The mother-baby dyad should not be intruded upon or interfered with unless it is in the baby’s best interest. It’s abusive to come between a baby and it’s mother if it is not in the baby’s best interest or it’s mother’s.

A man should not be getting a baby to suck his nipples. It is such obvious abuse. There is no reason, in the baby’s interest, to do it.

Just because babies are so helpless and innocent and vulnerable, it is no reason to treat them like their rights don’t matter and it is okay to abuse their suckling instincts to pleasure adults.

There isn’t much nuance to this. It’s pretty black and white.

Has anyone read Marge Piercy’s “Woman on The Edge of Time”?

A woman is able to see into the future and it is a kind of feminist-ish notion of utopia where the division of labour is more equal and sexuality is not seen as requiring social boundaries. I didn’t read to the end. The men breastfeed in it by taking hormones.

I read it years ago in a feminist book group and it made me feel a bit ill that this vision of detached, boundary-less, unsexy kind of ‘kidulthood’ was being presented as utopia (although I don’t know how it ended).

I have a feeling that blokes read it and saw it as instructive.

Wasn't there an outcry when the DaliLama got a child to suck his tongue? How is this any different? Arguably it's much worse, yet mention the sacred words and it's suddenly hunky dory.

Yup

I’m pretty on the fence about this

1. how practical is it? when I was BF, DH would hold the baby while I sorted myself out and they’d often have a root at his chest. You gonna send him to prison?

2. the baby in that twitter picture was not latched on. If that guy ever breast fed I’ll eat my nipple pads. He’s fucking with you (and the mother of the baby )

humans are stupid and cruel to their partners and irresponsible all the time

the bar for things to be illegal needs to be high. Careful wording required if you want to do this. I’m unlikely to sign

Exactly. That’s the thing which is problematic. It’s the adult calling the shots.

@BernardBlacksMolluscs - there’s a world of difference between a baby rooting around for a nipple and an adult abusing this instinct. I bet your DH didn’t unbutton his shirt and do a selfie when your baby was rooting.

Kids also get the urge to take their clothes off and wander around naked. Fine. If an adult encourages a kid to do it for their own voyeuristic pleasure, then that is abuse.

Kids bounce up and down on adults lap for fun. Fine. If an adult encourages a kid to do that for their own physical pleasure, then that is abuse.

What matters is who is controlling, designing the experience? Is the one being controlled and guided aware and able to consent? Whose benefit is it for? Is the relationship equal? Is there some power imbalance?

It’s clear as day.

@zibzibara i had the same thought about a petition and was thinking it should be about child abuse/abuse of non-consenting adults by males to facilitate their paraphilia’s.

Lactophilia
mastofact/breast partialism/mazophilia = breast fetishism
paedophilia
Autogynaephilia
Exhibitionism
Voyeurism

Part of the issue is some females may have some of these paraphilia’s. However not in the same numbers as men.

The awful photo had elements of exhibitionism (public place & selfie) autogynaephilia (women’s clothing), lactophilia and paedophilia.

Part of the issue is some females may have some of these paraphilia’s. However not in the same numbers as men.

The wording just needs to be like rape laws - about the male body only - ie - with rape it explicitly involves the penis. Breasts and breastfeeding are a natural part of motherhood it would be stupid to de-sex the language of this petition.

It is normal for both sexes to enjoy their own sexed body as part of their sexuality so it doesn’t make any sense to say a woman is an autogynephile.

However, autoandrophilia would be the fetish for women. I think it is abusive for mothers to try to make their children pretend they are men, but that is besides the point.

A man abusing a child’s suckling instinct is abuse.

You can ban and control legal drugs.

I take some heavy duty pain meds, if I were to hand them out to friends I risk 10 years in prison for supply.

One of my favourites - read it on my Feminist Literature course at uni. Always wanted to adapt it for film or TV but I'm just a pleb who has a job, kids and dreams of a writing career!