Fresh Milk: The Secret Life of Breasts

Rating:
Summary: Sour milk
Review: Fiona Giles really seems to develop into an "expert" for none-public body-parts and -liquids. After "Dick for a Day" here comes "Fresh Milk: The Secret Life of Breasts" - another book, which title suggests this might be another "taboo-breaking" report. So - what is it all about?

The book itself contains questionnaire responses, own and foreign experiences, fictional stories as well as some interviews. Some of the articles are interesting, but the most are not. Some are weird, and some represent a strange point of view (Breastmilk at the supermarket should really be a desirable goal?). An example for the better is the story of a mother, who discovers that another women breastfed her child without her permission. It contains some interesting thoughts about inner-familiar relations and the meaning of the intimacy of breastfeeding. On the other hand you have some strange opinions, spiritual mystifications of the female body, and some points of view that would clearly fit to the matriarchy-debate.

A question is, what would make this book a feminist work? The only aspect that could underline this intention could be the referral on the "breastfeeding in public"-debate, which is - strange enough, as it were for example male doctors, who first pointed out the importance of breastfeeding - in different places often portrayed as a "rebellion against patriarchy". - Of course breastfeeding is a good thing and the natural way. It's another question, if all "natural" things have to happen in public. The statement: "If you don't like it, look the other way" is a bit mean, if you consider, that a public place with this is turned into an intimate one, want it or not. - Contrary to the author, who also investigates in lactation-porn - I found it not very surprising, that a lactating breast even implies an sexual component: As it is natural being filled with milk (instead of silicone!!) why shouldn't this be erotic? - Even more, after you read this book, which clearly emphasizes and underlines the sexual implications of this act, you come to wonder what's the conclusion of it all? For me intimacy and sexuality is clearly a matter of privacy. But maybe just I'm old-fashioned ...

So - why one should buy this book? Is it a breastfeeding adviser? - No, and it doesn't want to be. Because it is "erotic"? - No, obviously not! This is a book about erotic, but it is not erotic itself. Nor does it contain information you would regret if you missed.

If you are that kind of person, that has to read "My first time"-reports, sex-psychologists drivel or "scientific" studies about men and women and what they do, feel and think about sexuality to know what you have to feel about it, then this might be a book for you. If you can form your own opinion instead of having just another "expert" suggesting you a way to feel and think - leave it!

Rating:
Summary: A Lactivist Speaks Up
Review: I love it! I am a very proud "lactivist" with a beautiful healthy 13 month old moo. This book is really a breath of fresh air, with some really thought provoking ideas. Since our culture almost let breastfeeding become a "lost art", I think that we really need ideas like those from Fiona Giles that blast open people's ideas of what breastfeeding is and can be. I've already started asking other nursing mothers some of the questions posed in the book. This has really started me thinking about things in a whole new light.

Rating:
Summary: A Lactivist Speaks Up
Review: I love it! I am a very proud "lactivist" with a beautiful healthy 13 month old moo. This book is really a breath of fresh air, with some really thought provoking ideas. Since our culture almost let breastfeeding become a "lost art", I think that we really need ideas like those from Fiona Giles that blast open people's ideas of what breastfeeding is and can be. I've already started asking other nursing mothers some of the questions posed in the book. This has really started me thinking about things in a whole new light.

Rating:
Summary: A Lactivist Speaks Up
Review: I love it! I am a very proud "lactivist" with a beautiful healthy 13 month old moo. This book is really a breath of fresh air, with some really thought provoking ideas. Since our culture almost let breastfeeding become a "lost art", I think that we really need ideas like those from Fiona Giles that blast open people's ideas of what breastfeeding is and can be. I've already started asking other nursing mothers some of the questions posed in the book. This has really started me thinking about things in a whole new light.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but sometimes spotty.
Review: I read it avidly upon its arrival and found it generally very interesting.

However, I started to wonder what Fiona was trying to achieve or say by about 2/3rd's the way through.. So many different discussions and unfortunately, many of those NOT by her, left me feeling she did more of an editorial job than actual writing.
And pray tell, since when does an Australian refer to "mom" ? !!

Oh please Fiona, if you want to target Americans, then say so up-front. If you're supposed to be citing Australians, then leave them saying MUM...

A good book, but with areas that may leave you as puzzled as I was... oh - and skip the porn pages - they're not worth reading...

If you want an interesting book, then this is indeed one to read. Just don't expect every page to be rivetting.

Rating:
Summary: All women can lactate
Review: I was wandering through the bookshop as a shortcut to the bus stop jingling the last of my change, when I glanced down to an image of soft floating breasts. Quickly checking and adjusting my own to find they were still trapped under the fully buttoned shirt, I reached down to meet my new friend, a glorious book on the mysteries and enticement of mother's milk.
Our youngest, now a womanly teenager, knows well my evil plan to elevate breastfeeding to the second most important job in the world, so she was happy to use her plastic for the ...purchase.
Why at 49, would I bother breathing in the words of this Fiona Giles? Why would I feel the need to read all Easter then run around yelling 'I told you so', to Uni students, home just to reconnect with school friends? Have we come far enough in our respect for human milk to accept the need for public sharing of lactation experiences?
Fiona Giles has interviewed well, allowing an impressive array of stories to flood our senses. Maybe a submitted email or two was tinged with slightly elevated fantasy, however, all adds to the mix. I hope she has pressed the right buttons to encourage open discussion of the vitality of 'white blood.'
Thank goodness we are being allowed to gradually catch up to traditional womens' knowledge of the benefits of breastmilk as a medicine and a life long womens' resource. Any female from adolesence til death can produce human milk, as long as suckling occurs several times a day, or a breast pump is involved. Now, if that is news to you, take a deep breath and read on.
Would you relactate?
Your teenage child develops SARS ...
A Never! Well he shouldn't have stowed away to China in the first place.
B Maybe. But I'd want to sue someone if I got cracked nipples again.
C Sure. As long as no-one expected me to deliver it fresh from the sack, rather than freshly squeezed.
D Of course. I already freeze my milk and send it to an orphan.
Didn't turn blue. Then buy Fiona Giles' 'Fresh Milk. The secret life of breasts.'
Do I have qualifications to review such an inspiational book? Well, I spent most of the eighties in a nursing bra, but no-one gave me a framed degree. And the most important job? Giving birth, of course.

Rating:
Summary: Mother's Milk
Review: It is a sad society that finds silicone-filled breasts more alluring than milk-filled breasts.

The female breast symbolically reflects the long-established and tiresome male classification of woman as either Madonna or whore. According to men, and sadly some women, the female breast exists to be eroticised, fetishised, morphed, manipulated, enhanced and exploited UNTIL it begins to function. As soon as breasts start to express themselves they are immediately sanctified, purified, hidden and forbidden. Too sad.

In one interview Kimberley Hefner boasted that she never breastfed her children, not once. Her prerogative, of course, but it is ironic that ex-husband Hugh's Playboy fortune, and therefore hers, was built entirely on male worship of the female breast. But when it came to employing her own breasts for their true and original purpose, she baulked. While Kimberley feared the assumed domestication of her breasts, staunch breastfeeding advocates do the opposite by denying the lactating breast any hint of its inherent sensuality and sexuality. No, no, do not touch, do not admire.

In "Fresh Milk" Fiona Giles and her contributors reveal that nurture and pleasure do not negate each other; you can have both. As a book "Fresh Milk" ignores the protocols of easy classification and booksellers may be uncertain as to which shelf it belongs. It does break the conventional mould by embracing academia and anecdote, mirth and mythology, fact and fantasy. So much I never knew before about breasts, breast-feeding, lactation, and mothers' milk I discovered in this remarkable book. It is an inspiring, positive, and dare I say 'uplifting' journey.

"Fresh Milk" is refreshingly original, amusing and liberating. Oh yes, and it's also erotic.

Dean

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable light reading, with a side of fresh squeezed....
Review: This collection of stories, focused on lactation breasts (male and female) is a page turner. Not so much to see what happens next, but who it happens to. They people in this book are real, like you and me. The all have in common the desire to give the best to their child (with the exception of the lactation fetishists, which could have truly been left out of the book in my opinion). They suffer adversity, set backs, and triumphs. They tell the stories of the human condition. Nothing is easy for everyone, but you persevere and go on. Some of these women are exalted in their role as provider, and they shine in their pride of a job well done. And some of them still harbor resentment over their experience. No matter the outcome, we (the lactating women of the world) can see a little of ourselves in all of them.