Jesus has a penis! Oh my!

Jesus has a penis! Oh my!

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

As a mom, it is my duty to protect my children from danger. I try to protect them from running out in the street in traffic, from choking on bites too big, from predators and pedophiles. I hope to keep them safe from hurt and heartbreak (though we know that's a losing battle). I also want to keep them safe from ignorance. It seems as our country becomes more and more fundamentally oriented, more and more ignorance rises to power. Or rather, rises to voice in the media, which in the USA seems to equate with power.

Take a gander at this video

Which person would you rather have dictating the curriculum at your child's school, teaching your child's Sunday school class, or running the media - the artist or the "Christian?"

I have chosen to teach my children that bodies are beautiful. My son is no stranger to the tasteful naked image, they are strewn about our home in art and books. Though I keep him sheltered from pornopgraphy and distasteful sexual images, human anatomy and artisitc renderings of the human form are not something I have ever chosen to shield him from. I think if he were to see Jesus naked, the last part he would even notice would be the penis. That is, until someone yelled out "Oh my God, Jesus has a penis!"

I plan that our daughter feel the same way about bodies. The human body is a natural entity. We each were born NAKED from a woman's VAGINA. And then, many of us were fed from her BREASTS. Completely natural acts of biology, and yet people like the fellow in the video are prepared to make a stir over that same anatomy. I quite like when my son talks about breastfeeding or uses the proper names for his body parts. Recently, I was cooking dinner and I ran out of milk. I was fretting about how I was going to finish cooking and muttered, "What am I going to do?"
"Just use the milk from your breasts," came a seven-year-old's reply from the other room.

Why does our society create such shame and embarrassment in regards to our bodies? Why do we sexualize everything? Breastfeeding of course being one area that always causes an uproar. I can honestly say that feeding my daughter from my breast is quite animal, not sexual. More than once I have waved to my husband from the bed where I lie feeding our daughter and felt exaclty like a sow feeding a piglet in the barn, not an odalesque basking in all her sexual glory. Yet when this mainstream magazine hit the newstands with this cover:



women were up in arms. One woman wrote a commentary about the fact that her thriteen year old son did NOT need to see that image. gag. I am sure he was traumatized. Of course, it is this sentiment that is teaching that thirteen year old boy to blush and snicker when he does see a woman breastfeed. Perhaps then he'll someday deter his own wife from breastfeeding. It becomes a nasty cycle of destroying beliefs in the natural wonders of the human form. I am so glad that my eleven year old step son has been exposed to a breastfeeding mother and that my son has promised me that his own wife will breastfeed his children when he has them.

It is why in our home we prefer to read this magazine:



I can happily say that in 6 months of breastfeeding, often in public, I have not yet run into any foul commetns or lewd stares. I don't cover up when I breastfeed (do you want to eat your dinner with a blanket over your head?) and I don't leave where I am to nurse in a restroom (ick) or the car. So far my daughter has dined in several nice restaurants, at basketball games, in Lowes, at the public library, in Victoria's Secret and even at a concert. We aren't done yet. I look forward to breastfeeding at the beach this summmer, maybe at an amusmeent park or a baseball game. Why shouldn't the baby enjoy a snack while watching her White Sox play as I would have a nice hot pretzel with cheese?

So in continuing with protecting my children from ignorance, I would be happy to let them taste of a chocolate Jesus with a penis during holy week. The point, of course, would be in the sweetness of the idea of Easter. The fact that Jesus
(a man) had a penis is a given and would be ignored.

Empower your breasts

Posted by Shannon at 5:01 AM