On Birth, Breasts, and Botox

Earlier today I was reading my Facebook feed and I came across an article about a woman (Marni Kotak) who is going to give birth live in an art gallery in Brooklyn. The article inspired a small debate, more like a difference of opinion, between myself and some of the other people who read it. 

The common reaction was to say that Kotak is using her baby for publicity and/or to gain some kind of notoriety from this. The second most common reaction was that birth is private and should not be exploited. The third was, "Ew." Someone even said, "If that is art, so is taking a dump."  I'm not kidding, he actually compared giving birth to defecating. 

As if it were that easy, that common, that "dirty." Perhaps my opinion on the subject is biased. I am, after all, seven months pregnant. Birth is something that is just over my horizon, and I do not see it as dirty or taboo, nor do I think that it is something to hide and to be ashamed of. If anything, the hyper medicalization of birth has taken the human element away from the most beautiful expression of humanity that we have. Birth IS art, just like sex is art, death is art, love is art, hell, even hate is artful in its own way. Where do you think artistic inspiration comes from? 

There are only so many powerful life experiences, and giving birth ranks among the most tremendous and life changing of them all. To compare it to relieving yourself is unacceptable. Why does it seem, yet again, like the vagina is the center of controversy? Why is it viewed with such dichotomy, both erotic and forbidden, something to be lusted after and yet seen as shameful? This isn't restricted to just the vagina, either. 

Earlier this year, Miranda Kerr, wife to Orlando Bloom and Victoria's Secret model, posted a beautiful picture of herself breastfeeding her newborn son, Flynn. The reactions to this picture were shocking. Many people labeled it as "immoral" and "indecent."  This is a woman whose career involves modeling skimpy lingerie and she was chastised for showing the side of one breast (no nipple) doing what the breast itself was created for. How ironic is that? Why is a sexual breast a "good" breast and a functional breast is an "indecent" one? 

In this day and time, in this glorious period when women enjoy so many more freedoms than we have in decades past, we still have mountains to climb. We must be solution-oriented. We, alongside our male counterparts, must fight against the cultural perspective that our bodies are bad, that the things they are meant to do are dirty, and that sex and birth are anything other than the purest form of beauty. We must teach others to respect every part of our bodies and to see the beauty in their natural functions. 

In this time of plastic surgery credit cards, vaginal "rejuvenation" commercials and Botox parties, we are becoming less and less the animals we are born to be. Soon we will be as plastic, hardened, and cold as the toys our children play with.

The opinions expressed here are the blogger's and not necessarily those of the local editor's or anyone affiliated with Patch.