What Sex and the City Taught Me about Breastfeeding

It sucked.

I suppose this post might by NSFW because it has some bare breasts, do people even go to the office anymore though? This also makes the second SATC reference of this Substack and we are only a week in. What a time to pay for content! Anyways, nipples coming your way.

I am NOT ashamed to tell you how much I learned from this ridiculous premium cable show.

If he’s not calling you, he’s not interested.

Never date a writer with a poorly selling novel.

Sometimes there’s a greater attraction to some one unattainable because the suffering is so exquisite, so you get into a punishing cycle of pain and reward.

It was also my first exposure to breastfeeding. I’m an adorable and spoiled only child— shocked so I didn’t grow up watching any infant getting nursed. Sure, occasionally in the wild, I’d see a mom holding a baby to her breast but I knew nothing of latching, nipples, or milk.

When Miranda decided to keep her baby (much to my chagrin as a 19 year old ardent pro-choice feminist, yes, here are 4 strong female leads but WHY WASN’T I SEEING MORE DEPICTIONS OF ABOBOS ON CABLE??), it plunged the most masculine of ‘The Girls’ into navigating all these maternal scenarios.

I only saw this episode once but the 💫VIBE💫 of it was seared into my psyche.

Now, Miranda, who we typically always saw in chic and streamlined outfits opens the door for Carrie, half clothed. Miranda always had one of those sexy tube-shaped androgynous bodies, with small, pert breasts. Now she appears in a nursing ‘brassiere’ that looked like it belongs on an obese Norwegian wet nurse. The Cosmo swilling litigator is reduced to her most mammalian state.

Carrie, looking girlish and trim in Necco wafer pink, is recounting that Charlotte’s observation that women are only entitled to two great loves in their life. Miranda starts reaching for the bra clasp. Clock the apprehension, the disbelief, and over-all queasiness on Carrie’s face:

Here it comes:

Boom! I remember being stunned at this close up. The blue vascular trails, the erect nipple, the weird bra harness. What was happening?! Now of course, I think most newborn nursing mothers would kill for nickle-sized nipples shaded such flattering peach color. If you don’t know, as I didn’t, your nipples take on a brownish hue in the last weeks of pregnancy. In order, the thinking goes, to help a fuzzy-sighted newborn identify their food source.

So this seems true but also depressing.

This line actually seized on an ancient fear of mine: having weird looking breasts that call attention to themselves. Like uneven sizes or Google-eyed nipples pointing in different directions. But also, Carrie is in MIRANDA’S living room!! They aren’t at austere brunch spot in *~*The Village~*~, if you can’t be at home with your weird tits out to feed your kid then what’s the point of being an American?? Christ!

Tight, tight, tight. Miranda finally gets her son to latch and that’s when Carrie decides to book it! Miranda even pleads for her to stay. Carrie is like, nah, but “don’t worry, you’re still one of us.”

So much discomfort! A little disgust? Even some undercurrents of repulsion. What I took away from this is that breastfeeding is weird and freaks people out. Even your closest friends.

And, look, I don’t look to expect horny premium cable shows to be responsible for teaching young women that breastfeeding is beautiful and biologically (and even radical in this country (why radical? because only 13 percent of women exclusively breastfeed for six months and the Fed government subsidizes and buys half the formula in this country but that’s another post!).

What I think this scene depicts, unwittingly, is how MOST people would feel around a nursing mother. I know that during the first weeks of having my daughter I would go into a separate room to nurse when friends and family were over because I didn’t want to make anyone feel weird about MY NIPPLES. Once I learned more about lactation and how it’s likely the reason mammals were able to take over the world, I chilled out.

Now this is me whenever and WHEREVER I need to nurse: