Tits Oot!

Some men are breast-obsessed; I pity them, forever in the thrall of two ungainly, wobbly bags of soft tissue, fat and fluids. Newspapers, also, can’t leave them alone, whether they are on page three or snapped at some distance by a hack with a telephoto lens and shaky hands. And then there’s the publicists’ favourite maximum exposure vehicle, the so-called ‘bikini body’, regularly served up, unbidden, on the Daily Mail online’s ‘sidebar of shame’. There’s no need for any of it, really there isn’t, no need at all. But what a perfect storm in a D-cup was whipped up when Nigel Farage was asked his opinion on air about the Claridge's Couple.

More than a hefty handful of Twitter users were outraged in equal measures by both the suggestion that others found the practice of breastfeeding in public variously, uncomfortable, lewd, common or just unnecessary and that they earnestly needed to believe that Farage wanted to put baby in the corner; have they not seen the movie? Nobody does that. But for the avoidance of doubt, he actually dismissed the incident as largely an irrelevance, saying that it surely it ought to be up to the business. A shame he plucked from the air the word ‘ostentatious’.

He meant, of course, conspicuous; one of ostentatiousness’s flamboyantly long list of synonyms, but all it takes is a word these days. Looking through that list I also find obtrusive, pretentious, brash, affected and tasteless; all words that others may easily employ to describe an activity which, as natural as it may be, is a private thing, the over-sharing of which may indeed detract from other’s enjoyment of the atmosphere of a high class tea room. Another synonymous phrase is over-the-top, but I personally find that description of events far too graphic for my liking.

Breasts, bellies, flabby thighs, back fat; I’m no fan of exposed unsightly flesh wherever it is situated. You’d never catch me with my tits out, even on the beach, so not wishing to see the display I simply stay away. That’s easy enough, you’d think, but you don’t need this stuff springing on you when you’re really not expecting it. I’m not offended by breast feeding, but unlike television commercials I can’t just fast-forward to avoid it and I’d prefer not to encounter it at every turn. It’s not prudish, it’s not selfish, it’s not even – sorry mumsnet – sexist or misogynist and I think I’m allowed to avoid it if possible.

A huge pair of jugs

Maybe cafes should all have nursing mothers’ areas, next to the milk jugs perhaps? And a large sign so you can choose to avert your gaze from the display of floury baps next time you go for a teat treat? After all, you don’t need your thought-train shunted onto the siding when you are trying to order a raspberry nipple, do you? I hear there are women intent on picketing Claridge’s and deleteriously affecting their trade in the time-honoured tradition of the easily offended. Isn’t it good to know that some rights are just so much better than other rights? I only hope they don’t end up making a tit of themselves.

Tittyfilarious!

So, I’m sitting here at my desk engaged in a curious endeavour. It’s most odd in a world where we pay some people to do absolutely nothing that I have to actually produce something that somebody else is prepared to shell out for in order to earn a crust. It’s not a novel idea, really, it’s the way things have been for millennia – you exchange your money for my time and skills – but I wonder if there are people in the world who truly don’t get it. Actually, I don’t wonder at all; I see it every day.

The latest manifestation of our bizarre system of reward without productive effort is the idea of payment for breastfeeding. Yes, I know there’s a wider argument about creating less dependency on public services down the line, but it’s a curious way of going about it, reinforcing the belief that your living is the responsibility of government and therefore your entitlement. The simple fact is that state-dependent parents tend to produce state-dependent children almost whatever efforts are poured in from an empty public purse.

The removal of the Educational Maintenance Allowance caused an element of protest, but it too was a largely meaningless gesture; those kids with the wit and enthusiasm and ability to gain from further education didn’t need bribing to stay in college and those who would only do so because of the EMA probably shouldn’t have been there in the first place. I challenge anybody to prove it genuinely changed outcomes in all but a tiny number of marginal cases.

The same applies with the misnamed Job Seekers Allowance – if you want to work you’ll go out to seek a job but if you make a living working cash-in-hand, on the rob, working scams, etc, it’s just another state handout to help you carry on regardless. Admittedly the government is talking tough about applying sanctions but for years this misnamed payment has effectively reduced the value of subsistence available for those who genuinely need short-term dole, while paying others to make a career out of idleness.

And of course, the always sensitive Child Benefit – a payment to people for doing what they would do anyway. In fact it’s another payment which disproportionately benefits those with a lower value to society because while those in useful work tend to ration their family sizes by necessity, if you can claim the right combination of benefits – for which having children is pivotal -  it is perfectly possible to raise a family and support a succession of undeclared feral males of breeding age without ever lifting a finger to give anything back.

We genuinely live in a world of The Haves and The Have Nots. But where we used to believe in supporting those who could not support themselves we now take from those who work to produce things that we need and we give it not to those whose need is greater, but to those of whom we have no need. It’s no wonder people are saying that our society is broken – for every pound some get that they don’t earn somebody else has to earn a pound that they don’t get.

You looking at me?

So, back to the point. EMA paid out to kids who didn’t actually go to college. JSA is paid to many who have no intention of seeking work and now they are going to pay BFA – Breast Feeders Allowance – without any idea of how they are going to monitor it. As I sit here contemplating my fine set of moobs I’m wondering if I can’t take up a second career and claim BFA just for making a tit of myself.