Rant on.

I Stumbled across a story this morning which was yet one more demonstration of the idiocy of school officials in the U.S. today. You see, there’s an organization called the “Keep A Breast Foundation” whose purpose in life is to raise breast cancer awareness.  One of their campaigns to accomplish this goal was the sale of little rubber bracelets which said “I ♥ Boobies (Keep A Breast)”.  That’s enough to produce a giggle here and there, but hardly offensive, right?

Sadly, it apparently is.  A few school kids have bought and worn the bracelets and gotten into trouble.  In several cases, it seems only the boys get in trouble for wearing the bracelets; the girls, especially those with a cancer-stricken relative, are permitted to have them on their wrists.

Setting aside the sexist enforcement of a stoopid policy, let’s look at the stoopid policy.  (Stoopid, for those who don’t know, is foolishness which goes beyond basic stupidity.)  Now, I would understand a little more if the phrase was “I ♥ Titties” or something similar.  But “Boobies”?  Seriously, “Boobies”?  Young children can often get away with using that euphemism.  It’s not like it’s any secret that boys like boobies to begin with, so why not let them advertise this fact and at the same time (hopefully) raise a little awareness of a terrible illness.  Sure, the vast majority of the boys wearing these things are doing so because, well, it gives them a chuckle to use the word “boobies” in any context and they enjoy any reason to think about boobies.  (Admittedly, that requires little provocation even in most adult heterosexual males, but still.)

Banning silly things like this seems like the kind of thing which would lead to rebellious behavior.  This can be positive, such as learning to protest something you sincerely believe is good or at least okay, or it can be negative and lead one to doing anti-social things just for the sake of doing anti-social things.  The administrations involved in these things seem to almost be banning these bracelets just for the sake of keeping kids from doing something they want to do.  Yes, it’s a bit of a stretch to say this is going to lead to rebellious kids, but the lesson it’s teaching is a poor one, that free speech is not always acceptable but it is okay to use a flimsy excuse to ban something.

This comes back to an old theme of mine, one which I share with the late George Carlin:  Words are words.  Nothing more.  Taking offense to any word only promotes the use of that word in an offensive context.  This is easy enough to see, especially if one looks at the reverse case.  For example, the word “shit” no longer causes the offense it caused when Mr. Carlin first did his notorious “Seven Words” routine, to the point where I have, in fact, heard it spoken on television a few times.  It’s still considered impolite, but not really terribly offensive.  Going the other direction, think of the swastika symbol.  This ancient character is still used in several eastern religions, but the western world associates it with Nazis and therefore sees it as an evil, offensive thing.

In this context, I think the whole Boobies thing seems even sillier.  A word is a symbol, I suppose, but it’s not like the bracelets have naked breasts depicted on them.  On the other hand, perhaps that’s what this controversy need!  If I Boobies generates controversy and with it awareness, perhaps they should make bracelets with this image on them:

I Heart Boobies

I did this in pink, the official color for Breast Cancer Awareness as near as I can tell, but for the bracelets I am sure a variety of colors would work.  Keep A Breast, let me know if you want to use this design; I will let you use it pretty cheaply.  Students wearing them could just say they love bullseyes.

Rant off.