Has anyone (and be careful because it may be triggering) seen this???

Any thoughts?

I have heard it referred to already as "child pornography" but I think that's a bit strong

Yes and my feeling are very mixed to say the least. Mike

My feelings about the matter are evolving.

I've seen it and really don't like idea of exploiting such scene and mum-child relationship...
They wished to make negative publicity and they succeeded...

I wouldn't classify it under "child pornography". The child isn't nude nor is he being sexually exploited; he is being breast fed (a non-sexual act) beyond what most of us consider to be within healthy limits.

Weird and questionable? yes; child pornography and sexual absue? no.

Should have added that this issue came up on CBS's Face the Nation, and one of the guests called it child pornography. I found that a bit strong myself, with a caveat...

I think this falls in a carefully crafted gray zone, obviously intended to be provocative. While I don't think this falls easily under the "child pornography" tent, I do believe the child is being exploited - not so much sexually but manipulated to sell a magazine by doing something which - when he looks back on it in a few years, may find embarrassing. When I was 12, I hated when an earlier picture of me naked in the bathtub got circulated within the family. I couldn't imagine the issues I'd have had if someone splashed a picture of me with my mom's breast in my mouth on the cover of a national magazine.

You also have to consider the cultural and social context, which is very different for a child in the US than, say, for a child in a developing third world nation.

Similar themes to CSA do come to mind. Can a child truly give consent for participating in such a pose? Is there a lack of sensitivity for this child by asking the three-year-old to do this? For me, part of the damaging dynamic of CSA was that an adult made decisions for me to participate in something I had no true understanding of, leaving me to reconcile it when I got older. And in a broader sense, does it speak to a general sensitivity deficit towards children - perhaps similar in a way to the lack of sensitivity and response in a lot of institutionalized cases of CSA (church, Penn State, etc.)? For me, these are questions begged yet unanswered.

Any reaction scenario has certainly been carefully run by the publication's attorneys before this cover hit the presses. Yet some types of manipulation and exploitation - no matter how discordant they may hit upon our sensibilities, defy enforcement and are instead only guilty of the non-prosecutable crime of exceptionally poor taste.

That sucks!

Actually I spent 2 years in Africa in the Peace Corps. That would have been a common sight there. Except for the stool. Nothing new under the sun.

Puffer

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I don't think this has anything to do with child pornography, it's not about sex. The headline makes me more upset--that they were trying to bash attachment parenting, since I guess feeding a kid formula, yelling and spanking etc. are better than that philosophy? Breast-feeding helps improve brain functioning and provides good nutrition and the foundation for a better relationship, so doing it until 3 or 4 is fine, is great.

Pornographic, no. Inappropriate yes. Not the breastfeeding but using it as their cover I mean. Before anyone says anything for the record I have no problem with women breastfeeding in public. Its just that the way Time portrays it it appears sensationalistic and even a little exploitative to me.