What’s got men in kilts, a damsel-not-so-in-distress from another time, and the best sex scenes on television? Starz’s Outlander, a series that follows Claire Randall, a British Army nurse during WWII, who accidentally gets transported back to 1743 Scotland while on vacation with her husband. The show is filled with strong female characters, exciting adventures, and of course, some of the best sex scenes on television. While I could spend days talking about each of these aspects, I would rather talk about a short but important scene in season 1, episode 14.
While Outlander’s sex scenes are rather entertaining to watch, scenes depicting intercourse are no longer shocking. Gone are the days when Barbara Eden showing her belly button in the 1960’s show I Dream of Jeannie causes controversy. Today, Outlander tackles something -- apparently -- as shocking as baring your midriff: breastfeeding.
In the episode, Claire and her sister-in-law, Jenny, are off to rescue Claire’s husband Jamie, who has been captured by the British. Racing through the forest on horseback, Jenny says she needs to stop. Claire assumes she’s in need of a pee break, that is until Jenny gets a tin can and expresses breast milk into it. Claire smiles and watches in awe. The act of relieving the pressure on her breasts isn’t sexualized or shamed, it’s shown as a natural thing that breastfeeding mothers might go through, especially when they’re off rescuing someone from the redcoats.
A few times we see Jenny breastfeeding her child, carrying on a conversation with her family, and no one tells her to cover up or feed her newborn in the bathroom, something that happens all too frequently today. In one of the sexiest shows on television, breastfeeding is depicted as a beautiful and natural act, not something that needs to be hidden behind closed doors. If the show took place today, Jenny might tell us about how breast milk contains a ton of antibodies that protect newborns from a number of illnesses, and actually adapts to the baby’s needs. She’d tell us that breastfeeding is totally awesome, and that we should celebrate it, not cover it up.
