'I [Heart] Boobies' Bracelets Cause Stir in High Schools
The bracelets are the work of the Keep A Breast Foundation, a non-profit that aims to raise awareness about breast cancer.
Schools from Utah to California to Minnesota find the frank use of a slang term for breasts too spicy for the schoolyard, and have instituted all-out bans or requested individual students to remove the bands.
School authorities say that the bands can be bad for discipline, and even be interpreted as disrespectful toward women.
"Wearing bracelets such as these opens up dialog between students that most adolescents are neither sophisticated nor mature enough to handle appropriately," Eisenhower Jr. High in Taylorsville, Utah, said in its school newsletter, a local Fox affiliate reported.
"By disallowing them, we are eliminating the temptation to have inappropriate and potentially sexually harassing conversations."
Keep A Breast defended its decision to include the word "boobies," saying that the bracelets are intended to provoke conversations on touchy subjects.
The bracelets "act as an awareness-raising tool, allowing young people to engage and start talking about a subject that is scary and taboo and making it positive and upbeat," the organization said in an e-mailed statement. "We fully understand that the 'I Love Boobies' campaign is not for everyone, but we also feel that the word 'boobies' is not a four letter word."
The bands, of course, touch on a deadly serious topic. More than 250,000 women in America will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year, according to Breastcancer.org.
Wearing the bands could further the aim of Keep A Breast – to raise awareness of the condition. Some students also wear the bracelets out of respect for loved ones who have had the disease.
"I wear mine because my cousin had breast cancer and so did my aunt," Aryn Clark, a junior at Bakersfield High School in Kern County, Ca, told a local NBC affiliate.
But, as one commenter noted on the Fox affiliate website, breast cancer is not the only cancer that ruins lives.
"I have several cancer survivors in my family, including breast cancer, colon and thyroid cancers," the commenter wrote. "I don't see too many folks wearing bracelets that say 'I love rectum' or 'I heart lymph'."
On its website, Keep A Breast says that its goal it to increase awareness of the condition among young people in order to encourage them to "develop habits that will benefit their long-term health and well-being."
Still, for some teenagers, the bands may be nothing more than a chance to show off a forbidden word in a school setting.
"For guys I guess, it's just funny. We're just seeing how far we can get away with things at school I guess," Matthew Moorehead, a junior at Bakersfield High School told the NBC affiliate.
source : 'I [Heart] Boobies' Bracelets Cause Stir in High Schools
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