A Woman Was Reportedly Caught Breastfeeding Her Hairless Cat on an Airplane, And I Have Questions

The love that exists between a woman and her pet is sacrosanct, and the special rituals that she might perform in private in order to strengthen that bond are not for anyone else’s judgement. That said, if you don’t want anyone to judge your actions, then keep that shit at home. This is solid advice for life, but also good advice for the woman who was allegedly caught breastfeeding her hairless cat on a flight from Syracuse to Atlanta.

According to the New York Post, an unidentified woman was told repeatedly by the flight crew to stop breastfeeding her Sphinx cat—which means, apparently, that she was caught one time and then defiantly continued. Ainsely Elizabeth, a flight attendant working at that time, detailed the incident in a since-deleted TikTok:

“This woman had one of those, like, hairless cats swaddled up in a blanket so it looked like a baby,” she said. “Her shirt was up and she was trying to get the cat to latch and she wouldn’t put the cat back in the carrier. And the cat was screaming for its life.”

Further corroboration for this story exists, though I feel this has the contours of an urban legend. Rick Wilson, a co-founder of The Lincoln Project (okay!), tweeted a photo yanked from Reddit of the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) that appears to say a customer in seat 13A is breastfeeding her cat and refusing to cease. There is no real resolution to this story other than the evidence I’ve presented above, so we have as many facts as there are to print. However, the story still begs a few questions.

It’s not my intention to make light of this situation, which is dark in its own specific way, but I’m wondering how this woman managed to train her cat to breastfeed, and also what might be the purpose of this particular pet trick? As a woman with a cat for whom I’d do just about anything, I simply cannot understand this impulse to feed it from my body. Cats have tiny teeth that are sharp like knives, and their mouths are routinely engaged in cleaning their undercarriages. Further, an airplane is a wildly inappropriate place for this sort of behavior. Ma’am, respectfully, this is an aircraft filled with other people. Surely there are other venues for this, if one insists upon breastfeeding a cat, but a Delta flight in the middle of a never-ending global pandemic ain’t it.

The rituals that pet owners and their cherished wards endure together are intensely private, whether they be cradling your cat in your arms like a baby and singing a song titled “Mrs. Jigglesworth, I Love You SO Much” or letting your dog kiss you on the mouth. Both are a personal choice! Just a reminder, though: A cat’s mouth is disgusting and does not belong on a titty.