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In recent years, breast cancer awareness campaigns have decided to capitalize on our obsession with breasts.

There was last year's "Save the Boobs" campaign, featuring a very jiggly woman in a bikini being ogled by everyone around her, with the tagline "You know you like them, now it's time to save the boobs."

Then there was the chain-letter-esque stunt, early in 2010, of posting the color of your bra as a Facebook status update, explained as a way of drawing attention to breast cancer. And now we have the "I Love Boobies" bracelets, available for sale from the minds at Keep a Breast.

The bracelets are being banned at schools across the country as being too salacious, but is that the only reason to be offended by this campaign, or is everyone missing the forest for the trees?

Tracy Clark-Flory was only annoyed at the idea of reducing something as complex and devastating as cancer down to an appreciation for breasts, and then her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Now she's furious. She thinks it's tasteless to shift focus from a fight for a human being's life to a concern about whether or not her breasts will remain intact. She would rather we focus on saving the human, not just her sexy ladyparts:

"When death is truly knocking at your door -- and I'm not talking about early, uncertain cases -- most aren't thinking about how much they love their breasts, they're thinking about how much they love not being dead. They're thinking: Chop those things off, now."

That's just what Lambeth Hochwald thought when she found out she carried the BRCA1 gene.

And while we think that turning any serious illness into an ad campaign suitable for an '80s movie is a little tasteless, we also see the genius of such activism. Cancer is terrifying and exhausting, and any campaign that focused on that would be ignored by a public that doesn't want to think about such things. Perhaps people need an uncomplicated, interesting hook to bring them in the door. We're talking about breast cancer now -- isn't that enough?

Maybe not, because we may need to do more than just talk about cancer. Just changing your status update to show your bra color, while clever and unifying, doesn't encourage women to get mammograms, and doesn't involve you spending time or money on the cause. It's just stating your desire to support a cause. The "I Love Boobies" bracelets, while questionable, are at least being sold for money, and that money is going to cancer research.

Who knows what the answer is, but both the people who use sex to sell cancer awareness, as well as the people who are disgusted by it, are right. Perhaps a compromise? Maybe it's time to start a campaign of "Save these breasts, save the awesome woman behind them," followed by a few links of places you can sign up to volunteer your money or your time.

What do you think? Tell us in the comments below how you feel about these campaigns. Also, visit Keep a Breast and Susan G. Komen for the Cure to find ways to get involved yourself.