Although, this may solicit some controversy, not to mention a few pervs, I’m gonna jump in. Boobs. Big ones, small ones, saggy ones, removed, augmented, beaten cancer, or sadly, succumbed to it, reduced, whatever. The female breast will nearly always draw attention or conversation, or both, when mentioned. Or sometimes when just passing by. Why? Maybe because they’re always out there. You see pretty well what a woman’s toting, or appears to be toting, thank you Wonderbra, in just a simple person to person conversation. You don’t have to look, they’re just there. Just saying.
I cannot speak for all women. Just myself and a few I’ve had the privilege of discussing breasts with over the last coupla decades, since we nearly all (women, of course, hopefully not men) starting praying this would be the summer we “got them”. This would be the school year I went back with a bra. That I needed. Only if. I’m not ashamed, although I am remiss, that I still don’t need one. Not really. Remiss? Why? Because I want to really need a bra. Is that so crazy? That’s what I’m wondering. God gave’em to Eve. I just want my share.
What is the mental or physical connection between cleavage, and feminity, and does it have to be that way? It is for me, and I’d shake it if I could. I know, I know, many women struggle with breast cancer, beat it, and maybe lost their breasts in the process. Are they any less a woman? NO. This registers in my head. But in my shirts, well that’s another story. By the time I was 19 or so, I knew that was it. There wasn’t going to be a magic summer that blossomed on my chest. I was a perky, petite, albeit smallish B, and that was all she wrote. So there. At that age, I started asking my Dad for a boob job. My Dad. I had no compunction about it. I just figured he was the one with the bucks, not me. But alas, I got married the next year, so there went the dough (good thing really, as my hubby has always said it’d be weird if my father payed for my breasts - he’s got a point there).
Why did I fixate on this at such a young age? Why did I feel I was too small? Who told me that? No one, really, other than every model every to slither across a catwalk with a size D top and a 21 inch waist. Culture tells us that is sexy. Flat little Bs are not. But is that all? What about subconsciously equating fullness, roundness with maternal and sensual things. Women are created with more, um, flesh, to actually, literally nourish life. You just don’t get that Madonna (the virgin, not the like a virgin) image from skinny little girls with no bust. Some women love being pregnant simply because they fill out for the first time. They feel sexier, more alive, more beautiful (I just felt more nauseous). When I talk about this with my hubby, he says it must be like what men feel about their, their, um, girth. Or, well, length. But this, this I do not get. Those things don’t stand out under clothing as a part of the style of the clothing, or at least, they shouldn’t under normal circumstances. I mean, if I can’t fill out a swimsuit, or blouse, it’s obvious. As far as I know, there is no problem associated with not filling out a pair of jeans. The butt usually does that.
So, not filling out clothing is one issue. My mom just says get one of those bras. But I want to, well, I want to be, ummm, attractive, without having to wear a bra. And I finally gained peace with that when I was about 24. Hey, petite is fine. At least it’s all perky. And then I had a baby. And another, and another. And they all nursed for at least a year. And dammit, now I don’t even have those Bs! And my hips and waist? Not really too big, but in proportion now to the shruken top, and I mean shrunken, are totally out of whack. I have become a classic pear. I can’t help but prefer a bit more of an hourglass. Not a perfect one, just a proportionate one. Is this too vain to ask? Is it wrong of me not to want to look like an adolescent boy from the mid-waist up, and a Ruben painting from there down? Somehow, when I’m standing there in the mirror, it’s just hard to work up that “I am woman” feeling. Forget feeling seductive. Sorry if that’s too much info, but this is bugging me.
So I pose this to all the world of blogging. Are we copping out and buying into culture’s definition of “sensual” if we say, think about, oh, I dunno, breast augmentation, or are we taking charge of our lives, not unlike diet, exercise or mascara, or hair coloring, and trying to acheive the best me we can be? Is there an imaginary line we can cross? My girlfriend’s husband says it’s not breast augmentation, but breast restoration, as apparently, she has the same issue I do. Kind of like coloring the gray in your hair, back to its natural brown, but with some anaesthesia, a little knife, and some temporary bruising. Simple really.
I really just want to know where some other women, particularly the motherly kind who may know exactly what I’m talking about, feel about this issue. Really. Boob jobs. They’re not just for Barbie anymore. Real down to earth women go for it, too. Haven’t you seen Doctor 90210? And I’m not talking about something for my husband, I’m talking about something for me. Blessedly, he loves me just the way I am. I’m just not so nuts about it.
