Simply The Breasts

via The Beautiful Struggler - Me, Myself and Eye

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I am a breast woman. I am all about boobs: the ones I holster around, as well as other ones. I find breasts to be fascinating and beautiful. My interests in other women's breasts has never been sexual; in fact, I think it's rooted in a past need to compare myself to other girls (who's were bigger, better, why did some girls get perky ones when I got sleepy ones, etc). I also have always been about the relationship to how much cleavage a woman shows to how body-confident or body-aware or modest or bold she may be. I think breasts are just fascinating and lovely, from the smallest no-bra required ones to the watermelon sized bra-busters.

There is no disparity of breast awesomeness in these two women.

However, my relationship to my own breasts is a more complicated one. My mother has large breasts (though she was rather flat until having me, which means I can pretty much schedule my post-pregnancy breast reduction NOW). I looked forward to having them myself and when they finally came, I was AMPED. I went from being totally flat chested in 7th grade to nearly a D-cup by the time I started high school to a double-D when I went on prom. I won't even tell you my size now. Let's just say I could make you a pair of lace baseball caps from some of my bras. And that my back hurts about 25 hours a day.

I never felt pretty or legitimately attractive to the opposite sex until around the time my chest got big. I had always struggled with my weight (and was WAY larger in my head pre-high school than I actually was) and I felt like I was nearly invisible to boys. Until them big old boobs grew in. All of a sudden, there were boys AND men who wanted to look at my body. And I liked it, usually. Throughout high school and even most of college, I felt the only really attractive thing about me was my large bust. I liked my legs too, but I thought the boobs were my biggest asset. Speaking of, wakkka wakkka wakkka, I have never had much butt to speak off. Looking at other sisters with the stacks in the back made me even more attached to my boobs, 'cause they were there. I wanted to detract attention from my sorry behind and so I did, by having my boobs out and down to my freaking knees. For shame. I'd post a picture, but I tried my best to untag and remove all of them from public viewing.

My breasts were the consolation prize I felt I had to offer men. "Hey, while I may be overweight, look at the awesome gift that comes with girth: big ole' boobies!" I didn't feel appealing unless the boobs were prominently displayed. This forced me to purchase an absurd number of v-necked shirts and even to go so far as to cut any tees that I had that weren't showing any cleave. Y'all, I cut a shirt with the "Ain't I A Woman" speech. I cut a shirt with Malcolm X's face on it. The Ancestral Council will likely want a word with me about that before I can join.

Once I got serious about my diet and exercise grind, I felt better about how the rest of me looked and finally had the confidence to feel sexy without my boobs showing. In fact, I started feeling self-conscious about how I looked with them out. I cringed when I saw old, heavier pictures of me revealing ridiculous amounts of cleavage. So for the most part, the girls found themselves removed from the public eye. It felt good realizing that I no longer saw my mammoth mammaries as a point of validation, but now there's another issue to reckon with: as my body goes, so do my breasts. Every time I gained weight in the past, my breasts got bigger. Now that I was losing weight, I was losing titty too.
June 2008:

July 2009:

October 2009:

The longer my hair gets, the smaller my breasts become. I see my next hangup on deck!

The girls are still big, just not super big. And it first felt weird not getting attention BECAUSE of them. You'd think that someone who was so against fetishization and objectification would be happy about this, but I was honestly used to being "the chick with the big breasts". Even if I had latched on to that identity so I didn't feel like "the big chick", it was part of who I was for a long time and hard to break from. Lately, I see all the other girls showing their breasts proudly in their pictures and on the street. And I feel a little...jealous? Just because I don't want my boobs falling allover the dinner table anymore doesn't mean I want to be Miss Modest Mammaries for the rest of my life. Granted, I do wear dresses that my friends accuse of being long shirts on a regular basis, so I'm hardly covered from head to toe. But I typically have on something lose or cut high over my breasts. I'd never revisit my overly-revealing fashion faux-pas of days past, but the girls are begging to come out and play a little bit more.

My reason for revealing my sweater puppets in the past was my insecurity. Now, it's the opposite: I like how they look, I like looking down and seeing them and because they are awesome because I am awesome. But strangely enough, the queen of "it's YOUR body, own it and display it as YOU feel" is now a little concerned about the messages I may be inadvertently sending to others with my boobs. As wrong as it is for men to assume that visible boobs are waiting for a man to try and get some QT with them, I am aware that there are men who feel this way. Furthermore, I get enough unwanted and not always respectful attention as it stands. Am I ready for what comes when I bring my girls out?

If only there was some way of regulating who looked at you and how they did it and what they saw. What a world it would be if you could control that, right? Sadly, it isn't and I'll have to navigate the treacherous territory of balancing my individual right to bear boobs and my need to maintain as much body autonomy as possible. Garvey Boulevard has no more right to dictate how I see my body than does Glamour Magazine. But while I wish outside factors, barring good taste and event appropriateness, didn't affect my ability to display my wares as I see fit, I live in the same world as everyone else. Boobs are awesome enough to fight for, especially my own. I'll tread lightly in my return to the big (but not so big) reveal (but not too-revealing). My breasts, like the rest of me, are mine and mine alone to own and I will deal with maintain ownership as best I can, even as I "share" them with the world.

Well, what do you know? I just wrote a lot more about my breasts than I ever thought possible. Now, who's next? Come on girls, show us your tit-tales! I don't want to be the only over-sharer today.

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