My Boobs: Equal Parts Utilitarian and Sensual

Time takes a toll on breasts. Just when the over 40 woman has come to terms that her ‘ladies’ have moved south; when ‘soft’ has replaced ‘perky’, and she regrets money not spent on ‘bra armor’ to keep her bosom in firm form when they still had a fighting chance; after childbirth, stretch marks and breast feeding have taken their toll and she’s accepted her breasts as is – flat, or droopy, or not at all – along comes the mammogram. A device invented by a man permanently and irrevocably smashes any bounce still left in her boobies. Isn’t it great to be a woman?

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Women and those who love them are encouraged to love, honor, and nurture breasts. Get them checked out – first by your beloved because it is fun, and then by your doctor, because it is important. Our boobies deserve no less (although they do deserve a better machine).

Breasts have nurtured the ages, and given countless hours of comfort to many scraped knees and elbows. They’ve enticed others to perform feats of great courage, and given women sensual satisfaction. Utilitarian, lovely and miraculous, breasts shouldn't just get attention during Breast Cancer Awareness Month. They are worthy of year-long adoration.

Health care reform should apply to the mammogram. Get rid of the current machine, the pain, and the wincing, and replace it with something designed by angels. Attractive, sexy beings with warm hands, lathered in natural oils, empowered by medical intuition. More women would race to the clinic if a mammogram included some fine stroking, followed by a murmured, “You have exquisite and healthy breasts.” Hmmm, let me pause for a moment…

All right, that fantasy is over.

Breasts are both utilitarian and sensual, and it is impossible to separate the two. We live in a society obsessed with the female breast (nothing new historically speaking) – people ogle at them, some more subtly than others – and women respond with a variety of reactions. Pleasure. Irritation. Outrage. Arousal. Frustration. Confidence.

Those who want to diminish the breast to function and the feeding of children forget that women spend very few years reproducing and nursing. Those who react to breastfeeding with either feigned offense or confusion forget that breasts are more than sexual ornamentation. Both groups are hypocrites in denial whose views reflect a culture-wide schism about cleavage.

Modern American society generally holds a schizoid view of the female breast. Facebook’s rigid boobie rules is just one example of that – no pictures of a woman breast feeding is allowed, but if her delicate little nipples are covered, A-Okay.

Googled and goggled, breasts are subject to rigid scrutiny that leaves women feeling ashamed and inadequate, hunched over fashion spreads, researching the perfect pair and the plastic surgeon who’ll give them to her. Too big, too little, too far apart, not high enough, and what’s with those hairs around the nipples? If my headlamps are different sizes, who’s gonna want to see them shine?

We flaunt them from fear as much as from pride.

I once attended a friend’s wedding where one of the guests forgot her bra while wearing a gown that had virtually no top. For the entire event, people stared, dazzled by her audacity, nipples popping out, here and there, little cherries tumbling out of a bowl from her strappy, low-cut dress. Each time one escaped, she'd tuck it back, casual-like, as if it were a sleeping child fallen out of bed. Onlookers were momentarily thrilled and just as glad she wasn't their date flashing Grandma, Auntie Sue and Jacob, the 8-year-old ring bearer.

Was this guest a femme fatale, entirely certain of her effect on her admirers, or a would be exhibitionist yearning for a voyeuristic crowd? Breasts can serve both purposes, magnificently, as an asset of mystery and womanhood, especially when a woman plays on her desirability on her own terms. Is that not the flavor of feminism that welcomes beauty, charm, flirtation and power of a woman in her prime?

After decades of having my own favorite pair, sources of pleasure and comfort, this much I know: I’m done with shame where there should be none, perverting what is natural, or demonizing what is sensual, and in the process, forgetting just how tantalizing breasts really are.

Cleavage comes in all shapes and sizes, and they shift with the winds and weight, as a drawer full of brassieres attests to. I found mine where they’d always been, up front and not so centered. I finally love my boobies just the way they are.