I may be the only person in America sick of breasts. Sitcom cleavage, oiled and hyperlit on magazine covers, "Are they real or aren’t they?" discussions across the Internet, and the ubiquitous public breastfeeding debates in newspapers – I’m all boobed out.
It’s not that I am against the breast; quite the opposite. I happen to own a pair myself, and, sure, they’re swell. I simply have BEO - breast exposure overload.
According to a survey done in 2004 by the American Dietetic Association, 43 percent of respondents agreed that women had the right to breastfeed in public. That number seems sadly low to me. Still, I don't think the other 57 percent are actively against feeding babies the easy way (I hope not); I suspect the "Desperate Housewives" Syndrome. Those breast-averse folks have seen so many inflated, heaving bosoms during prime time viewing that they forget the more utilitarian uses for the darling things. And then there are the mixed messages - nursing bras have gone all faux-stripper-cute, including a leopard print line (a la Agent Provocateur) from none other than fashion maven Gwen Stefani. Nursing bras. No more huge, unwieldy, white strappers that make bulges under a new mother’s shirt as if she’s smuggling sullen, lumpy weasels. No, now the most efficient hoisting system is offered with a sexual slant.
I think that's mighty fine, by the way. Breasts can be swathed in sexy. Mommas are downright sexy. But some folks like their lines clearly drawn. Some folks can't handle the dichotomy that is the mighty rack. Some folks, dare I say it, are confused about what nursing is and isn’t, what breasts can be and what they "should be."
I don't know where I'm going with this. I'm not anti-breast. I am definitely pro-breast, damn it. I just want them to recede a little in the national consciousness. The late actress, Hedy Lamarr, once said, "American men, as a group, seem to be interested in only two things, money and breasts. It seems a very narrow outlook." She was the first fully nude actress in a commercial film - yes, her breasts included - in the 1932 Czech film "Extase." She was also one of the first actresses to pursue implants, which had not yet been invented.
The late writer Robert Paul Smith once said:
"B is for Breasts
of which ladies have two;
Once prized for the function,
Now for the view."
To which I can only reply, "Oh, bollocks."
3 comments:
You realise you will now be the #1 Google search result for "sullen, lumpy weasels".
(Are the weasels sullen because they are travelling in a nursing bra? Were they sulky anyway? My mind will keep coming back to this.)
I'm thinking they are sullen because they are so lumpy, which is extremely unweaselish of them.
You knew your post would just inspire us to think more about breasts, right?
Lumpy weasels, emptied wine sacks, a breast is a breast by any other name. And mine are on settling in right down by waistline refusing to play ball until HMO's start paying for lifts and implants.
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