Wednesday, September 15, 2010

This post is about boobs

I just gained a huge readership of males who will quickly disappear when they realize there is nothing sexy about the topic. And the topic today, my friends, is just that: boobs are not sexy.

Ok, let me qualify that. Pre-kids boobs are sexy. I guess. I have always found it odd how intensely the Western world has sexualized the female breast. Much of the rest of the world pretty much thinks they are no big deal. Remember how scandalized you were when you first saw a naked African woman in a National Geographic magazine, and wondered how she could just walk about with her boobs out? Nobody thinks it's weird over there. It just is. A part of the body. And it's bloody hot, so no thanks on the bra and shirt.

Boobs. The essential part of what makes us female, a part of the trifecta of measurements that allow us to determine how close we are to Monroe-esque perfection. So very important that you can have them enlarge, reduced, lifted and even have surgery to change the size of your areolas.

When you become a mom, and you decide to breast-feed, you discover the awful truth. You were not provided with your breasts in order to titillate the males around you. They exist to feed that crying little creature in your arms. They leak. They hurt. They are decidedly not sexy. And unless you opt for some of the procedures above, they will probably never be sexy again.

So we all lament the loss of our sexy, perky, pre-kids boobs. And then we are told we should be proud of our saggy, stretch-mark covered twins. Because they are battle scars! We fed the hungry! We nourished a child! Go BOOBS! It's not that I'm not proud. I am glad I made the decision to have my boys and to nurse them. But proud of my stretch marks and the sad state of my girls? Not so much.

I accept that I am not the sexy young thing I once was. I accept that it's going to take some serious help from Victoria's Secret to make my shape anywhere near what it once was. I accept that braless is no longer an option. I just wish that boobs weren't such a huge part of what is supposed to make us feel sexy. I wish that they didn't have to be so much a part of my identity as a woman. I wish that our society would just accept that boobs are not sexy, they are just a part of our biology, an important piece of the reproduction puzzle.

But alas. I live here and not in the Africa of National Geographic. Perhaps I should consider a move, me and my proud, saggy girls.

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