Breasts a-Plenty

I have a conflicted relationship with my breasts; they are the most sexualized part of me. And they are pretty big, at least in relation to the rest of me. Big in an unassuming way most of the time, unless I am not vigilant in the way that society has taught me…to wrap them up, strap them down, conceal them under layers.

Some of the stories about my breasts are funny. At a renaissance faire a few years ago I decided I would try on a corset. I’m not quite sure what I expected.

A waif like woman with pert little breasts was laced up before me and she emerged with a slightly accentuated bosom and a tiny little waist to complement it. Her gaggle of guy friends smiled at her and told her how great she looked.

Then I walked out. My breasts were suddenly contained and simultaneously unrestrained. The laces pushed them forward toward my chin. All of a sudden, what I spend a great deal of time trying to – not hide but de-emphasize- was blatantly on display. The gaggle of guys immediately stopped talking and turned in my direction. So stunned, they failed to even pretend they weren’t staring. 

“I look like porn,” I told Goti. He stammered for a moment and then, with too great a pause between my comment and his response, assured me I didn’t. 

I laughed about it then. It was my doing. It was a controlled (mostly) environment. Boobs at a faire…no big deal.

There are darker stories though…some that don’t seem so bad if you are simply looking in for a moment. A kind of microagression of the female gendered form. But for me, they are stacked on top of each other over years. And with time, they have constructed the story of my body and how I inhabit it. 

Even as late as graduate school (in my late 20s) people were still policing my body and the way I looked. I had a job in the back of an office- a dress code had never been laid out and it wasn’t uncommon in the hotness of summertime Louisiana to see women in shorts and tank tops. Usually I erred on the side of more material but on one particular afternoon, knowing I’d be in class after a few short hours of sorting mail, I wore a tank top and a pair of shorts. I distinctly remember staring at myself in the mirror before I left home that day, contemplating the shirt, a fitted green striped number that showed my cleavage (as any shirt that has any kind of neckline is bound to do). I had another shirt I could wear over it but in 90+ heat and 90% humidity it seemed absurd. 

Part of my resolve about that shirt, which I’d had for some time and never worn, was about owning the body I was in. and so I began the walk to my job, through midcity. I was cat-called on the way and my resolve about my shirt wavered. But by that time it was too late to turn back and so I used my bag to cover my chest and continued on. 

By the time I reached the office I was already frustrated and feeling low. And then my boss, an older woman, called me into her office to ask me- in the form of a not-so-questioning question- If I would be changing before that night’s event.

Not a singular incident, I had a boss who stared at my chest in one-on-one meetings even after I asked him, pointedly and with no abstraction, to stop staring at my chest.

In those instances I felt lewd and inappropriate and the ideas about a part of my body I have no control over were reinforced. I should cover and be ashamed. I immediately suspected myself of wrongdoing not the person responding to me. 

These are strange things to recount so many years later except, when I read about the young woman who was kicked out of her Homeschool Prom because her dress was “too provocative”, I am reminded that we simultaneously sexualize women’s bodies and then damn them for being (by someone’s definition) “sexy”.

My impulse was to defend her dress as many commenters to her blog and the Jezebel piece did. I’m glad she is getting support in the wake of such a messed up situation. But pointing out how she didn’t break the arbitrary rules laid out for women’s dress doesn’t address the arbitrary rules. 

People cry slippery slope; people will wear anything. I live in the Bay Area, I know, I’ve seen some interesting things and in some parts of Berkeley and San Francisco you can get away with being nude. But the slippery slope works both ways. How much do we control, do we criticize, do we police? How do you “normalize” what is deemed sexy or sexual on a myriad of bodies?

I’m tall, skirts that fit me in the waist often look short. I have big breasts, even ignoring the cleavage issues, shirts pull across my chest and accentuate what’s there. 

I have a silk button up dress that I once loved. It was professional enough to wear to work and it was comfortable. Working a career fair years ago, and wearing the dress, I struck up conversation with one of my table mates. It was professionally friendly – I don’t think we had even exchanged names. I excused myself from my table for a moment and he waved me over to him- I assumed to make a formal introduction. Instead he shook my hand, held on to it and pulled me closer to him while he whispered something foul to me about my legs and what part of his anatomy they were impacting.

I didn’t wear that dress again for years. I couldn’t put it on without feeling like I was soliciting unwanted attention, like anything inappropriate sent my way was by my own invitation.

In college I seldom wore anything form fitting. My sophomore year I acquired, and fell in love with, a fitted burnt orange tank top. It was so fitted I could wear it without a bra. One day on the yard, the denim shirt I wore unbuttoned over it blowing in the breeze, a male friend of mine kept gazing down at my breasts. Finally he said, “put those away, they are distracting me.” I picked up his t-shirt that was covering his zipper and proceeded to talk to him while gazing at his zipper. After a few flustered and uncomfortable moments he swatted my hand away. It was my silent protest.

My relationship with my breasts is complex. 

I am still mindful of the fit of my clothes and the audience those clothes will interact with, even as the feminist in me rages against the idea that I am somehow responsible for the way men – or anyone – look at or react to my body. It doesn’t mean I don’t think about it; I hope it doesn’t mean I always will.