boobies

at the intersection of self-love and dysmorphia

I don’t talk about my breasts very often, certainly not for how much space they physically take up in my life. I haven’t ever written out a breast timeline, so to speak. If I were to do so, one landmark would be from a recently held job. A woman, once just another employee, eventually became my supervisor and I experienced intermittent bullying from her. The company both gaslit my experience and suggested that I “go high.” The thing, the thing that always held me back from “going high”, the thing that I could just never seem to let go of, could never seem to forget, was a day years prior. When she, basically a stranger, deemed it necessary to comment on my dress, on my breasts, sharing her hot take to my new coworkers, turning my modest attire into some display of sexual vulgarity. I can still feel the sensation of shame from deep within my body that arose when I heard how this person spoke about me.

Here is the thing, the thing when dealing with microaggressions or bias or whatever the fuck. It’s never just - THAT thing. It’s all the other million fucking papercuts that came before. I go back all the way back to my early 20s, working at a cafe in Silverlake, Los Angeles. I remember 4 things about the owner. 1. She hated TV on the Radio 2. She made it a policy to never give any food to the houseless 3. She regulary yelled at kitchen staff 4. She said to me that I used my breasts to “flirt with male customers”. 4 was the last day I worked there. 

Peruse my closet and you will find many dresses. In the past few years as I have been actively interrogating my relationship to and understanding of gender, of binaries, of queerness, I still love to play femme with dress up. I will forever be a theater kid in costume. I love to put on a dress and do my hair and paint my lips red. When you look through my dresses you will see one dominant theme, and here is that word again. Modest. A modest neckline. Halter neck? Excellent, it will do. Does it come up to the collarbone - yes? Good, it’s in. For I can never scrub the memory of this woman or that woman or the countless that came before her, who felt the need to share unsolicited commentary on the draping of my dresses, whether I was a 20-year-old size D or a 40-year-old size G. This has seemingly forever influenced my fashion choices. Hide the boobs. Hide them. I’m loud enough as it is, right? 

Decades I spent with men hassling or harassing or hollering at me, in relation to these magnificently large orbs seated upon my body. Yet, the most painful comments have come from those who have not related to me in that way, have not been from those wanting. Many men have wanted. To touch, to have, to look, to take. But the sharpest cuts I have felt from the patriarchy have come from the women commenting on who I must be for the body I walk through this world with. 

My breasts have only increased in size over the years. Breastfeeding was traumatizing for me. It was a difficult process and I had little support and help at home. I recall hearing “I don’t understand why you are having a hard time feeding with breasts that are so huge.” I imagined my friends with little titties having complete freedom in feeding their babes in public. A tiny tank top, a strap down and done. My breasts, so huge, such a massive public statement. This outspoken and person found herself isolating at home in order to not have to feed with onlookers. 

I have spent years at the intersection of self-love and dysmorphia.

4 years ago I went to my first appointment for a breast reduction consultation. I didn’t tell anyone I was going, and until this moment, dear reader, only about 5 people even knew I did that. The medical gatekeepers informed me that insurance certainly wouldn’t cover it, from a quick calculation of breast resection mass according to their scales. And dysphoria is only allowed covered by insurance for those with gender dysphoria. I left the appointment knowing as a struggling single parent I didn’t have thousands of dollars for what was deemed frivolous or cosmetic. I said to myself “maybe if I can just love myself more”, and “perhaps I can just feminist-a-little-harder,” then I could magically be happy with my boobs in the world I live in. 

Here’s what I have come to understand in the 4 years since. I truly, completely, fucking love myself. I love how determined I am to keep growing and evolving and learning and loving. I love who I am, and who I am yet to be. And - and - and- I also feel a lack of full ownership of my bodily autonomy (not for the overtly obvious as a uterus having body in the US). I am not fully at home in my own body. Because of my breasts. Because of the life I have lived. Because I cannot love my way out of material reality. Out of the systems within which I live. 

Example. A person is struggling financially. Dealing with food insecurity. A well-meaning white liberal comes up to them and says (fill in the blank piece of generic toxic positivity.) Is it important to find good things to focus on? Yes. Can it be dangerous to spiral down into the darkness? Yes. Is it harmful and toxic to tell a person struggling against actual systems, that only if they fucking manifested and vision boarded and loved themselves harder, that they would be relieved from those very real oppressive systems? Yes~ Why yes it fucking is! 

I told a male friend recently about my desire to get a breast reduction. He said it made him feel sad. That I was beautiful, that he thought I was beautiful. I never said nor do I think I am not beautiful. This isn’t the issue. What matters is centering myself. Centering what I think only. And what are the things I can actually change in this world?

Months ago with my lover, I mentioned in the midst of playtime that my boobs are too big and I wished them smaller. My lover hungrily tasted them, always seeming to delight in their presence. When I see my breasts in my lover's hands, or in my lover's mouth, they seem smaller to me because they are not in relation to me anymore. In another's hands, I can love my breasts. Yet, when I come home they are once again just mine. A thing within themselves, a huge chasm between me and others. 

We live in relationship to one another. Others relate to us, or don’t, often on how they see us, how they see our bodies. I can possess self-love to the end of days, but it doesn’t discount or erase the experience of my material reality. And that reality is informed by 20+ years of dealing and interacting with people in relationship not - to me, essentially, or wholly, but also, tangentially, in relationship to these boobies, these breasts. 

What does it mean to be safe in one’s body? Who gets to be safe? I have no control over this country being the world's largest weapons dealer. Soon enough, legally speaking at least, it seems like I will lose control over my uterus and its functioning. I have no control over comments people say or don’t say or would say. But there are things I can control. There are a few things I can change.

With each day I move through middle age I grow more invisible. I can see my societal devaluation in a misogynistic capitalist country in real time. Yet, and even so, I cannot be - that - invisible. My breasts scream out otherwise. Look at me! Or maybe, look at me trying to hide. Perhaps I want to spend the rest of my life without that. Perhaps I want to have a sense of safety that my communities currently do not offer me. Perhaps I want to be loud only with my voice and my heart and my soul.

Smaller tits won’t bring about gun control. Less cleavage certainly won’t feed the hungry, end anti-gay legislation, or destroy capitalism. But if taking some literal weight off my shoulders brings me a bit of joy, of at least, an embodied sense of ownership of my own body, of safety, then that’s something to me. Maybe a little more energy and sense of self to continue doing the small things I can do in this world. Write this piece. Parent with love. Be good to my friends and family.

That's the breast of it. Much love all, and thanks for reading with me.