Breasts! A surprisingly controversial topic for appendages that occur on many humans. In a recent discussion on how to discuss breast and bra size, we realized that this topic really needed to be discussed out in the open, much like our previous discussions on body hair. We at WWAC are always ready to talk about things that potentially make people uncomfortable, as is artist and writer Jennifer Hayden, who’s graphic novel, The Story of My Tits, is out this week. Review to come!
Okay, first off, who taught you what you know about breasts (or what you thought you knew)?
Al Rosenberg: My dad, actually. I come from a family of small-breasted women, but I hit a 36B by third grade. Finally, my dad took me to the store to get a bra because my grandmother’s solution had just been put-another-shirt-over-them.
Melinda Pierce: My best friend in the fifth grade gave me her hand-me-down bras. She was the first to educate me on the importance of wearing stylish bras at such a young age. My mom didn’t want to let me wear them, but I eventually wore her down.
I didn’t know a lot about breasts as a child. I didn’t really talk about them with my mom, but I was aware adults wore bras for their breasts and that at some point I would have to get a bra—an idea I didn’t like.
Wendy Browne: Much like with hair removal, breasts were something I just figured out through osmosis. I knew my sister, 13 years my elder, had them, my mom had them, so it stood to reason that I would get them too at some point. What purpose they served, I really had no clue.
Ginnis Tonik: I don’t really remember. I mean there were sex-ed classes and my girlfriends. I do remember the anticipation for getting boobs though—that was a big deal for many of my girlfriends.
Claire Napier: I had a little book called “Have You Started Yet?” which was about puberty generally. But mostly, most of all, the internet. And novels my mother got free with Cosmopolitan magazine (i.e. arousal = nipples are hard, small) which I snuck from her shelves. This is for biological facts. But for “breasts: they’re GOOD” it was Baywatch and Baywatch commentary (by whom? No idea! It was in the ether I guess) and articles about extreme augmentation in, again, Cosmopolitan.
Cathryn Sinjin-Starr: Probably my mother and the internet. I can remember a mild argument back when I was nine or ten, when I started wearing “the tank top” under all my shirts. My mom was trying to convince me to wear a bra. I refused—the straps would show. How dare! She pointed out to me another girl in my class had one and they were showing, it wasn’t a big deal. I still refused. Cue middle school—okay, now I’ll wear one, because I’m in middle school. Great logic. Outside of that, I didn’t know much until venturing the internet to find out about how to get the right sizing (it still eludes me).
When did you become aware of breasts as a thing you “should” or “shouldn’t have”?
Al: As a pre-teen and teenager, I clung to the idea that my boobs were what made me attractive. I wore push-up bras, plunging necklines, dangling necklaces that disappeared in artificially constructed cleavage. And my grandmother hated it. She was constantly telling me to cover-up, would tug my sweaters closed, or my shirts higher. I felt simultaneous ashamed and proud of my breasts, which by sixteen had reached 38F.
Melinda: I popped out to a full B in late middle school. The boys noticed, and I have honestly hated my breasts ever since. They were talked about, poked, and some of the other girls thought I’d grown them just to get attention.
Carly: I was an object of catcalling when I was 12 years old. I was in the middle of puberty and noticing my breasts were getting larger. I was walking down the street when an adult man honked at me in his car and shouted something like, “Looking good!” I was 12; I was a child. No one had told me in sex ed that this sort of thing would happen, and I was terrified. By the time I was 16 and wearing 34C bras (likely an incorrect size as I know now), and regularly walking around town with my friends, experiencing catcalling became a normal occurrence. It was so confusing; I knew being yelled at from a car was scary and something I disliked, but I simultaneously believed this is just what it means to be desired. I feel like I had to “grow up” into a woman at an early age because of my breasts growing larger quickly. In general, I really didn’t like having breasts, and every time I needed to buy a larger sized bra, I felt self-loathing. I’ve always wanted a more androgynous look because that’s just the silhouette I’ve wanted to have, but it also led me to always wearing a bra smaller than I should have been. When a woman at Victoria’s Secret took my size senior year of high school when I was trying to find a bra to go with my prom dress, she told me I was a D, and I vehemently denied it and insisted she was wrong. Well, turns out we were both wrong, and I was likely above a DD cup back then. But of course, I didn’t know my bras were fitting me incorrectly because my band size was always too big, and no one I knew understood how bras are supposed to fit.
Wendy: In middle school, I discovered that breasts were a symbol of female social status. This was extremely frustrating because I had none to speak of at the time. There was one girl at school who developed early and got lots of attention from boys. Other girls were of “average” size, but I couldn’t understand why I was still flat-chested. Why didn’t I get boobs like my mom and sister? I was teased by both family and friends about it. My aunt and uncle dubbed their daughter and I, “The Young and the Breastless.” It was all in good fun, I knew, but it still ate away at me. I begged my mom for padded bras, which she obliged me with eventually, but even that was embarrassing because gym class revealed the truth. Jubilee in Uncanny X-Men Annual #13 represented my reality:
Ginnis: Pretty early on, I learned they were a feminine status symbol. I definitely wanted bigger ones, but I think two important things kept my experience with growing breasts largely positive. One, my mom never shamed me about them or even for wanting bigger ones. She would buy me Victoria’s Secret bras for Christmas, the ones that add like two cup sizes, and it felt more like a fun celebration of womanhood, not something to be ashamed for having or for lacking. At the same time, my mom also would frequently go sans bra, which again was no shame, it was a matter of comfort. I got the best of both worlds in that way, thanks Mom!
I learned they were a feminine status symbol. I definitely wanted bigger ones, but I think two important things kept my experience with growing breasts largely positive. One, my mom never shamed me about them or even for wanting bigger ones.
Claire: I mentioned this in “U Serious, Bra?,” but I remember very clearly asking why my mother didn’t take off her shirt when it was hot, because my dad did, and I, being four or so, also did. “Because it would be naughty” was the gist I got back, neither parent wanting to launch into a great cultural debrief, and I was a smart girl. I could figure out that the presence of mounds on the people who weren’t allowed to take their shirts off lent the rudeness to the disallowal. Boobies: they’re audacious. I put my shirt on, immediately, because I knew that I was a girl and that girls became women and women were the ones with the breasts (I know differently now; neither Cosmopolitan, nor life, had yet introduced me to trans people or mastectomies or even cis men with a lot of breast fat); I could see a direct line between my own body and illicitness. You were supposed to have big boobs, and men were supposed to like them for secret reasons, and women were supposed to be against this (but also perform this breast-having). I’ve never managed well with being observed, but this was a new layer of horror because…could I become an adult woman without graciously inviting secret-motive viewing of the rude body parts that I didn’t yet have? Very confusing. As I got older, I wanted the prestige, and a breasted aesthetic, but they come with such a package of other people’s nonsense. And everybody around me (girls’ school, yup) got them before I did! Friends, enemies, others: sorry for looking at your tits. I was just trying to figure out what they meant. I know I probably made you feel bad.
Ginnis: Yeah, I would also like to join Claire in that apology, because I so did the same thing. I just wanted to understand better!
Cathryn: I was also aware of breasts as a thing I’d have, but we never discussed them. Just mentions of ,“Oh, you’ve got them now. Let’s buy you something (tank/bra).” I honestly remember no big fanfare or fuss about that, other than not wanting to wear a bra. I STAND BY THIS TO THIS DAY. Finnicky, uncomfortable piece of shit.
How do you feel about them now?
Al: Now I’m way more relaxed about my breasts. I own one bra with moulded cups for when I’m “femme-ing it up,” but most of my bras are sports bras now. I also occasionally bind. This is not for gendered reasons often, but just to make the masculine clothing I wear now fall straighter on my frame. Breasts get in the way of suits, I find.
Melinda: Ugh. I am now a full D thanks to having two kids, and I long for the day when I can have a reduction. They swell and hurt during PMS. I also have a lot of back pain. Although they grew with both my kids and didn’t go down even after I lost the baby weight, I did not produce milk. I remember my first pediatrician made me cry because he said if I really wanted to breastfeed my daughter, then I would have to force her to feed on me until the milk came in. I found a new pediatrician. So, my breasts became little failures to me (and me only). I do feel guilty about complaining. I have a good friend who battled breast cancer and had a double mastectomy. She’s a great person who never makes me feel bad for my negative views on my breasts.
I still get self-conscious in low-cut tops and dresses because I know my cleavage makes them “inappropriate” in certain spaces. Sometimes older adult women mention things about that, and I feel ashamed, but I also feel angry because larger breasts don’t mean you’re acting sexier or inappropriate
Wendy: My breasts finally decided to show up in high school, though they were still small at 34A. The rest of me started to develop though, and it turned out that I had a great pair of legs. Basically, I was still bound to this idea of needing a body part to attract the boys. It had nothing to do with how I felt about myself until I was much older and realized that I should not give a damn about what anyone else thinks about my body. When I hit my twenties, I finally started to appreciate my smaller breasts. Well, I was still envious of the cleavage my friends had, but at least I could find clothes that worked for me, and I loved being able to go braless. Then I had kids. I had lived with the theory that small breasts didn’t sag, but I know now that all breasts fall victim to gravity, and breastfeeding adds all sorts of new dimensions. I loved my pregnant breasts. I loved having cleavage for the first time in my life, though I then could empathize with the discomfort of women who have to regularly remind people where their eyes are located, and my commute home usually involved stripping out of my bra on hot days. Then came breastfeeding, where the asymmetry of breasts really became obvious. Now, approaching 40, I’m a size 36B, but I’m far less likely to go braless. The new representative of my struggle is Leslie Mann in This is 40 where she examines Megan Fox’s much younger breasts and laments. “My boobs are just…gone. They didn’t even say goodbye.”
As much as I do miss my perky pre-child breasts, I did truly enjoy breastfeeding my girls and am so happy I had that privilege.
Ginnis: I recently got resized, and I am significantly larger than I have been in the past. This has come with gaining weight as I get older. Admittedly, I do like my breasts bigger. Again, it is that double-edged sword. Growing up, I was skinny and petite which was envied by many of my girlfriends, and I intuitively knew it was a sort of social power. But I wanted to be the curvy hourglass—I liked the Marilyn Monroe compared to the Audrey Hepburn (the bombshell and the gamine being like the only two, ha!). I also had stick straight hair and wanted curly hair. My curly haired girlfriends wanted straight hair. Oy. I like being bigger now, but there’s always a lurking voice whispering (sometimes screaming) “you’re fat!”
Claire: Showgirls contained certain truths: I like having nice tits. But none of my old feelings have gone, they’ve just been added to, and there’s almost nothing I can imagine being less at home to than somebody else’s unsolicited opinion. They are NOT FOR YOU. They’re how my body grew; I can appreciate that, and I don’t need anybody else to. I’m much happier having abandoned highly structured bras, because I couldn’t stand how they bossed me. And my body is comfier not trying to counter their strength. I found that braless pilates put paid to any and all breast-related back pain, and running doesn’t hurt or even really strain things either now. Obviously I can’t speak for all possible futures but basic supposition leads me to feel that, should I need a mastectomy, I’d not choose reconstruction. I appreciate this combined body of mine enormously, but…I think it’s in a different way to the basically apparent “yes! they finally grew in!”
Cathryn: In all fairness, I always wear them. Some of my colleagues talk about taking them off as soon as they get home, and I just can’t do it. It’s more uncomfortable, somehow? I don’t know. Boobs are confusing. My biggest issue is that I have very rounded shoulders, so the straps are aaaaaalways falling down, unless I get racerback. They don’t tend to make racerback in my size, and it isn’t a very popular style where I live either. So I live with the never-ending game of strap-pickup.
What has your experience generally been finding clothing that fits your breasts?
Al: Finding “professional” clothing to fit my breasts has always been a hassle. Button-up shirts? Going to have some boob-gap unless I pay for the extra button, or go a larger size and alter down. Blouses are often too short after the breasts pull them up. I’m a fan of sweaters.
Melinda: Like Al, the button shirts never work. I don’t think I’ve worn a button up shirt in years. I don’t like form fitting t-shirts because they are always tight across the chest. I usually find that men’s medium t-shirts work best.
Carly: Button-up shirts are so, so cute, but they just don’t work on me thanks to that gap. A lot of shirts with no structure also just lay over my breasts and give me zero definition in the waist area and make me look bloated, so I’m hyper aware of how clothing looks on my body. I pass up on a lot of cute tops because I know they just won’t look good on me, which makes me sad. I can usually find okay basics at places like Target if I just want some tank tops, but now I end up buying a lot of clothes online and crossing my fingers they fit well. I still have some problems because I’m short but also have larger breasts, so sometimes my tops will fit in the chest area but literally nowhere else.
I once found the mythical perfect bra.
Ginnis: Now, button up shirts are largely impossible for me, but since I generally like looser fitting tops, I am pretty okay on finding shirts that fit. It is other areas that concern me more, but that is a whole other roundtable.
Claire: It’s essentially fine. I’m picky about clothing so I don’t notice one area of specificity more than another. Button-up shirts need a button that hits the fullness of the breast exactly (this is for me; I’m a generally small person with a bust that’s essentially one of my upper arms stuck onto my torso crosswise, so button at base, button across the middle, button above basically covers the breast wave), I don’t look good in high necklines, and my shoulders are wide and square, so I think I shop for that more than for boob problems.
Cathryn: I am a big girl, but without big-girl boobs. So my boobs are in fact LOST in many of the clothes I wear. While that means my not-so-bodacious-babes never strain a top, it does mean some necklines can fall a bit lower than originally intended…I am not complaining about this.
Has feminism made you think differently about your breasts and breasts in general?
Al: I’m not sure. Feminism has made me feel different about my body in general. More accepting, but I feel my breast-love journey was sort of isolated from most of the rest of my life.
Melinda: I don’t think so. I think being a mom made me think about them differently. Even though I couldn’t breast feed, they stopped being mine after the kids were born. The kids use them like pillows all the time. I don’t think I’ve ever really thought of my breasts in a positive way and that kinda makes me sad.
Carly: I don’t know if feminism itself has made me feel more comfortable, but it has helped educate me on certain behaviors and why they’re not okay, and that’s helped me feel better about my body. As I’ve become more feminist over the past several years, I’ve been happier with how I look. I know I’ll never have the slim frame and long legged look that’s been made popular, but I also know (most of the time) I don’t care!
Wendy: For me, maturity and the reality of breast-related issues were the key to learning to respect and appreciate breasts. I used to envy women with much larger breasts than mine, but now I understand how painful that can be. Breastfeeding has made me more aware of the fact that these things actually serve a really important purpose, no matter what some societies have come to believe. The benign cysts in my breast, along with my sister-in-law’s ongoing struggle with breast cancer, and the beautiful and brave women of The Scar Project has reminded me never to take breasts—mine or anyone else’s—for granted, and to respect them all.
Ginnis: Wendy, The Scar Project is so beautiful. I think having a largely positive (and privileged) experience with my breasts growing up, that feminism has helped in the general sense of opening my eyes up to all the various body types and idiosyncrasies out there, but feminism has certainly played an important role in other more reviled body parts.
Claire: Not mine, so much, maybe, directly. Other people’s? Yes. Peace be with you, breast-havers. My enemies are those who do not bear’em, but those who make us bear their bullshit decrees on the matter.
Cathryn: It has made me more aware that I could be judged for just having them, which is a drag. Mine aren’t very impressive, so I don’t think anyone’s oogled them much or made me feel uncomfortable regarding them…okay, this is a slight fib, so for an over-share—I get comments about my nipples more than I’d like. I can’t help my nips, alright?! Stop asking me if I’m bloody cold!
Last question and an important one—what is your favorite word for breasts?
Al: I suppose it depends? During sexy times? Tits. (I know, I’m a disgusting perv and will be alone forever.) In everyday conversation? Breasts.
Melinda: We say boobs or boobies in my house. Hubby, me, and the kids. My kids are boobs obsessed. My daughter always said she couldn’t wait to have big boobies like me. Both my kids try on my bras. We even have a cat named Boobie.
Carly: I use “breasts” most of the time, but in comfortable, casual settings sometimes I switch to using “boobs.”
Wendy: “Boobs” and “boobies” have always been a favourite. “Bewbs” if I want to be really classy.
Ginnis: Boobs is just so fun to say. Say it aloud: “Boooooobs.” I think the sound makes something that can be taken so seriously, a little less serious. Also, tits. I like the hard sound of that word, and unsurprisingly, I like that tits makes people squirm a little bit because to quote Al it makes you sound like “a disgusting perv,” kind of like cunt. Again, also, the hard sound is just so nice to say, gratifying, cathartic. And when women use it it feels like reclamation, which I think is important.
Claire: I use them all, because there is no word that really sounds “right” to me. There’s too much cultural debris in these cups!! So…I dunno. Knockers? That sounds proactive. KNOCK KNOCK? WHO’S THERE? NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS, FUCKER!
Cathryn: Oh, it has to be “boobs” and “boobies” here. I’m juvenile and like funny words. BOOOOOOOBIIIIES.
