Why Are We Obsessed With Breasts?
It happens less than it used to, but again last week a man who was old enough to know better kept talking to my chest untill I reminded him where my eyes are. Sarah Thornton on our breast craziness.
Click to link to the full article from The New York Times. (GIFTED, no paywall. You’re welcome!)
Sarah Thompson knows tits (her preferred name). She realized after her double mastectomy that she hadn’t previously appreciated hers quite enough, and wrote TITS UP: What Sex Workers, Milk Bankers, Plastic Surgeons, Bra Designers, and Witches Tell Us About Breasts . [Click for earlier NYT article on the book, also GIFTED.)
A sociologist by background, Thompson dug into research, visiting strip clubs, milk banks and cosmetic surgeons in the process. She’s done us all the favor of mixing info from that wide array of sources and perspectives with her own brand of data, humor and irony.
She wrote the book “in order to help women reappraise their chests in positive ways, and men, too…Actually, I would really like men to read the book because so many of them think they really know about tits.”
The day before her mastectomy, Sarah Thornton took her girls swimming topless in the sunshine to say goodbye. In this interview she tackles,
What she didn’t like about her silicone imposters, Bert and Ernie. They’ve been replaced since with Glenda and Brenda, of whom she’s more fond.
When and how breasts got sexualized in the first place. Hints: WWII post-Grable legs, too-cold-to-bare climates, and, of all things, bottle feeding.
Why big ones are so 2000s.
The “corporeal communication” loop between a breastfeeding mom and her infant, verified by medical research.
My fingers are running, not walking, to buy the book…