Let's Talk Boobs

I recall that my breasts were the topic of conversation only once in my life: middle school. It was ironic and sort of a cruel joke when I look back on it, but it’s true. I was practically the first person in my grade to sprout a trendy little pair of knockers, and you know what that lead to? Ridicule.

Boys.... they were so appealing and yet so scathing at the same time. I was sucker. They reeled me in with the, “hey, Billie, we want to talk to you about something,” and then they would hit me with, “Did you stuff your bra?!” At first I was mortified. So mortified I couldn’t even answer them whether or not I stuffed my bra.

By the time I mustered the courage to answer back, my comeback was just strange, “No! I am not even wearing a bra!” (I was 11, okay?) Most embarrassingly, Mrs. Trithall, our sixth grade math teacher had overheard me. That was probably the same time group work went from unisex to divided into boys and girls groups--sorry classmates.

Alas, by the time we got to the eighth grade, many of peers had surpassed me in the breast department. True story: the question I asked my high school boyfriend most frequently was, “Do my boobs look bigger to you?” He always said they looked the same, and he always told me they looked good. He was not lying.

The fact of the matter is, I do have a nice rack, even if it is a little small. Looking around now I would say I am pretty on par with most of my friends, leave go a few with nice, big ones. I began thinking about what made me always think that having these enormo boobs was a sign of a womanhood... because, let’s be honest, as little girls we all thought that one day we would wake up, have giant breasts and this would inevitably mean only one thing: we were women.

I think that it’s the same phenomenon that makes us think our homes are so large when we are little. We suddenly realize when we get all grown up that our homes were never that gigantic size we thought when were small, we were just the small ones. Boobs, for me, were kind of like that. People, in general, looked bigger to me and so followed their boobs. It was only as an adult that I learned that my breasts would never be enormous, and that if I ever wanted those really “womanly” boobs, I would have to have a baby in order to get them.

Sure, some women are blessed with great big ones--and we love you ladies, let me say. Everyone, in fact, loves boobs be they straight, gay, male, or female. EVERYONE needs a bosom for a pillow, even my dog. But I find now that as an adult, breasts are less a subject of fascination and more a fact of life. Breast size is sort of like penis size, you think you want the very biggest ones until you realize if you really got what you thought you wanted, there might be some pain involved.

For men, I understand that they will always love a good motor boat between two breasts, and no one can deny that. For some men, the bigger the breasts, the better. I get that. But there are also those who don’t care as much about breast sizes, especially when they are picking a wife and not a stripper. I wish someone had told me that in sixth grade.