Society has a very odd relationship with breasts, especially those that hold the potential to feed newborn human babies and sit on people who are not flat-chested. Not everyone may have boobs, but those who do seem to be constantly told by everyone exactly how they should be feeling about them. It is fascinating how quickly one may rile up a crowd simply by mentioning a topic even remotely associated with the human breast – particularly if that topic of conversation centers around a person being able to do whatever they like with said breast, without the interference of other people.
To start off, allow us to discuss boob size. Larger breasts are very commonly hyper-sexualised throughout society. One may take two female-identifying people, for instance, one having an E cup size and the other having an A. Let’s consider then asking them to wear identical outfits and go about their days, both wearing shirts buttoned at the centre of the chest. Considering this scenario, it is almost inevitable that one of these women is going to be considered by some to be wearing a distasteful and inappropriate outfit – whilst being leered at by others at the same time. The larger a person’s breasts size is, the more likely they are to be told that their outfit feels inappropriate for the occasion, and more likely they are to be sexualised by colleagues, strangers and even – most disturbingly – certain family members.
The hyper-sexualisation of larger breasts is very often blamed on the person who simply had the audacity to exist within a body that looks a certain way. Those who develop larger breasts – some as young as still being in their teens – are very frequently asked to ‘cover up’ in varying scenarios within which smaller chested people are not; they are asked to dress more decently when male relatives enter the room or visit the household; they are told that clothes look too ‘slutty’ on them, are told that they are showing too much ‘cleavage’. The list goes on. People of any age, who dare to have boobs above a smaller size, are constantly drowned by comments on their bodies purely in terms of how others are going to be sexualising them at any given time – whilst always placing them at the centre of blame for being sexualised.
Either or both organs on the front of their chest are so often at the centre of this.
All of this becomes even more absurd once we realise just how much society pushes those with smaller boobs to constantly strive to make them bigger. Clothing and lingerie shops are full to the brim with ways and means with which to make one’s cleavage look more pronounced and add up to TWO cup sizes, contraptions and tapes to make one’s small boobs lift towards the heavens, and posters upon posters of women with larger (suspiciously perky) breasts being sold as the ideal. It is no wonder those with boobs never feel good enough – because we are told by society that we simply never are. Damned if your boobs are big and damned if they’re too small, and also damned if they are even remotely saggy in the process.
Breasts exist for a biological function – whether someone who has them ends up using them for that function or not, they exist as an external organ that is part of the larger, strange, miraculous machine that is our body. In short, boobs are not and never have been inherently sexual things. From the nipple to the fatty tissue, boobs are simply sacks of blood and fat that exist as part of the body. Having said that, evidently, society has found endless ways with which to sexualise them.
Social media is overflowing with topless images of flat chested men and non-binary people able to walk around their days showing off their nipples to everyone under the sun – because nipples are not offensive things. However add some fatty tissue to those nipples and put them on a woman or non-binary person, and suddenly you have an image that is entirely offensive and inappropriate – to the point that people have been banned from their social media pages simply for suggesting that they have a nipple attached to their boob. Nipples – presented to us as an offensive thing, but only when existing on one kind of breast.
One may notice people’s sensitivities surrounding breasts, and nipples in particular, when they bring up the topic of breastfeeding in public. Some talking points seem to make people quite enraged, and breastfeeding is one of them. Those who make the choice to breastfeed, and in turn use their breasts to provide nourishment to their child, as breasts sometimes do, are constantly asked to hide in the shadows as they do it. Despite using their boobs for a very natural, biological purpose, many become extremely offended by the mere potential of being able to catch a glimpse of a feeding parent’s nipple. In the eyes of society, it is almost as if the lack of sexualisation of a boob is so much more offensive than that same boob being used on a billboard to sell some beer.
It’s almost as if a patriarchal society convinces people to only be comfortable when they are deciding for others what exactly boobs should look like, and when they are deemed acceptable. Society presents the breastfeeding parent’s boob as vulgar, and the sexualised boob cloaked in the male-gaze being used to sell a can of shaving cream, as acceptable. And it doesn’t stop there.
It presents the trans woman’s boob as deceptive to cis men (a trick! a farce!), and the boob of an actress in a beloved TV series during a sex scene as acceptable.
It presents the boob of an adult woman running her own Only Fans account – and choosing to be sexual – as shameful and vulgar.
It presents the boob found in porn films created in oppressive industries where people have no say over what happens to their bodies – as aspirational.
It presents the boob that has had cosmetic surgery as the perky ideal, whilst also shaming it via tabloids and gossip-media, whilst also praising ‘all natural bodies’, whilst ALSO condemning saggy boobs for being undesirable.
Needless to say, society has a strange relationship with boobs.
When it comes down to it – all of them are different, and they’re not inherently sexual at all. They really do not need to be constantly sexualised by everyone who comes across a pair in the wild, no matter what they look like. What one chooses to do with their boobs, if they have them, is their own business. A person certainly doesn’t need them to be a woman, nor does anyone need them to look any specific way to be valid.
Let’s just all stop being so weird about boobs.
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