I started my day of writing with an odd observation: breasts are trouble. Breasts are trouble for everyone, not the least are they trouble for the women who have to wear them. While on my way to the office, I noticed a woman marching down the sidewalk. One of her breasts was a bit askew under her shirt and it caused me pause. I was trying to figure out if the errant boob was deflated? Was it free of it’s containment device? Was there a containment device being worn? Is any of it my business? I idly considered stopping the car to inform her of the situation, thinking she might prefer to know that she was not presenting as intended. The other half of that consideration was whether or not to invade her personal space with such a comment. It could be easily misconstrued and in fact…it is possible that she was presenting as intended. So, this became an observation, a passing thing and disappeared (other than it’s reappearance here.) The observation did set other thought in motion, however. I quickly remembered a scene from the early days of Ontario’s finally allowing women to be bare-breasted in a public setting. Though few women avail themselves of the freedom, the law did change and that was a good, necessary thing. I wonder now if people even remember that it is legal to do. I digress.
The scene I am remembering from the first days of ‘legality’ was of a woman striding purposefully, briskly along, head held high. I thought that she was wearing a t-shirt printed with a pair of breasts and thought, “Wow, she is clever in her protest!” On another occasion, I had seen a similar sort of printed sweatshirt being worn by Raylene Rankin. The bright red shirt had an image of a pair of glasses, printed such that a large lens was situated over each breast. I thought that was very clever, too. It was as though she were saying, “My eyes are up HERE, dude!” In the case of the t-shirt marcher, I nearly immediately realized that it was not a printed shirt she wore – those firm and resolute breasts were HERS and were totally exposed. It shocked me.
I was shocked by a movie on Netflix a few nights ago, as well. Within minutes of the titles being off, her top was off and the tits were flopping. The fellow who was co-starring was equally exposed, I had two bare chests competing for my attention. No question which I was drawn to… but… What shocked me was more my own opinion of the scene than the relative moral merits of the cast running around shirtless. I was shocked and surprised at my reaction to this particular kind of nudity. My puritanical ideas came fully forth and I didn’t like knowing that part of myself.
The idea of sexualizing a woman’s breasts is incredibly deeply ingrained in western society. That a man’s bare chest is not so much sexualized is horribly unfair. The situation is so bad that even I, as a ‘sworn to the membership’ gay man, am offended by bare breasts/chests. That is how perverse our indoctrination is. They are breasts, folks. Nothing more. They may play a role in sexuality for some? (can’t imagine why) but they are otherwise just a body part. Just a body part, a hand a foot, a knee, a breast. (oooooh, a little bit of fur?) These are body parts with a function, a good purpose for existing. Simple. Nothing more than that even remotely intrinsic. Any connected musing is all subjective. It is in the beholder and is not thrust from the outside upon said witness.
The choice of a person to expose or not, is theirs and the exposure or not implies nothing whatsoever beyond that. This is the core of whether or not a person can or should wear revealing clothing. Wear what makes you comfortable, excepting in cases where sanitation or physical danger is an issue in public. (Masks, underwear, hairnets, or… Don’t bare it, if it bothers me..) Somehow, we have to get past ourselves. A bare body part has nothing to do with sex unless the owner of the part is whispering something in your little ear to the contrary. We humans are wacky, the little animals only sniff when the pheromones are ripe, otherwise allowing the relative nudity of each other without incident. We are not better or more than the beasts, we just know that we exist. We have eaten the fruit of the tree of the knowledge or our nudity and that’s all. Actually, I think the beasts did, too but they have a better attitude about existence. They just accept what is and deal with it. They don’t mind if little ‘Chloe’ has no pants on. When ‘Bowser’ sprints by, stops and lifts a leg, it is what it is and not a major social incident. Little Choe does not turn her head nor does she call the police. Since that is true, I am taking these now restrictive pants off in a few minutes! Whew! I can match dingle for dangle with the rest of the kingdom. “Are my breasts even?” Laugh Out Loud
Robert On The Air 