One frustrating aspect is that the original poster wanted to have a feminist discussion and it got hijacked by some men drawn like flies to the honeypot at the mention of breasts, who've turned the focus very much to women's sexuality and whether its women's fault they don't like their bodies. No doubt this is frustrating to the women who wanted to take part in the original discussion.
But its also frustrating to me, because I have to admit I'm actually much more interested in issues resembling those the men have been raising than the original topic. On the other hand, I don't want to be part of yet another thread hijack where women are prevented from talking about the issues they're interested in by men coming along and doing a slightly more sophisticated version of "giggle, she said breasts".
So after one post far back on that thread, I thought I'd express myself here, losing 99.9% of the potential audience, but at least not adding to the hijack.
The incomparable Pavlov's Cat sum's up the women's frustration like this
stop assuming that just because men think of women’s breasts exclusively as “sexual apparatus”, women also must think of them that way. Because most of us Just. Do. Not.
To which my response is: I hear you. I understand women don't think of them that way. What I don't understand is how you do think of them.
A lot of the thread is taken up with questions of breast reduction because some of the dimmer men seem obsessed by the idea that women would be doing this in order to make themselves more attractive to men. The point is made, over and over again, that women have breast reduction surgery for lots of other reasons - back pain, ability to exercise etc. You don't have to be too bright to grasp this point. As PC says:
Breasts are objects of desire to most blokes, and to women who fancy other women. To the rest of us, they are a source of constant worry, either because (1) they are large, weighty objects necessitating expensively engineered bras and will give us shocking back and neck problems by the time we’re 40, (2) because the world is full of blokes who think it’s acceptable to comment audibly on (if not actually grab) the breasts of anyone who happens to be passing, (3) because we have good reason to fear either failing to breastfeed our children with them successfully or getting cancer in them
But the problem I have, and i imagine a lot of other blokes share, is that this doesn't explain why so many more women have breast enlargement than reduction operations. None of these reasons, or anything like them, seem to explain why a woman would want to make her breasts bigger unless its to increase their chance of attracting a man.
Dr Cat does offer,
or (4) because we think they are ‘too small’ and we have not yet thought through the logic of this enough to realise that if a bloke’s attitude to you depends on the size of your breasts then the smart thing to do is get away from him as quickly as possible.
But this pretty much takes us back to the women concerned seeing their breasts as ways of attracting men. It's not just the minority of women who have breast enhancement surgery I'm trying to work out, its all those who spend time trying to make their breasts look bigger, make their cleavage more visible etc, when its not actually about trying to score.
Why does this matter? (Besides the obvious point that its another excuse for a straight man to talk about breasts) Well if women did see their breasts purely as sexual advertisements then one could conclude that every time a woman tried to enhance her breasts, make them more visible etc she was trying to pick up. Not necessarily (or even usually) me of course, but pick up someone. In such a situation, it would be reasonable to think that polite advances would receive either a favourable response or something equivalent to "actually I'm chasing someone else, but thanks for the compliment".
Now most men have worked out that this is not the case. A woman wearing a revealing neckline may be distinctly uninterested in advances from anyone, and if we're reasonable human beings we try to respect this. But that doesn't mean we don't have all sorts of trouble trying to work out when a woman is actually interested in being approached, and when she isn't. I certainly do.
Some men deal with this by hitting on every woman they're attracted to, and taking plenty of slaps on the basis that sometimes it will work out. Others tend to respond with great caution, avoiding asking someone out on a date for fear of giving offense, and spending a lot of evenings alone in front of the TV in consequence.
Obviously I fall into the second category.
Presumably if I had a better understanding of what women who want their breasts to look/be bigger, but aren't really seeing them sexually, were thinking I'd be a bit more popular.
Alas I don't think the thread in question has enlightened me much, which is fair enough, since that wasn't the intention.
9 comments:
*Nods*
OK, I'll try to answer some of those, and apologies in advance for how long this comment's going to be. Obviously I can't speak for anyone but myself, but that includes things I've heard female friends, relatives & writers say, which adds up to a pretty damn broad field of material.
For me the problem here is that I don't really understand why women get breast implants either. Not only does all surgery have risks, but I've never seen a breast augmentation (uncovered, I mean, not clothed) that I thought looked good.
(Bear in mind also that I am both a feminist and an old hippie, so my values are very different from most of those of the people who go in for breast implants.)
No doubt for some of these women it is indeed so they can get the chance to have more sex with more people. But here are some possible other motives.
1) Things That Are About Men
i) Women are far less likely than men to think of "sex" as a commodity that they want to get as much of as possible. They are far more likely to be thinking in terms of wanting A Relationship, with one particular man, of which sex will be only a part. Some unattached women think they will attract the man of their dreams by putting it (or perhaps I mean "them") out there.
ii) Many women want to attract male attention for its own sake. Male attention is as highly prized a commodity among women as sex is among men, possibly because it's so hard to come by. Many men are far more interested in other men -- in terms of attention -- than they are in women. You have only to look at any LP thread, where comments from women are routinely ignored by at least half the regular commenters there.
Wanting men's attention is not the same as wanting to have sex with them; this group wants the attention rather than the sex. I don't think men understand this at all.
iii) In this society, large breasts are highly valued by some people. The insecure and the self-deprecating may believe they will be put at a higher social value if they have bigger breasts. In the value system of a certain kind of man, this is of course perfectly true. (Man appears proudly at the pub with a pair of DD's on his arm. Mates go Phwoar and their opinion of proud proprietor of DD's goes up.)
2) Things That Have Nothing To Do With Men, Except Peripherally
i) Aesthetics. Many women just think that large breasts are more beautiful than small breasts. This is by no means a universal opinion, even among men, but go for it, I reckon, if that's how you feel. If I had sticky-out ears, say, I would not hesitate to have the ear-pinning-back surgery. Some women have their boobs done for the same reason.
(This one perplexes me personally, though, because I think implants are ugly. They look like the woman has cut a cantaloupe in half and glued the halves to her chest, and I should imagine they feel the same way they look. If the surgery goes badly and/or your body rejects the implants, you can end up with anything from weird uneven hollows in your cleavage to burst implants, blood poisoning, wound breakdown and necrosis. This is also true of breast reduction surgery, which is sheer butchery. Which brings me to the stupidity of people who have any kind of breast surgery without bothering to research what they're actually going to do to you and what it's going to look like afterwards. Many people, both male and female, don't get that plastic surgery will leave scars, just like any other wound.)
1a) Clothes and fashion. High fashion is actually designed for women with almost no breasts at all, but most "ordinary" women, ie not anorexic drug-addicted supermodels, take pleasure in the way their bodies fit their clothes. If men really want to understand the way women think about their bodies, you all need to be watching Trinny and Susannah Undress and How to Look Good Naked.
2) Competition with other women. Lots of women do actually care if their breasts are bigger or smaller than somebody else's.
That's the best I can do -- hope it's a bit of help!
I got into trouble for recommending a bit of research on LP recently so this is offered very diffidently, but, if you're really interested in the topic (and it is interesting) then there's plenty of good books on cosmetic surgery. One I mentioned already on that thread is called Skintight. The author argues that we now live in a makeover culture where aspiring towards perfectibility, is what matters - the process of becoming is valued, not the product - and this isn't just reflected in surgery, it's part of the reason for the popularity of Aus Idol and similar shows. She cites things people she interviewed told her about how they wanted breasts that looked 'perfect' as opposed to 'natural'.
There is also the fact that more women work out at the gym and so on now, and carry more muscle and less fat. This makes the body taut and angular. Breast implants are a way to re-access the appearance of femininity, and femininity is about many parts of a person's identity besides her sexual attractiveness.
Also, Pav is right - Trinny & Susannah explain a great deal about how most women think about breast aesthetics
And a PS -- Tigtog also has an excellent meta-post on the LP post over at Hoyden About Town, where there are also some comments from women that might shed more light.
Oh poop, let's just try that link again: Hoyden About Town.
*Blushes*
(here from a backlink...)
Something that hasn't come up in the discussion is the relative ease of the two surgeries. This isn't the whole story, but may well be a part of it: an augmentation is a relatively minor and low-pain operation compared to a reduction, and scarring is minimal (the implant can be performed through an armpit crease). Also, augmentations (when performed properly) typically don't lead to impaired nipple sensation or breastfeeding function.
Hey PC,
I'm so excited to have any comments here (this thread has doubled the total comments ever left at this blog already) that there is certainly no need to apologise for length. Not to mention getting a comment from you .
And thanks for those. I'm not quite as clueless on this as the post probably first appears, so some of what you say isn't news to me, but there are certainly some ideas I hadn't thought of, and other things that were foggy and seem a whole lot clearer now.
And Lucy, thanks a very interesting concept as well. There's no way I'll have time to research it in the near future (it was naughty of me to waste today reading and posting) but I'll try to remember to come back to exploring that over the summer.
Posting about sexuality and body images apparently generates more traffic than psephology. Who'd have thunk it.
At the moment I'm struggling with making the move back to 'breasts as fun things during sex' from 'breasts which I use to feed the baby'. The baby is now almost 2 1/2 and still sees my breasts as her property despite being weaned at 18 months and I am still getting over the feeling of wanting to have them to myself for a while without anyone else making a claim on them. Fortunately I have a very understanding husband.
I can understand women wanting to have breast augmentations although I do wonder how many of them are disappointed with the results. If I could have my boobs back they way there were when I was 15 (20 yrs ago tomorrow), without scars or pain, I'd definitely consider it. That said, I'd probably look a bit weird with such perky boobs now. I think nostalgia for a perkier time may influence some women, whereas other want something they may never have had.
Some women want to look younger for longer because looking younger (and sexy) is highly valued in our culture and leads to non sexual benefits such as higher wages and promotions, and I think it creates the illusion of being able to get a better 'mate'.
Sometimes I think of my boobs as a pain in the bum because they can hurt if I run without supporting them, mainly because I haven't spent $100's on properly fitting bras. Sometimes I see them as an obstacle to be worked around, especially on days when they are tender (like guys with trying not to sit on their bits or get squashed accidently by their undies or trousers). Other days they are just there and I don't think about them much at all. Were I on the look out for a partner I would no doubt be trying to show them off to their best advantage, but already being happily partnered I don't feel the need.
Hope this helps.
Apologies, comment posted twice.
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