“The naked female body is treated so weirdly in society. It’s like people are constantly begging to see it, but once they do, someone’s a hoe.”
Lena Horne
I recently found myself agonizing over the fact that my quarantine body wasn’t 100% where I wanted it to be. In case you hadn’t heard, quarantine bod is the new summer bod – work hard, sweat your ass off, and stop eating carbs for…what exactly? Tanning on my family’s deck? Yeah, I guess there was the building of endurance, working out for mental health, increasing stamina and blah blah blah other benefits, too.
Despite the fact that I wasn’t going to be seen in a bikini by anyone other than my parents this summer, I had been working out semi regularly in my newly freed-up time, and had actually started seeing some results: my abs looked a little less doughy, my butt was a little firmer, and my underarms didn’t jiggle nearly as much as when I shook them a few months ago. Of course, there was one noticeable area that didn’t go alone with my ideal vision of a hot summer body – my tits. Naturally, it was the one thing I had little power to change. There aren’t any “10 Day Boob Booster” or Chloe Ting workouts that I know of to help the cause (if so, please DM me.)
This wasn’t a new or unique feeling; I could work as hard as I wanted on other parts of my body, but the one area that was supposed to fill in naturally (thanks to the lovely hormones that graced me with zits and body hair) wasn’t pulling its weight. Almost no weight, in fact. Ok, I’ll admit it – I’m a flat-chester. The age-old debate kickstarter “does size matter?” is often ascribed to mens’, shall we say, endowments or lack thereof, but the question is rarely asked about womens’ bra sizes. It seems that the universally agreed upon answer is that yes, bra size is of great importance for a woman’s sexual appeal, despite its complete lack of functionality in the bedroom.
As a flat-chester myself, I didn’t get boobs when I was “supposed” to, by which I mean I didn’t get them at all. That may be a slight over exaggeration, but I got what little “boobs” I was supposed to long after the notorious fourth grade health class session that strategically divided up boys and girls to learn about puberty.
On that memorable day, the school nurse Mrs. Feeney showed us a viewing of what was ominously referred to as “The Movie,” which explained how our bodies were changing (for the better, The Movie assured!) in every conceivable way. I for one was floored – our bodies could now have BABIES? We were going to have our periods every day for the rest of our LIVES? My sheltered childhood had never encountered any of these topics.
Most important of all, The Movie promised us that sometime in the near future, we would each grow a fully formed and perkily symmetrical set of breasts and as such, we would need to ask our moms to take us bra shopping. (This was, of course, before the free the nipple and no bra movements gained much traction.) Although some girls in my class seem unphased, especially those with budding boobs, I was fascinated by the thought of two new appendages bouncing around on my chest, ready to be a woman at the young age of eight. I couldn’t wait to start wearing bras – the girls with funky colored bra straps peeking out of their Limited Too shrugs seemed so grown up compared to my stretch camis that held in my barely there nubs.
We each left the class with a small sample bag of mini deodorant, pantiliners, and a pamphlet with horrifying diagrams of how to correctly insert a tampon. That night, I went to bed dreaming of the day that I’d wake up with very own bouncy pair of boobs that required a real bra to fully wrangle in.
The next morning, I peeked through the neck hole of my Parks and Rec youth soccer sleep shirt to find that I was just as flat chested as the night before. I felt slightly disappointed, but shook it off and reassured myself that my boobs would arrive soon, as if they would be dropped off by a stork on my front porch. The following day, I stretched my head through the neck hole once again to find the same thing – nada. I could’ve been mistaken for a little boy if I had had short hair. The process repeated itself day after day with little progress.
About a year later, sixth grade started, and sharing a locker room with other girls for the first time meant changing into gym clothes in front of your entire class. If you wanted to be deemed cool and avoid being excommunicated from the rigid hierarchy of middle school, you wouldn’t run to one of three bathroom stalls and frantically change, praying no one jiggles the lock. You’d nonchalantly slip out of your school clothes into a gym appropriate outfit, inadvertently exposing your undergarments as you changed.
The locker room presented a whole new issue – putting my non-boobs on full display, nestled inside my non-bra, to all the other girls in my class. While the popular girls confidently peeled off their Hollister shirts, touting their neon Victoria’s Secret Pink B-Cups and strappy sports numbers, the only bra I owned was a petal pink, triangle shaped training contraption that my mom had bought in a 2-pack for my sister and I from Old Navy. The only thing worse than my complete lack of cleavage was my droopy and ill fitting AA sized apparatus. I wiggled my way out of my T-Shirt and maneuvered one arm through the hole of my gym shirt, trying to cavalierly cover my chest – nothing to see here everyone! Don’t mind me, I always change like I’m trying to discreetly put on a bathing suit under all my clothes!
Just as I was about to pull my gym shirt down to safely cover the top half of my torso, Liz, a girl who I’d always considered an acquaintance, shot me a sideways look, eyeing my glorified girdle. She scoffed, and her eyebrows shot up sarcastically: “Nice bra, Sasha.” She had said it just a tad too loud at a moment when everyone had strangely gone quiet. I could feel all eyes in the room zoom in on the two tiny mounds on my chest and the plain Jane piece of fabric holding them flat against me. Stifled giggling scattered around the room, and my cheeks flamed with embarrassment. I immediately decided that if I couldn’t have boobs, at least I could have a cute bra to make up for it! I commanded my three closest friends to go to the mall with me that weekend, and snuck home with an armful of sale bin bras with whimsical patterns like plaid and pineapples and tiny rhinestone-studded bows in the middle. My AAs would look absolutely snatched in these bad boys! Thankfully, sixth-grade me up never had to worry about anyone seeing what came underneath for another 8 years to come.
With each passing year from tween-hood to the teenage years, and eventually, adulthood, I tried to accept my small boobs a little bit more, but they in turn grew at a much slower pace. While I was definitely jealous of friends who could fill out a bathing suit top and go braless under tank tops, I was more concerned about how my barren chest would affect my dating life in college. I had been taught by every teen movie and buddy comedy that having a knockout pair of perfectly round tits was the ultimate symbol of womanhood, and the pinnacle of male attraction (thanks, American Pie.) Without them, you might as well be the old hag from Snow White, with a singular buck tooth and a crooked nose covered in hairy warts.
Sure, there were some perks to having small boobs; I could go braless without anyone noticing a real difference, and there was less of a chance of back problems and other injuries – as a camp counselor, I had heard an urban legend of a girl who went skinny dipping, and while swimming too fast, accidentally gave herself a black eye when one of her comically large boobs flew back and socked her in the eye.
But as I went into college and started hooking up with guys for the first time, I was insanely self conscious of how college-aged boys might react. It seemed like every 18-year old boy went straight for the kill to immediately unhook an UO lace bralette. They seemed to consider getting a bra off a girl in a timely fashion as a badge of honor and sign of their manliness – remember the That 70’s Show scene where Eric is on a literal mission to crack the code of taking off Donna’s bra?
I schemed and tried to brainstorm ways to leave the top half of my body covered and comfortable. I could hook up with a guy and leave my bra on the whole time, right? Not weird at all!! Hooking up in pitch black? Even better! There was an added insecurity to being on top during sex, and I worried that being on full display with my subpar rack would make a guy less attracted to me.
Thankfully, my more experienced college friends let me in on a little secret – once you’re in a guy’s bedroom, they don’t care about your bra size – or much else, for that matter. No guy was going to kick you out or complain about what you had to offer if it meant they had a chance to get laid, my friends said.
I was happy to find out that this was true – once you were already in a guy’s room, you were basically home free. Surprise, I tricked you! No boobs to be found here! I truly have never encountered a guy who made a comment or negative remark about my boobs while in bed or to my face (who knows what they said to their douchebag friends behind my back). I did get some weird and definitely untrue comments about how I had a great rack, which proves the old saying that guys really will say anything to get laid.
Although motorboating isn’t a possibility and titty fucking is definitely off the table for me, most girls I’ve talked to say these are stereotypically guy fantasies and not enjoyable for most women. In my experiences since college, I’ve also found that guys who put a lot of emphasis on bra size tend to prefer a stereotypical view of what a beautiful woman is (blond, with a size 0 waist yet astronomical boobs and butt.) As usual, I had been comparing myself to other women and feeling insecure about my own body majorly because of what guys would think and how they would perceive me; what a novel concept, right?
I’ve come to try and find some self love for the boobs I’ve been given, and can be honest in the fact that I’m not completely there yet. It’s something that’s for the most part out of my control, and if others want to get implants or reductions to feel more at home in their own bodies, then all the more power to them. If changing something about your body can truly make you happier, and you have the means to do so, by all means, do it.
While I still haven’t fully accepted the glorified mosquito bites that are supposed to pass for a grown woman’s breasts, it’s just another one of the many things that I’m working on making peace with about myself.
Plus, there are bigger things going on in my life than to be constantly mulling around my boobs and other imperfect body parts as much as I do. I’d like to think that any guy whose sole determinant of whether a woman is attractive based entirely on her bra size probably isn’t the guy for me. Any guy who can’t look past a set of average-sized tits is going to be in for a world of surprise when they see the stretch marks on my ass or god forbid, my back acne!
While I used to try and cover up my flat chest (by that I mean buying SuperPush H & M corset-like lingerie), I find myself gravitating more towards bras that are physically comfortable and let my body breathe a little. This results in some noticeably extra fabric fluttering in the neckline of most of my shirts, but I’m working on being okay with that. After all, isn’t confidence about not being 100% perfect and still powering through? It’d be so much easier to feel comfortable in our own skin if we all had the ideal size 0 figure and DDs to boot. Even then, I’m sure I’d still find something to be insecure about.
The point is, boobs are like freckles – you either have them or you don’t, and there’s little you can easily do to change it. At the risk of sounding like a middle school guidance counselor, we may as well try to work with what we’ve got, and in turn, work as hard as we can to be content with it. Increasing our body positivity for ourselves (and no one else) can help our self-esteem in unimaginable ways, even though it won’t always be an easy thing to do.
On an unrelated note, I guess I’ll just stick to Ass Guys from now on.