i remember thinking at a young age that having breasts would make me beautiful, would make boys like me, would be a sign of my adulthood. i stood in the mirror and pictured myself as a grown-up.
i was in the fifth grade when i first needed a bra. i stepped into this world where everything was oddly embarrassing, so full of light and thin women pouting on glossy posters, so unlike my shaking hands and uncertainty.
i was young for my grade. i was still eleven at the end of it, when my teacher pulled me aside to tell me i couldn’t wear certain dresses anymore. that it had become a distraction.
i learned fast breasts are inherently sexual. it was my fault, my shame, when a man pulled his car up to the sidewalk i was on and followed me for half a block. i was twelve, but i had breasts. i was in sixth grade. i think back then i was wearing too many flare-leg jeans and oversized hoodies. i think it isn’t important what i was wearing. i think what was important was what i was carrying on my chest.
i couldn’t run in gym, it made me blush. my back hurt a lot. i would hide when i hide to take a shirt off. i listened to my skinny ballet friends ache about it. they begged me to uncap myself and lend them just an ounce of what i hated most about myself. i used to stand in the mirror and remember being young. i hated myself for wishing this upon me. i was still twelve when i realized what a terrible thing i had done. they seemed a second part of my human. like they were not owned by me.
by thirteen i wouldn’t touch v-necks, they always looked “inappropriate.” the smallest fraction of my breasts hinted at what else was hidden. i hadn’t even been kissed, and i still was afraid of being made a sex object. i never wore miniskirts or croptops - i was too shy of my body for that - and i still knew, somehow, that i was somehow sexy. i was thirteen, and i knew i made people think of sex when they looked at me. i knew this because of what boys would say and the people on tv and the way men would talk when they were safe behind the wheel of their car. a lot of people would tell my father, “watch out for her.” watch out for me.
i was fourteen when i heard the word “jailbait.” i can’t scrub it off my face. i became “a full woman” at a very young age.
(at fourteen, my friend tried to cut his breasts off. we sat and cried for a long time. he is doing well now, practicing law. he is the first to stand up when other men make rude comments).
i am so deeply, terribly ashamed of my breasts. they were always something scandalous. they were always “asking for it.” they were just there, sitting there, not asking for sex, not doing anything. but somehow, they were there for pleasure. they were not mine. i had gained them to please others, to be a feast for men. by the time i was fifteen i’d been groped. i don’t know what to tell you, it was probably my fault, i’m sure. it was my fault for being young and having a body part everyone wanted. it was my fault for standing in the mirror wanting to be a beautiful person. it was my fault because i’d wished to be wanted, and now i was. their eyes would settle on my chest before they looked anywhere else. i used to starve myself hoping to get rid of those camel humps. i remained a d-cup.
i can’t say the word “breasts” out loud. it makes my mouth feel weird. it’s an ugly word, for some reason. embarrassing. my mother and my grandmother and my aunt and my great aunt all had or have breast cancer. i will probably get it. genetics is a factor. i remember my aunt showing me the great scar across her chest where sickness removed her breast. my friend hasn’t spoken to her father since he left her mother for the same scar. i still say, “boobs,” “tits,” “ta-tas” as if i am referring to something impolite to say in public. i can’t show my bra strap. i don’t change in public.
breasts are meant for sex. i was so young and i already knew that. i was so young and people already saw me as less than human. i was so young and so terribly hateful of my body, this body which betrayed me by growing hips and full lips and turning out a playboy-bunny version of sexy. i was never pretty. i was never dainty. i was hot, because i had to be, because this terrible weight sat on top of me.
i don’t know. i want to wear a thin shirt without worrying people will think i’m asking for attention. i wish my favorite dress wasn’t as low-cut as it is. i wish i could feel safe going braless in public. i wish i was nine again. i would go back in time and tell my hormones not to ruin everything. i wish i could take topless pictures at the top of mountains and not worry what would happen if my employers saw. i wish accidentally showing a nipple in public would be transformed into a normal thing instead of a legitimate reason to fear for my job. i wish i could go swimming and not worry about a swimsuit knot coming undone and accidentally breaking the law.
the models in bra stores are still glossy. they mostly look nothing like me. i used to wish that i would grow ten inches so i could be the victoria’s secret perfection everybody expected out of me. i wanted at least to be beautiful like them so i could feel good when i put on frilly lace things. i know it’s not going to happen. i want my hands to stop shaking every time i go bra shopping. i want to love myself.
i want no other eleven year old girl to see herself like i did. i want them to be sexy when they feel like it. i don’t want it forced on them. i don’t want the dress codes that shame them. i don’t want the comments men make. i don’t want someone with breasts to automatically be a Full Grown Woman. I want our youth to get to be children.
but breasts have to be sexual. i don’t know why. some guy must have said.
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