In light of the #YesAllWomen and #YesEvenMormonWomen, we thought it would be appropriate to repost this as our archive Sunday post. The original appeared at fMh on August 20, 2013. To see the original and it’s comments, go here.
The other day I saw a beautiful picture of a naked woman in the woods. Surprisingly enough, when I saw the picture, it brought tears to my eyes. Apparently seeing someone the way they are, still smiling, even though another person is present to see their nakedness, to feel so comfortable to share yourself in such a way, was deeply touching to me. And also filling me a bit with envy. Because I’d rather die than have anyone see me naked. It got me thinking about my own discomfort with my body, and a life-long dislike in particular of my breasts. So, let me share with you a short history of my breasts.
When I was 11 years old, I got in a car with a strange man. He took me to a near-by forest, where supposedly an injured foal was laying, needing (my expert) help. Obviously, there was no foal. And as the man was walking in front of me into the forest, I suddenly realized the danger I was in, and thought I would get murdered in this forest. But the man turned around, said this was not the right spot, and we got back in his car. While sitting in his car, I noticed his penis hanging out of his pants. I also knew I had to get away, and decided to jump out of the driving car. Unhurt, I got up and was heading for a corn field, when the man made one more attempt to lure me in, asking me to “do him some favors”. I just ran off.
This experience set an early tone for how I would view my body – an object, wanted or needed by others for their own purposes. Maybe a year after this traumatizing event, I went to the public pool in my little home town. I do not recall the exact events, but remember wearing a modest one-piece swimsuit, and that I was standing in line for the slide, when some boys, maybe 14 years old, commented on my breasts. Even though I cannot remember if the comments were positive or negative, I can still almost feel the blush on my cheeks, and the embarrassment I felt. There I was, with nowhere to hide, and my body had just become an object of public commentary, something to be noticed, talked about, critiqued, like the rest of me was not there.
Then, one day, after visiting a friend who was also a member of the Church, I came home with a bikini the mother of the family had given me to keep. I had never worn a bikini, but appreciated the gift. Yet, when my parents found out about the bikini, it was promptly taken away. I did not understand my parents actions then. I was unsure why the bikini was upsetting to them. Nonetheless, I did understand that wearing one was not ok, and I felt guilty for having wanted to wear it. I was thirteen.
As a teenager I started dressing in ways to hide the shape of my body, especially my ever-present, and ever-sticking-out breasts. When I was looking for a dress for a dance, I found a beautiful dress that was luckily not emphasizing my breasts more than I wanted, and that I felt looked beautiful on me. However, my parents strongly objected to my wearing this dress, since the sleeves were half-off the shoulders. I ended up wearing a borrowed, simple dress from a friend, that fit too snuggly around my chest. The evening was spent self-consciously folding my arms in front of my chest.
I kept hiding myself under unshapely clothes, in hopes that no one would notice my body, or especially my breasts. That no one would comment. Maybe I was succeeding when a boy I really liked at age 16 called me fat. But I couldn’t help thinking that part of my “fatness” was just my large breasts that would stick out and make the large clothes fall like a tent around me.
At 18 I was looking into breast reduction surgery. At the first appointment to schedule the surgery, I had to stand topless in front of a doctor, who analyzed the shape of my breasts, drew lines on them and took pictures of them. A normal medical procedure, I’m sure. Yet, I felt deeply ashamed, and humiliated, wondering what this man was thinking as he drew on me and looked at me. The final obstacle to my surgery was having to see a gynecologist who approved of the surgery. Again, I was being seen by a man. He was kind, and felt that I was pursuing the surgery merely out of desperation (I certainly was! I just wanted those evil breasts gone), and encouraged me to wait a little, give the idea more time, and that as a professional, he felt my breast size was completely normal. When I came home from this appointment (that effectively prevented me from having the surgery), I grabbed a pair of scissors and chopped off my hair. I hated my body. I hated who I was. I hated the face looking back at me from the mirror. And in that moment, I wanted every part of my body to look as ugly and horrible as I felt.
Shortly before my twentieth birthday, I got endowed. Again, I remember the discomfort of not wanting my breasts to be noticed, and yet not wanting to look fat in the tent-like temple dresses rented out to patrons. My garments also complicated life as they kept riding around under my bra. Sometimes they’d get “sucked in” and slipped below my chest. I had now entered a new stage of life, where I’d be adding constant adjustments to a body part I already tried to not draw any attention to. Even further, for one part of my temple ceremonies, I could not wear a bra, and I tried to hide the embarrassment of walking around with completely uncontained full breasts with a humble look at the floor. They did not seem like receptacles of pure and virtuous principles. Instead, they were weighing me down with fear, shame and self-hatred. They seemed to make others uncomfortable in one way or another, and no matter what I did, they were always there. Doing what breasts do, without asking my permission.
I carried on, covering up, trying to hide the breasts God gave me, often times hating him for having burdened me in such a way. Why would he give me something that was impossible to hide, yet seemed to only bring out the worst in others, something that seemed to take over everything else I was? I hated God sometimes. Hated him for obviously being a man, because a woman never would have given me these breasts. A woman would have understood.
Then I met my future husband. When he brought me to a family reunion to meet his family, I later found out how some of them joked that he must be dating me for my breasts. There they were again, those breasts. They seemed to be what people noticed first. But I did not want my husband to notice them. I wanted him to see me, love me, talk to me. For a long time, I avoided any water activities, because I did not want my husband to see me in a swimsuit. I knew my breasts were being squished together into a big “monoboob” in a swimsuit, and looked so unattractive along with being so very visible, that I couldn’t bear the thought of a man I liked seeing me like that.
When I had to start looking for wedding dresses, terror filled my heart – terror that no dress would accommodate my chest, or that they would not fit well, making my breasts ooze out, take front and center stage, and possibly, on top of it all make me look fat. I cried quite a few tears as I tried on dress after dress, trying to find one that worked with those hated breasts.
But there was a deeper-seated fear in my heart, beyond the fear of how I would look in a wedding dress. I was terrified of my husband seeing me naked. In my heart, I just knew he’d be disappointed. I knew I could not measure up to whatever he had hoped for. Even though society seemed to value large breasts, I knew that my breasts were ugly. And bad, because they made me feel so uncomfortable when others noticed them. The weeks leading up to our wedding, I would often stand in the shower, and end up crying on the floor of the tub as I looked at and felt my naked body.
During our wedding night, my husband left my breasts alone. Those hated breasts. Then I cried and cried the next morning, while my husband got us some food. I had faithfully hid them away all those years, and tried to ignore the discomfort and embarrassment they brought into my life. But now, as much as I hated them, I still wanted someone to love them, or love me, despite everything those breasts seemed to entail. Luckily, it was just a misunderstanding, and my husband simply did not want to objectify me, or make me think he only cared about my breasts. Because that’s what we care about in society – breasts. And that’s is all I thought I was, for better or worse, – a pair of breasts.
With marriage, eventually, came pregnancy, and the breast hiding continued. I was now constantly tugging at my bra, as my breasts gained in size, and didn’t fit into my bras properly. They’d spill out on top, once again leaving me embarrassed as I tried to push the “double-boobs” back into a bra that refused to fit. No blanket seemed big enough to cover the space I needed covered when nursing. The first weeks of motherhood, I hid in my bed room, too ashamed to have anyone see me, even my own mother. To make nursing easier, I now also wore my garment tops over my bra. Yet, an unpleasant side-effect was that my big breasts made pretty much any shirt a tight fit, and parts of my garments that I had covenanted to keep private were on constant display. I tried to remedy the situation by getting silk-screened tops, but the distribution center said they could not do that. Finally, during a flight my husband was trying to help me stay covered as I nursed our baby, and had to endure my anger when he accidentally bared some of my breasts for a second. No one should have to see my breasts.
But if it was not pregnancy or nursing, it was always something else. About a year after my first child was born, I ran my first half-marathon. My husband took a video clip of me as I passed the 10-mile marker. When I saw the clip, I immediately deleted it. Even though I looked proud and strong as I passed mile 10, my breasts were clearly swinging side to side, despite two sports bras I was wearing. The image horrified me, and overshadowed my accomplishments of a race well run with concerns of people having seen me with breasts bobbing all over the place.
Now my breasts just sag, almost down to my belly button (ok, maybe not quite), after having busted the buttons on many a shirt, moved garments up and down, exposed themselves by accident to various people, have been drawn on, felt and squished by various doctors and nurses, invited commentary, created inappropriate thoughts, fed 3 babies, pleased my husband, and met people before I did. My breasts – two parts of me that seem to define me, control me, and dictate what the world notices about me.
When I saw the picture of that naked woman, I thought of my breasts. My body. And how I feel I’ve never owned myself. I wish that I could experience that paradisiacal moment Adam and Eve experienced in the Garden of Eden. To be naked, to be without shame over my body, to push away the world that tries to own it, and see myself, the human God made, and know that this body I wear is “very good”. “And I, God, saw everything that I had made, and, behold, all things which I had made were very agood;” (Moses 2:31).