The female breast is the one human organ that is constantly subjected to physical changes during an adult's lifetime. This perfectly normal phenomenon has a purpose; each physical change in the adult female's breast assists in a particular stage of life. The psychological significance attached to these changes is apparently greater than the physical changes themselves.
Many women treat their breasts (if they do not like them) as foreign objects. Society is only too happy to play along with their frustrations. Breasts 'must' be larger, smaller, perkier, and symmetrical-are among the myriad of messages we get.
This phenomenon is not new. What's new is the amount of time, effort, money and thought so many women spend "dealing" with their breasts. For example: women of all ages and backgrounds are blaming several intimacy issues, not working in their lives on the shapes and sizes of their breasts.
- Do women regard their breasts size as a vital part of what they understand femininity to be?
- Or do they react to men's fantasies about what is attractive?
- Is the preoccupation with breast size a response to the media's bombardments with "enhancing breasts" industries?
- Why do so many women today lack a positive relationship with their breasts?
- What should a mother say/do when her teen daughter ask for breast implants?
- As women are trained to do breast-self-examination every month, isn't it time for women to experience an emotional self-examination of their attitudes towards own breasts?
Medium of Expression
In the big picture there is certain logic to our need to manipulate or modify the shape of our breasts. The human body has continually been put to use as a medium for the expression of cultural, tribal, or genealogical needs. There is a tendency for nations, tribes, and other groups to demand that their members reflect a uniformity-a sameness, an ideal-in their physical appearance. Extreme exceptions in individual appearances are looked down upon; the "different one" can be forced to alter his or her appearance or even be expelled from the group. Many civilizations had attempted, at one time or another, to force some form of body manipulation or shape alteration on some of its members, often at a heavy price. There are health and psychological consequences to using our bodies to express fashion trends or project cultural messages. Using the breasts of the human female to express a fashion and a cultural statement is a new twist-not even a hundred years old-to an ancient ritual.
As our search to understand people's perceptions of sameness, tradition, and fashions-and through the experience of belonging to a particular identity group, we can clearly see how the need for sameness profoundly affects our modern life. We crave the next fashion craze in the name of sameness.
Attitude of Femininity
Fathers, brothers, husbands, or other male friends play a major role in how women react to their own bodies-and specifically their breasts-in spite of themselves. Some women in this culture literally fall into a "man-made" trap.
Breast Implants
Any topic about breasts cannot ignore breast cancer and therefore breast implants. In the profound course of rebuilding and in the aftermath of breast cancer, implants are the place where art meets science. For so many women breast implants are the miracle that helps speed up their psychological recovery. The 'device' that helps breast cancer survivors feel better about their body image is the very same 'tool' that millions have been using to manipulate and change their healthy breasts' size and shape.
"Recovery" after Breast-feeding
Ever since the era in which the breast became a "status symbol," we are facing the second generation of mothers who show serious concerns regarding the effects of breast-feeding on the shape, form, and beauty of their breasts. This is a major issue for young women who might choose not to breast feed our future offspring, our grandchildren, our next generation. We "judge" a woman's breasts after she has breast-fed: Can she "recover" their initial shape?
New Way to Appreciate Breasts
There is a need to discover and bring about a new appreciation for every woman's relationship with her breasts. Most young women grapple with identification, approval, and disapproval of their own attitudes. Growing in our culture, they are booby-trapped…
Booby-trapped is a mind-set. It is also the range of attitudes: from a preoccupation with females' breasts to an obsession with them.
Many women pay great deal of attention to the size and shape of their own breasts. They compare themselves to others and feel inferior. Some women even hate their breasts; they wish for larger breasts, or smaller ones, or perkier ones. Those women are booby-trapped.
Men who wish that their mates had different breasts are also booby-trapped.
Women may be echoing what they hear or sense from men, but men may also be echoing what they hear or sense from women. The experience of being booby-trapped has become deep and wide in our North American culture.
To attach importance to only one body part and make women feel diminished because of its natural development is wrong. Yet, this entrapment has spread down through the last two generations; mothers have passed it on to their daughters.
How do we know if a person is booby-trapped?
Examples:
- When the other person in a conversation with you, is repeatedly fixing their eyes on your breasts, rather than on your eyes… Your partner is booby-trapped!
- When describing a female to others, the speaker begins the description with the size or shape of that female's breasts…. He or she is booby-trapped!
- If a woman criticizes the size of her own bust, or compares her size to others' with pride or envy…She is booby-trapped!
- When a woman expects the enhancement of her breasts size to bring her inner peace, happiness or even the right man for marriage….She is booby-trapped!
Nili Sachs, Ph.D. is the author of: Booby-Trapped, How to Feel Normal in a Breast-Obsessed World
For more information and book cover please visit www.boobytrapped.com
Nili Sachs, Ph.D.
9091 County road 50
P.O. Box 44
Rockford, MN 55373
phone 952-471-3730 fax 952-471-3732
nilisachs@msn.com www.DRnili.com
visit www.boobytrapped.com
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Remember: Size and Shape are Human Tissues, Shame and Fear are Human Issues!
