From Jill.
Not much time for a real post this morning. See Punkassblog for why. (Coffee pot, work quickly!) Fiona is in a cage and crying, Dusty is all agitated because of some primitive sense of cat justice (My god, they’re locking us up randomly!), and bitch, bitch, bitch. So, link farming:
NARAL has a petition for the Freedom of Choice Act, if you can sign it. Since I’m crabby and working on too little sleep, I’d like to bitch about this. I really wish they’d have called it the Reproductive Justice Act, which is better and more accurate framing, for one thing.
Annalee Newitz makes the commonsense argument that the idea that women’s bodies belong to women means that women should be able to safely stifle menstruation if they want to, even if it makes some earth-mother-goddess feminists uneasy.
Ezra documents the shocking growth of inequality in this country. It seems to me that instead of asking why the rich as individuals should pay more taxes, we should ask why taxes aren’t assessed strictly by percentage of national wealth accumulated.
Fast food ads vs. reality: Pulitzer-caliber journalism.
More on the politics of food: Food advertisements are the most popular on children’s TV.
Contrary to sexist stereotypes that men are strictly into animal lust and women only enjoy sex for the emotional communion with their masters, it turns out that men spend more time examining the faces in sexual imagery than women.
In response to a poll finding that 75% of women don’t like their breasts, Jane did a spread of photos of “regular” women’s breasts with accompanying boob-love. I’m surprised that it’s as high as 75%, because if you ask many women point blank what they like about their bodies, most, in my experience, will say boobs. My fear is this means that only 25% of women could probably find much to like about their own bodies at all. This isn’t a feminist stamp of approval on Jane’s project or anything, by the way. Just thrown out there as “of interest”.
43 Responses to “My world is awash in things that are awash, and a link farm”
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I saw the Jane article a few days ago and was underwhlemed by the lack of diversity. I thought it was going to be a rah-rah, “see what a variety there can be!” article, but the vast majority of the breasts looked startling alike.
Well, they looked like breasts—there weren’t any implanted ones in there, so I don’t know how much more diverse it could get. There were different races and sizes of women. Breasts might seem more different from each other with a face attached.
They seemed pretty uniform in size to me. Only one pair struck me as being anything larger than a B cup, and they were all pretty perky. IME, with my own breasts and those of past female partners, it still seemed very limited.
Heh, I see what you mean. I suppose as the President of the Itty-Bitty Titty Committee, I fell into thinking like all but one picture showed alarmingly huge boobs. My perspective is totally skewed. The good side of that is that at least my skewed perspective makes me unaware that my flat-chestedness is supposed to be an issue.
It *is* Jane magazine, of course. That it wasn’t completely horrible is a minor miracle, all things considered.
I don’t know about the Jane article (I’m at work, can’t been seen looking at breasts) but this website:
www.007b.com/breast_gallery.php features the variety of breasts. It is a diverse group of all ages and women who have, are, or were, pregnant. You can send your pictures in and add to the gallery.
It helped me feel better about my breasts. I hate the weird cantalope balls with tiny pink nipples you see on porn workers…mine certainly don’t look like that, but I can be happy with my own breasts (and my past sexual partners were happy too.)
My sump pump broke last night. Nothing like getting up to pee at 5:45 and stepping into a waterlogged carpet. I feel you. At least I don’t have angry cats.
Also, re: boobs. Livejournal’s “vaginapagina” community has a “Real Bodies” project that is ongoing, and a search of their page will bring up several rounds of real women’s breasts (and butts, and guts, and whatever else women were willing to share.)
I’d like to think the “If U only knew” graffiti is a response to the Fembot Army one.
My dads advice to me was “anything bigger than a mouthful is wasted”.
BTW, two links off of the progressive blogging alliance, you can get an amazing sample of porn and while it does not have representative mammary topograhy but neither is it uniformly pneumatic looking either.
Variations on a theme. THAT is whats natural. If we aren’t all being sold like cars and hamburgers, why the hell do we all have to look like shiny movie stars?
Food ads
I like coffee. Real coffee. I’ll spare you a post’s worth of brewing lore here but trust me its strong and black and you can smell Kenya in my cup. So I am looking at the poster in the McDonalds promoting some dogcrapuchino drink. You could make yet another framing study of it. I was trying to explain to Mrs Greensmile just how many tricks were on that sheet of paper:
*”Organic”
*”Paul Newman”
*a photography budget that would launch ten photo journalism careers.
so uncritical persons my blink at it and walk away thirsty, thinking its good for them and Newman will build an orphanage or something.
The stuff is 1/3 ice from local tap water, 1/3 sugar and 1/3 plastic whipped cream substitute with a vanishingly small amount of coffee that was bad coffee to begin with.
Center for Science in the Public Interest is not the only ones who hate the deadly embrace of the stupid consummer by the Fast food industry…I want a good cup of coffee. I get no sympathy from Mrs Greensmile. She does not drink coffee.
I’m a male slut, and I’ve never ever disliked any of my partner’s breastestes.
Amanda,
You may have missed this one in your link farm
Laura Bush wants you to know that when it comes to Iraq, no one is suffering more than the First Couple. No one.
It’s enough to make veins pop out of your head.
My dads advice to me was “anything bigger than a mouthful is wasted�.
Aw, isn’t that sweet.
Nice to know your dad thinks that my breasts are a waste. Because, really, if some man doesn’t approve of their size, I might as well just lop them off. They have no other use at all.
My dads advice to me was “anything bigger than a mouthful is wasted�.
I always heard a “wine glass”, but, this being America, being somewhere around jumbo margarita size plays well.
I’m just imagining that jackass who can’t understand why dinner party hosts and tennis partners don’t want him back whining about that breast article because he didn’t get to make the rules.
Long ago in college I was talking with a guy friend and a gal friend and was blathering on about how I had noticed that I tended to be more attracted to small-breasted women. This was a revelation to the guy friend: he was like “You mean it’s okay for me not to be into big breasts? That doesn’t make me, like, gay or something?” [Ah, the 80s] The gal friend was somewhat less agog but still quite surprised that someone might like her not in spite of her A-cups but because of them.
Maybe it’s because I’m outside looking in now, but there seems among my students to be a much broader range of different looks and body types, etc. that are considered attractive in women. What I wonder is whether the standards have tightened somewhat for men: or rather, is there a broader range of what’s considered attractive, but every guy has to put a little more work into it?
Let us imagine a world where women obsess about the metaphorical implications of the size of their breasts, and men obsess about the way their testicles look…
“I always heard a “wine glassâ€?, but, this being America, being somewhere around jumbo margarita size plays well.”
Why is this reminding me of the guy who told me my boobs were bigger than his head?
Zuzu, my dad was a republican. Just reporting. check me out before you jump on me.
I certainly did not mean the words you are putting in someone’s mouth, not that what I said wasn’t crude enough to be taken that way. How carefully must I speak before I am not judged for having judgements I really do not have? To whom are you reacting? I can’t say your inference is unwarrented but it happens not to be a correct assumption about what judgements were being made. Then or now.
It was 40 years ago when that remark went by as an aside and I did not take it as intending anything derogatory about any particular breast size. I am remembering it as an admonitition against the bigger-is-better guy-culture of the 60s [yes, 60’s …we were a bit behind the times out on the farm] My dad had some very serious failings in the measures feminists would apply but setting the worth of someone else by their body or parts was not one of those failings. I shall try to be more clear about such things in the future.
Call it “good advice for the wrong reasons.” Maybe even that’s too charitable.
I am remembering it as an admonitition against the bigger-is-better guy-culture of the 60s [yes, 60’s …we were a bit behind the times out on the farm] My dad had some very serious failings in the measures feminists would apply but setting the worth of someone else by their body or parts was not one of those failings.
How is that supportable by his statements? He wasn’t telling you not to value women by their body parts, he was trying to convince you to value them by their body parts in a different way. “Wasted”? In what way doesn’t that imply that the sole purpose of breasts is male enjoyment?
Call it a male privilege, I guess, that making the slightest, most token gesture in the direction of valuing women is sufficient to get other men to stand up to defend your reputation as egalitarian. It’s like saying “I support the women’s movement, especially from behind.”
Its been 30 years since I could ask him Chet. I bring way more context to the words than I could easily account for in comments here. As for “statements” there is not much to go on. Its more the absence of things that others seem to assume go along with that statement…there were no leering looks, no wolf whistling. I am not saying the guy was all enlightened or anything. He had attitudes about “women drivers” and such that even I eventually found irksome. But the term “wasted” is being made too much of here. I did take it as “if enjoyment is your objective, don’t be narrow minded”. While I know its a sore subject, and the biases assumed are common, that simply is not the only interpetation to say that the female breast was seen has having a “sole purpose”. That just wasn’t the context of the perhaps garbled memory.
“in a different way” …but yeah I think you got a point there.
I would call it “Angry militant feminism”. Fembot means that you women are robots or baby-making machines — and I don’t like the fact that the wingnuts are disrespecting you women by treating you like robots and baby-making machines.
I’ve never understood the fixation with breasts. I’m not saying I don’t enjoy the sight of a pretty woman with a nice figure, but, this endless fascination with mammaries just escapes me.
I like my wife’s breasts because they’re attached to her.
Regards,
mike
Like Amanda, I thought the Jane Mag breast spread showed a lot of diversity. Being a member of the itty bitty titty committee myself, I only spotted one or two pairs that were smaller than mine. The rest looked ginormous. And there was a lot of variance in nipple size/color/position too. Ah, well. It was definitely nice to see a page in a magazine devoted to unenhanced boobs.
Zuzu, my dad was a republican. Just reporting. check me out before you jump on me.
I think we’ve seen over and over that progressive guys can be misogynist asshats, too.
I certainly did not mean the words you are putting in someone’s mouth, not that what I said wasn’t crude enough to be taken that way. How carefully must I speak before I am not judged for having judgements I really do not have? To whom are you reacting? I can’t say your inference is unwarrented but it happens not to be a correct assumption about what judgements were being made. Then or now.
Oh, you poor, misunderstood baby. You didn’t mean to call anyone’s body parts a waste just because they were over the limit for your dad’s tastes. Ever think that maybe some of us are just really fucking tired of being judged by the size of our breasts, and being told they’re always “too” something-or-other? Too big, too small, too droopy, too perky? And that it’s especially fucking irritating for some man to whomp into a feminist blog and start sharing with us his own personal method of judging which breasts are acceptable?
Because GOD FORBID we don’t know whether our breasts are just the right size for you and your dad, or whether you consider us wastes of flesh. We were all just hanging around WAITING for you to give us your stamp of approval. Gee, really, I’m disappointed I got too much breast tissue to pass muster for the Greensmile men.
It was 40 years ago when that remark went by as an aside and I did not take it as intending anything derogatory about any particular breast size.
You remember a little aside from 40 years ago and decide to bring it up in 2007 on a feminist blog — why, exactly?
Those words I used do sound judgmental. For that I am sorry. Neither I nor you, Zuzu, can go back and make the 60’s right.
For being too kind to myself via my memories, likewise, I am sorry. No body should be that dishonest.
I am not goitng to aplologyize for you being so tired of being judged that you will hear judgement in my every further word.
There are way too many things on which we do agree [I do read Feministe] to make a federal case out of one half assed sentence, which sentence, let me say it again, I am sorry I typed.
[and I’ll admit right here that I have at least one other half assed sentence out there in the archives so no doubt I am a complete ass]
That doesn’t answer the question of why you felt compelled to bring it up now and here. Did you think everyone was just burning to know how you measure a proper breast?
no, Zuzu, i did not think that. everyone else was talking about [well only two of the comments preceing my offensive remark were notabout size, uniformity and so on and that was my two cents. OK pretty lame…am I hopless and damned forever? The only compulsion I really suffer is to be in the conversation in service of which end, relevancy may come down to one word, authenticity to other peoples words so long as I was witness.
I have a hit counter that has been telling me for two years that damn near nobody is burning to hear anything I say. I am hardly under any such illusion and wonder if you really mean that I come across that way. I don’t mind having my mistakes pointed out but can we stop communicating in this tone? I come here to learn, not to teach. Next lesson please.
Or maybe in 40 years I haven’t had another thought or experience relevant to the matter that i could throw in. How can you take my word for it that this is not a matter I ever think about either in ways you would approve of or ways you would not? Is that an innocent possiblity? Are there no remarks in your view that could be “merely” ill considered? Or should I just start adding trophy recommendations to my header: “progressive misogynist asshat” - Zuzu [i’m kidding but the idea seems funny to me in my present state of fatigue, probably a very good sign that I should drop this now based on past hot water I waded into when tired]
For the love of god, it was a fucking JOKE. I guess it’s true what they say about feminists and senses of humor.
Because nothing helps deescalate a low-grade argument like trotting out tired old tropes about humorless feminists.
Greensmile -
See, if that were something that was truly a relic of the past, it might be amusing as a “oh, look at what those crazy people did/said way back in the olden days”. As it is, that kind of comment is still being made today, with all the misogynistic context and all the attendant underlying patriarchal assumptions still in place.
It seemed kind of non-sequiter-ish. Who cares what some privileged man said way back in the 60s about what he likes in breasts when Amanda’s original commentary was about how women didn’t like their breasts? It was unnecessary and offensive. It reflects poorly on the speaker - as though the person speaking it, and the person repeating it, didn’t think through what that kind of statement could mean in the larger context of a society where women are constantly psychically dismembered into their component parts based on their value as objets d’art (hot or not, tits and ass, etc).
Also, why did you bring up the progblogs linking to porn-as-a-survey-of-variance-in-breasts? Porn breasts are still breasts marketed as being for the pleasure of the consumer, just as the human being depicted is having her body and her sexuality marketed for the consumer. It’s not about what men find sexy in breasts. It’s that all breasts are normal, that itty-bitties are normal, that boobs that sag to your knees are normal, that all shapes and sizes are normal and whatever they look like the important part is that they are part of a human being who thinks and feels and comprehends.
I’ve been in conversations where women, commenting on penis size, said something along the lines of “if there’s too much for it to all get inside, then it’s just a waste.” Whatever you make of that, I didn’t interpret them to be making a statement analogous to what zuzu had in mind above. Obviously, the public dialogue about penis size doesn’t have quite the unpleasant and blatantly judgmental history that the one about breast size does, but sometimes a throwaway joke is just a throwaway joke, however well or ill conceived.
saucysaucy: comments can only expect to be seen as jokes if they are in part or in whole humorous. even then, they may not deserve an exemption from sensitivity.
NBarnes: yes–both funny and true
Those of us with big jugs do suffer from not being represented in a survey of natural boobs. I would guess that Zuzu and Ms Kate, like myself, have heard of people judging us as A) sluts or B)surgically enhanced. We’ve had to deal, from early teens on, with clothes that don’t fit, physical discomfort, “my eyes are up here”, and all the other crap that goes with big breasts. We’ve had too worry about being unattractive because big breasts make fashion difficult and get told we will droop faster (I’m still firm at 37). We worry about our health, because a lump could hide in the flesh. Then we get considered too far off the norm to have breasts like ours included in a variety article.
Then a comment comes out that appears to criticize big breasts as wasteful– and I do believe greensmile meant no harm– but that was one more straw! Of course Zuzu went off. If we have one drop of consolation about mother nature’s overabundant ‘gifts’ to us it’s that they are considered sexy by some people.
And then, with a couple of guys saying they prefer small breasts, that’s fine. I think the willowy body type is nice myself– hoped to be willowy as a girl, but it didn’t happen. But if you think less chesty girls are smarter (even on a subconscious level), I am going to blow a gasket. Brains and busts are NOT connected.
In conclusion, partiarchy sucks.
I love the photo at the start of the post. Anypone mind if I use “Angry Febot Army” as the name of my (imaginary) Rock-n-Roll band?
Sorry, that should read “Angry Fembot Army”.
(rummages for bingo card) Dab!
Anyway, late to the party once more, but I also wanted to point out the 007b site. The Jane project has this tone of… I dunno… exhibitionism to it; I’m glad that these women are proud of their breasts, but so many of them mention how happy they are that they’re attractive to men because of their breasts.
007b has a far greater variety, and some truly heartbreaking stories.
This is another really good site that shows off real women’s bodies: shape of a mother
Thank you Samantha.
I have mentioned “boob” exactly once and “breasts” exactly once in two years and 546 posts. Anyone can read there and decide whether my usage is purile, condescending, judging a person, objectifying or otherwise clueless or male chauvinist.
[Actually the search for “boob” surprised me considering how often I speak of our nation’s supposedly elected leader. Turns out I always us “sonofabush” which is used by so many others that my first match in google is like the 36th page out of 1500+]
I used to read one of those dumb-ass link clearinghouse websites that also posted random pictures of topless chicks, and I always looked at the topless chicks, and really was encouraged by them. Having not really spent much time looking at naked breasts other than my own before that, I had no idea what variation in size and shape there could be - and I was positively thrilled that all of them were being put forth as sexy. Xana’s link is definitely a more representative one than the Jane one. (And as a big-busted woman, I thought all the boobs were surprisingly small, especially given the stats I keep hearing about obesity in this country.)
I don’t care about the boobs. I was more intrigued by this:
Am I the only one who didn’t know that Amanda and Punkass Marc are a couple? That’s so cute! Did you guys meet via Teh Internets? (I dunno why it’s suddenly the thing to have “the” misspelled, but I’m jumping on the bandwagon).
[tongue-in-cheek]
Well, obviously you don’t ruminate about breasts enough then, greensmile.
[/tongue-in-cheek]
Seriously, it was a poor choice of commentary, even as a joke, even if you meant no harm. It *was* clueless if you made it and couldn’t see why it would be in poor taste. But, there’s nothing wrong with having been clueless if you learn from it.
And back on topic -
Why do our boobs have to the Pr0n Sexy Seal of Approval for us to feel good about them? Or even just the Male Gaze Seal of Approval? Isn’t it a package deal?
Exactly. In all the discussion of which size of breast is more common, the question that’s being danced around is why it’s considered important that any particular size be considered “normal”.
(WARNING: OT, and mild spoiler of last night’s episode of Lost):
Since this seems to be the closest thing to an open thread, I thought I’d place this here:
Anyone else find last night’s episode of Lost a trip into fundie-land? Sun finds out that if she tries to carry her child to term, she’ll die in the middle of the second trimester, yet she doesn’t even think to ask Juliette, a fertility specialist, about getting an abortion. That’s nuts. I hope it’s brought up the next time we see Sun, because that’s an awfully big blind spot by the writing crew.