The Booby Trap and Other Bits and Boobs
Read The Booby Trap and Other Bits and Boobs Online
Authors: Dawn O'Porter
I am obsessed with tits.
I stare at them â I can't help it. I am the woman you catch glaring at your nipples in the gym changing room, and I find it almost impossible not to pass comment on a pair that I find attractive. It's a perversion that I don't bother trying to hide. Most of my female friends will tell you that I sneak a peek whenever I can. Skype me and I will flash you, then probably ask to be flashed back. Get changed at my house? Expect to be gawked at. I can't help it. I just love them. Tits. BRRRRRRRR.
As well as my appreciation for the way they look, their function blows my mind. Having watched my sister's children suckle from them and grow, I understand the value of their power. But I only have to let down the guard of my subconscious down for a millionth of a second to have my mind flurried with reminders that those fountains of life may also be the source of death. It's a negative connotation I have learned to suppress enough for my love of boobs to be a true pleasure in my life, but it's always there somewhere. I was six years old (two days off seven) when my mother died of breast cancer, on 21st January 1986. I am still full of questions about who my mother was, and why it happened. Everything I am stems from a fear of abandonment or the fear of history repeating itself, and at the age of thirty-four I can cry on demand if I dare think back to being six years old.
And now, still, boobs are scarcely off my mind. So off the back of the obsession I give you:
The Booby Trap and Other Bits and Boobs.
An entire book about boobs. You. Are. Welcome!
What you are about to read is a vibrant mix of fact and fiction, prose and poetry. We have drawings too â even a photo of a feminist's torso! When my publishers, Hot Key Books, gave the go ahead for this book, the brief was simple: âGet as many famous people as you can to write whatever they like about anything to do with boobs at any point in their life.' So that's what I did â I shamelessly approached everyone I had access to, and the result makes for brilliant reading.
What makes this even better is that proceeds from the sales of this book will be split between my three favourite breast cancer charities. I couldn't decide which one of them to pick so I picked them all. We have Breast Cancer Care, Breakthrough Breast Cancer and CoppaFeel! So that's care, research and awareness all covered. At the back of the book you can find out a bit more of what each charity does along with all of their contact details.
The thing about breast cancer is that if you catch it early, the chances of you being absolutely fine are very very high. Most breast cancers are found by self-
examination, so before you start reading, please put down this book, lift up your top, and have a good feel of your boobs. Also at the back of the book is a step-by-step guide on how to check your boobs properly. Make it part of your routine, get to know how they feel so you know if anything changes. Who said groping couldn't save lives?
Done? Great, let's crack on â¦
Dedicated to ⦠jugs, baps, tits, bangers, knorks, melons, airbags, Jedwards, funbags, flop-a-dops, over-the-shoulder boulder-holders, bozangers, wangers, jubblies, boobies, waps, Phil and Grant, Golden Globes, hooters, the Girls, cans, mollies, babylons, nip nips, chesticles, bazookas, Bristo
ls â¦
I Am Fifteen, and Have Nothing Figured Out
I often wonder why I am so full of rage. I like to blame it on my boobs. I have always been mad at my boobs. When I was ten my aunt had just finished chemotherapy and my grandmother was dying of cancer. I didn't have boobs then, but I already hated them because all I knew about them was that they fed babies and hurt people.
When I got boobs, I was ashamed of them and hid them. They also kind of grossed me out and I thought they made me look deformed. The first memories I have about my boobs are how I would constantly run into things and how it would hurt so badly that I would cry. I would also cry because it was like life was never going to be the same. In fourth grade, I was very nostalgic and emotional.
I used to think if I lay down on the marble floor, face down, maybe they would go away. I also liked the pain. I made myself cry, but I didn't get up. I was so confused, I decided to torture myself. After doing that a few times, I was afraid they would pop or crack open (a horrifying thought) and stopped. That was when I first started getting nervous. I wish I could say that I'm over this and laugh at how at how neurotic and strange I was, but I am not any less confused now.
I feel like by sixth grade, mostly everyone had boobs, but it was hard to tell because a majority of my friends would hide them with baggy T-shirts. I invited four girls to sleep over at my house at the end of sixth grade. They were a lot more mature and comfortable with themselves than I was (and still am). I like to have more than one person at my house because I'm easily overwhelmed and offended, and so I could leave if I wanted to and it wouldn't be as weird (still a little weird though). We watched the film
Cabaret
, which, I think, is what inspired the events that followed. I had only met these girls a couple of months prior to this night, so I was not comfortable with them at all (that has not changed). After the movie ended we were all in the room and a few minutes later, everyone was topless. I was not. They all started to yell at me to take off my shirt, but I said no. Then they cornered me and locked me in the bathroom with them. I closed my eyes because I didn't need to see that. I felt their boobs touching my face and shoulders. They laughed and thought it was hilarious. It scarred me.
In middle school my friend had a crush on her neighbor. She kept track of the days he would go on jogs and on those days she would stand by her window and flash him. The details are sketchy and we aren't sure if he ever even saw. I remember this enraged me. I told my parents right away because no one in my grade thought there was anything wrong with it.
There was a Bar or Bat Mitzvah almost every weekend in seventh grade. Thirteen-year-old girls would wear super-tight black dresses and five-inch heels and that appalled me. This is probably when I separated from my friends and became more like a mom. I would yell at everyone to stop texting during the services, because I didn't understand how someone could do something so disrespectful. I think I did this because it gave me something to do (not sure why that was fun for me, it only caused pain). I remember sitting behind a group of girls, so I could get a good look to see if they were on their phones or not, and noticing that they had their bras tightened all the way. The clasp was all the way up their backs. I later noticed that they were pushing their tween boobs up so high, it looked painful. I used to think that I was the strange one for not wanting to do that to myself, but now I know I wasn't.
I'm afraid to show people my boobs. There is a chance they look really weird and I don't know it â or no one has told me before. I'm pretty sure they're normal but I don't want to risk it. I am so charged with hormones, I can't handle any type of comment that would make me feel bad.
My mom always tells me to show my boobs off now, because they will never look this good again. That makes me feel terrible and sad because thinking about aging makes me feel depressed.
My best friend is a 34DD, so it is hard to avoid the boob topic.
I'm fifteen and I am still trying to understand why people my age do certain things, like why a girl would send a picture of their boobs to a boy and not expect everyone in the school to see it. Is she really that confused and careless or is it a cry for help and attention? I feel alone in the sense that not many people my age care about people as deeply as I do. I get worked up and upset about things that other people don't even think about. I didn't think about why girls were wearing such padded bras at twelve and thirteen and how it says something about who you are. Right now I am trying to figure out what that is. Experimenting comes with getting older. I know that there is nothing I can do to stop my friends from trying things like drinking or drugs, but it is really hard to accept that. I have always been anxious and have felt like I need to control what everyone around me is doing. I figured out that the reason I try to protect people is because I am trying to protect myself. I don't want to help my friends through things I feel like I could have prevented. I know that I don't have control and that I really can't prevent bad things from happening, but I still feel worried. My friends have isolated me because I don't support them and it feels terrible. As soon as boobs come, everyone wants to grow up. To me, boobs symbolize change, growth, puberty, and the reason all of my friends and I all went crazy. Maybe if my grandma didn't die so young, I wouldn't be so freaked out that bad things would happen to everyone all of the time. I haven't had a baby or a boyfriend yet, so I don't know any of the positive reasons to have boobs. All I know is I hit them on doorways sometimes and it really hurts.
You are a thing of wonder, both in the vein of intrigue and amusement. From the very start you set out to have a mind of your own, changing and developing at your own pace, binded to each other but at the same time occasionally estranged.
I remember way back then, when you started to grow. I was the subject of ridicule from others who presumed it was all premature on my part. Who was I to think that I needed to support you, help you evolve! I felt shame and confusion.
Even now as I sit here in between relying on you to provide nourishment for my newborn I can feel you tingle, regale and prepare. You give, you fatten, you strengthen, you comfort and you leak.
And yet you also take, you allow life to be devoured by an evil poison. A poison that threatened to take away the very person who has chaperoned our relationship from the start. You were the reason I nearly lost my mum. Mistrust between us that I hope will never reappear.
Then there is your seductive side, affirming powers of flirtation, feeling sexy, provocative and womanly. Something to thank you for and something I never want to lose.
Onwards we go on this journey together, a journey that neither of us can predict nor regulate,
but one that I know will continue to test both our very existences.