Heavenly Beverley : Boobs, Glorious Boobs...

After all the trepidation and outright terror that the COVID 19 outbreak has caused, I think the time has come for a bit of silliness. I am over being all serious and measured and sensible. I'm the first to admit the obvious - Coronavirus and its possible carnage has scared the shit out of me. We have been so lucky that the devastation that has beset parts of Europe and the United States has not eventuated here. So, I'm ready for a bit of fun.

The title of this piece came to me whilst enjoying a genteel and sedate Sunday afternoon tea with Jan and Celeste. Okay, we were neither genteel nor sedate but we were using very pretty crockery thanks to Jan. We were sitting on her northern verandah surrounded by her potted plants and her quirky pieces of pottery. One of them, a stylised woman clutching her bosom, drew my attention. Ahem, Jan, I said. She looks like she's had a breast reconstruction...

Oh, replied Jan. That's because she has had one. Her breasts blew off in the heat of the kiln.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is when I lost it. The vision of exploding boobs tickled my funny bone. I howled with laughter. And that is also when I decided that the time for ripe for a discussion centred around our obsession (or lack of) about boobs.

Let's face it, girls, we have no choice in the matter. We all end up with some advancement of tissue overlying our chest muscles. A quick check of the precise nature of breasts confirmed their structure of fatty and glandular tissue, as well as (supposedly) supporting ligaments to keep them more or less upright and those pesky milk nodes which are the reason for their development in the first place.

That's right, blokes. Boobs are not created for your titillation. Like every other mammal, they are designed to feed our young. Which brings me to the hilarity of bristling outrage that still occurs at the sight of a breast being used for its primary purpose. They can be splashed across every form of media but the mere hint of a nipple being firmly grasped within in a baby's mouth is still enough to cause horrified responses from the ill-informed idiots out there.

That is my first point. Move on. There is nothing to see here. There never was.

Next on the agenda is women's dissatisfaction with their boobs. Which all stems from them being used as a marketing tool, rather than genuinely honoured for their original purpose. Whether they end up being used for that purpose of not. That is entirely a woman's decision and interference, often masquerading as "advice" from others, is about as welcome as a lamb kebab fart in a lift.

Big, small, droopy, perky, lopsided - these are the outward signs of our boobs and ought to be treated in as a matter-of-fact way as our ears or feet. What really matters to most women is comfort. To wear or not wear a bra is nobody's business except the individual purveyor of each set of breasts. The same goes for breast reduction, enlargement or reconstruction. But for heaven's sake girls, make informed decisions based on facts and be content with the outcome. Fiddling with bodily parts purely for looks is fraught with danger.

Which brings me to the next point of this somewhat rambling essay. Breasts are just wobbly bits attached to our fronts. They sit up when young, they drop lower as we age. They flop to the left and right, usually in bed or conversely, during exercise. Breasts are not to be overly revered or placed on a pedestal. It's bad enough when they are placed within the confines of a mammogram.

Women all have stories about encounters with what I refer to as the Sandwich Maker. A mammogram basically tries to take boobs of any size and place them between two cold metallic pads. Then one is required to change positions and squash them in other directions, in order to view the breasts from all angles, which involves pretending to be masquerading a star performer in a rather grotesque ballet.

Those of us who have breastfed can ascertain exactly when our babies became curious. I clearly remember Callum taking my nipple around the corner so he could have a stickybeak of what was happening behind us. As a result, my nipples are the second-longest in the Southern Hemisphere, only beaten by my darling friend Ailsa, whose nipples are at least in proportion to her magnificent pair of breasts.

Apparently, blokes do not compare willies. Ladies who don't give a shit will view each other's breasts, nipples and pubic hair without breaking out in a blush.

Girls, all our bodies are perfect...

Which brings me back to afternoon tea with Jan and Celeste. How fortunate am I to live in a country town and have fabulous friends, with whom no subject is off-limits. Jan is one woman comfortable with her body and her boobs. Celeste, I suspect, really does not take herself and her body too seriously. She is who she is. Both of these fantastic women are survivors of difficult relationships. Jan, being an artist, has spent many years exploring shape, sexuality and freedom. Many of her portraits and ceramic pieces feature boobs. Including her amazing "Fly, Be Free" which represents the end of her marriage and her subsequent flight into creativity.

Thanks to women like Jan and Celeste, Lorna and Val, Ailsa and Suzi Q, Laura and Carole, Sue and Tracey and too many others to mention, I am learning to accept my body and myself, warts and all.

Thin, fat, tall, short, two-boobed, one-boobed, no-boobed. Whatever. We all matter.

That's it.