The Etiquette of Being a Breast

You see it is not a matter of doing what is right or seemly; I can assure you that I am not concerned with the etiquette of being a breast.

Philip Roth, The Breast

A funny thing happened on the way to my breast reduction surgery. I grew fond of my 32DDs. Not that fond, mind you. But fond enough to memorialize them by parading in pasties for a homemade holiday card: Season's Greetings from Santa and her Helpers. I have never before sent out Season's Greeting cards. I have never before worn pasties. I don't even believe in The Season. But strangely—maybe because it was during The Season—I felt that the DDs needed to be given their due. Strike up the band! My hangdog breasts were going down in a blaze of glory. They were going to be famous, find their way onto mantels and refrigerator doors all around the country.

"Bend over. Lift them up," my photographer directed me in my red pumps and itchy, royal blue sequined stars that refused to stick to my nipples (chewed gum works best), red satin panties, and let's not forget the Santa hat. Never mind that earlier in the day I had lectured authoritatively on Aristotle's ethics, or that I had handed back exams graded in my no-nonsense, stern-professor way. Ivory tower be damned, I was going to look and behave like a freak show act for thirty minutes of my life! How else is one to deal with the knowledge that in just twelve hours a relatively small but significant portion of my God-given body was going to be carted off in plastic sour cream containers to the incinerator? That my nipple area would be cut out from the surrounding skin, downsized, and sewn back (with a possible loss of sensation)? That by not loving my body as it is, I was committing a feminist faux pas? That I would soon be free, free, free of the DDs! How is one to confront the cacophony of excitement, anxiety, and guilt that results from knowing too much, from feeling too many different feelings? My solution: be giddy, and when that runs out, be gaudy. I was going to wear those contradictions on the surface of my skin and record the moment for posterity. For the truth was I did not love my body exactly as it was given to me. And the fact is we do have the technology to change our bodies. Besides, I have always wanted to wear strappy and strapless slinky summer dresses.

Why was I only able to celebrate my breasts by memorializing them? I certainly would not have been so free and flamboyant with the bad boys were they not about to be excised and turned into carbon. On the contrary, ever since the age of ten, I have done my best to hide them under oversized sweaters and T-shirts, to corset them with the world's best bras, to exercise them out of my life. I have done everything I can to ignore them.

Whether on a date or just going about my daily business, the DDs made a regular habit of busting out and taking over. No matter what the venue or situation, they could not help calling attention to themselves in the tackiest ways. They were the obnoxious guys in polyester leisure suits, they were walking disco balls, they were the royal blue sequined stars screaming, "Hey, over here! Watch out, zaftig woman in the house! Got milk?"

I will not miss walking on the beach in a bathing suit four times my normal size. I will not miss having my breasts referred to as "those bad boys" by a young and earnest massage therapist charged with treating my bad-boy induced upper back pain. And I will most certainly be able to...