Boob Job

Reflections on how an unintended insult, and years of empty promises, shaped my tata tug of war

Sophia Loren and Jayne Mansfield at Romanoff’s, as printed in Vanity Fair

On a visit to the local bank with my mother at the tender age of 10, an older gentleman softly asked me to move away from the counter so that he could conduct his business. This moment is crystalized in my memory so clearly, and I’ve written extensively about it in my journals over the years. What made such a lasting impression? He called me “Sonny.” The unintended insult embedded a splinter in my self-esteem that took many years to thoroughly tweeze out. Yet when I look back at grainy photos, I can easily understand his mistake. As a pre-teen, I appeared fiercely boyish: tall for my age, skeletally thin, and sporting an unflattering facsimile of the Dorothy Hamill Wedge hairstyle (that my mother had convinced me was perfect for my “bone structure”). Sadly, at such a tender age, I was already fully indoctrinated to believe that it was required of me to appear womanly, feminine, and, eventually, alluring, merely as table stakes for being female. I was brainwashed to believe that a 36-24-36 physique was the only acceptable beauty standard for women. My only hope — that I clung to like a life preserver for years — was that I would eventually develop into some semblance of my mother’s showgirl figure. This is hilarious to me in hindsight. For while I may have inherited Mommy’s gift of gab, her love of cinema, and her struggle with the human condition, I did not inherit her rack.

###

Though my mother often whispered in my ear, “a wuh-man’s heya is huh shining glaw-ry,” I knew the truth: massive hooters were my ticket to womanhood. For most of my youth, my mother was a brick house, and she didn’t hold anything back. Mommy favored hip-hugging wrap skirts a la Diane Von Furstenberg. She jiggled and jostled just so, stomping and sashaying her way along subway platforms in high heels, refusing to join her “ruh-dick-u-lus lookin” secretarial pool peers who began opting for sneakers over their stockings between home and office.

Mom’s melons were a work of art. Her perfectly proportioned jugs were positioned symmetrically across a broad expanse of decolletage. She was a stunning embodiment of a great painter’s seductive rendering of a woman’s ideal shape and heft. I studied her with an appreciative envy, longing for the day when I might also fill out a silk blouse or stretch a logo across a faded cotton t-shirt just so. I examined her bras regularly; they were things of beauty, lacy and delicate, the empty cups waiting to hug her flesh, hung to dry from the shower curtain rod alongside her many shades of tan L’Eggs pantyhose.

###

Several years and a few cotton ball-stuffed training bras later, my deeply desired feminine future looked bleak as my peers’ pubescent progress outpaced my own. While I inched upward at an alarming rate, earning the nickname “Bean,” there was no evidence of any buds sprouting outwards. Both my hips and my chest were flat and plumb. The anticipated curves of burgeoning womanhood evaded me well into high school. It didn’t help that an onslaught of images of bodacious bodies was everywhere I looked: Farrah, Christie, Cindy, Phoebe, each of them slim yet stacked. I, however, more closely resembled someone they’d date, that special variety of ‘80s metal hair band dude: massive piles of teased hair atop an adolescent boy’s silhouette. I was beginning to reconcile with the fact that I was probably doomed to lifelong membership in the Itty Bitty Titty Committee.

One day, around my Sweet 16, my mother spoke these unbidden words of hope and encouragement to me:

“Ya know, Ni-co-wal, I don’t think my bress’ really came in ‘til I wuz seventeen.”

Oh, sweet relief! Really?! Of course, it made sense that I wasn’t patient enough. That it was on me. This was a criticism I had received from teachers, coaches, and friends. Be patient! Good things come to those who wait, etc. Got it. Mommy thought she was giving me a precious gift of equal parts validation and hope. Except that she continued to make this assertion for the next NINE years. It started to feel more like a curse.

When I turned 25, once again, she unwittingly offered:

“Ya know, Ni-co-wal, I don’t think my bress’ really came in ‘til I wuz twenty six.”

I begged her (begged her!) to cease and desist. I looked way more like Daddy in face and figure. And I was finally at peace with that. In fact, I learned to love looking more androgynous than feminine. By then, I proudly wore an Annie Lennox buzz cut and shortened my name to “Nic” so that the bro-y douchebags at the sports channel I worked with would call me back. I joked with them about my gender identity in a way that made them nervous. Different times, to be sure...

###

I was 30 when I enjoyed my first pregnancy. As my belly swelled, so did my mammary glands, growing exponentially as they prepared to fulfill their primary evolutionary function. I loved being pregnant, and I loved all the ways my body knew exactly what to do, and I really loved my tits. I wanted to walk around topless, bare-breasted for the world to see, let the people bask in the beams of my stunning headlights. This lasted about a minute.

After an incredibly challenging delivery, my first son was born happy and hale, and the task of breastfeeding loomed. I do not recall learning much about nursing from the myriad books on motherhood I devoured; I certainly expected it to be easy, “the most natural experience in the world,” an important source of protective, perfect nourishment for my baby. I have some vague memory of reading how to treat a breast infection with a cold cabbage leaf or something, but I truly didn’t know what I was in for. I started breastfeeding at the hospital with some help from the nursing staff. It was a little challenging, and I didn’t want to speak my concerns out loud. I was told not to worry, “It would work itself out.” So, I went home with my newly formed family, deeply exhausted and sorely uncomfortable, unable to sit upright so as not to tug on the nearly hundred stitches in my nether region. Then my milk came in.

Up to that point, my knockers had gently blossomed from an anemic A cup to (what seemed to me) a perfect and zaftig C. I remember the first morning home from the hospital. I was trying to roll over onto my belly, a comfort I missed terribly when my tummy was full of human, but I was prevented by what seemed to be a hard pillow on my chest. The pressure was notable, and my nightshirt was soaked. I waddled into the bathroom, took off my shirt, and screamed at the sight. My lovely lady lumps had been replaced overnight by two gargantuan, rock-hard, blue-veined cantaloupes that were erupting like Vesuvius, squirting precious colostrum and milk in every direction, all over the countertop. My husband burst in, alarmed by my shrieking. He raised one arm to shield his eyes from the ungodly sight of my monstrous udders and moaned, “dear God!” Eventually, I saw the humor. Later that day, my mother, who was staying with us to help, walked past me in the hallway and mumbled a soft, lowing, “mooooo.”

Trying to nurse in that state of engorgement was nearly impossible; my infant couldn’t latch on properly as the surface of my flesh was as hard as stone. This led to bloody, sore nipples, like a marathon runner who neglected to tape up. Weeks later, one visit to the local angels at La Leche League got us on track with a minor adjustment in how I held my baby, nestling him like a football in the crook of my arm. I heaved sobs of relief and gratitude. AFTER all that, nursing was the easiest, most natural experience, as promised. And I was sad when it eventually ended.

###

I live in an area of the country where I see a fair amount of women my age (and way younger) who’ve opted for breast enhancements or enlargements, along with several other age-defying treatments. Good on them; no shade, I swear. They look great in everything they wear. But when I finally started to shed my menopausal weight earlier this year, I relished each reduction in cup size. My boobs no longer bludgeon me when I run, nor try to suffocate me when I lie down. They’ve done their job as nature intended, and I don’t feel like I need them to express my femininity or look good in a tight T. In fact, I don’t own any tight tops; those days are blissfully gone as my wardrobe has entered its “flowy era.” I wish I could take back all the yearning for fleshy lumps that have nothing to do with the quality of my character, and less and less — to my mind — with some ideal feminine attractiveness. I have friends and family whose tatas have tried to kill them; some survived, and some didn’t. I find the current conversations regarding gender fluidity so encouraging, and the myriad types of gender expression so liberating. I’m thrilled to see people of all ages choosing how they want to show up in a physical form that we mostly have little control over. Plus, I think that my perfect peaks have finally arrived. I just had to wait till I was 59.