When people say “stop sexualizing breasts”, they don’t mean “breasts aren’t sexy and you should not find them attractive.”
What they mean is that, while they can certainly be enjoyed in a sexual context, that is not their sole function, and they are a neutral body part that should be allowed to exist without comment in a comfortable state (no bra if the person doesn’t want one).
Ways in which we sexualize breasts:
Making fun of saggy breasts (bc they aren’t sexually attractive).
Treating large breasts as superior to small breasts.
Treating large breasts as more vulgar than small breasts.
Treating small breasts as superior to large breasts.
Using breast size as a measure of physical maturity.
Insisting that it is necessary to wear shapewear to make them look sexier even when it is not a sexual situation (such as going to the store). Some shapewear is worn for comfort/support/fun, but wearing it should be left up to the individual, and bralessness should be considered unremarkable and boring, not slovenly or unsexy.
Insisting that breastfeeding parents cover up because the exposure of a breast is an inherently provocative and aggressively sexual act and it is not okay for people to do that where other people can see, or because it is considered rude to let babies have the titty when grown-ups cannot also have the titty. (And if you ever, ever compare breastfeeding to a sexual act, I will piss in your eyes.)
Focusing breast health issues around “save the boobies” instead of “save the person and ditch the breasts if you gotta” (bc again, sexual value). This also excludes male victims of things like breast cancer, because male breasts are not even acknowledged, let alone considered sexy or worthy of “saving.”
In fact, culturally we insist pretty stridently that men should not have breasts. Only women should. Because women are meant to be sexually attractive at all times, but god forbid that a man look like a woman because that is sexually unattractive. (This is also transphobic as fuck.)
Imposing different rules on pubescent and older girls that are not imposed on boys of the same age, because budding breasts are distracting and also indecent and should be covered (jfc these are children WHY are we teaching them the most important thing about their bodies is how they look, the effect they have on others, and their potential sexual use??? THAT IS DISGUSTING.)
Arguing that “large and round human breasts evolved as a sexual signal” excuses people from acting like assholes around human breasts. They’re attached to a whole-ass human being, and treating whole-ass human beings in a shitty way because you consider these sexually appealing fatty masses more important than the rest of the human body makes you a dumbass douchebag.
Arguing that toplessness laws should permit women to go topless because teehee then you’d get to see the boobies. You’d get to see the boobies, all right. All the boobies. Saggy boobies. Scarred boobies. Boobies with stretch marks. Boobies with non-standard nipnops. Hairy boobies. Uneven, lumpy boobies. You’d see it all. Snickering support of anti-toplessness activism is shallow, because it doesn’t usually include support of non-”beautiful” breasts. It’s also fundamentally stupid. If you saw all the boobies all the time, you’d stop considering them sexual pretty fucking fast and see them as just another body part. Which they are. So your jollies would un-jolly themselves pretty damn quick.
Anyway, that’s just what I can think of off the top of my head but yeah, we sexualize breasts way too much.
(Also, to hell with TERFs.)
amandla
stormborns
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