In 5th grade, I was taller than most of the girls. I also had bigger boobs. Granted, they were barely nubbins, but still. The other girls (with the exception of the glamorous Carey Hiroms, who must have been physically 16 or 17 by then) barely had visible nipples. That Halloween, I donned a huge bag of cotton batting distributed equally between my chest and my head and went as Dolly Parton.

In 6th grade, I was no longer tall, but I still had bigger boobs than all my friends.

By 7th grade, I stopped growing and all of us but Stephanne had moved out of training bras.

At the beginning of 8th grade, Stephanne and I bought stiff, foam-padded bras secret code named "the walls" or the "wonder walls." By the end of the 8th grade, Stephanne was spilling out of her wonder walls and I was the shortest, the flattest, and had the biggest ass, a record I have maintained to this day.

Since that fateful year, I've never had a close girlfriend who was flatter than me. For a while I was friends with a flatter girl, but (coincidentally?) sometime after I saw her naked, we fell out and I ended up spending most of my time wishing her ill and/or trying to make her cry. I have, however, had many equally flat girlfriends and several even flatter acquaintances.

Just to make sure we're on the same track, let's define "flat girl. A flat girl at her ideal weight--the weight range on those charts--a flat girl at her ideal weight can barely fill an A cup. A solid A might be a flat girl, but a full A is not. A flat girl still wears an A during and around her period. (A flat girl 20 pounds or more overweight might spill over into a small B, but at that point she temporarily ceases to be a flat girl.)

A flat girl has been told by at least one old lady at a bra shop "Well, honey, you don't really need a bra." And the old lady is right. While she often owns an abundance of bras, the adult flat girl wears them only half of the time at most, and then only because her shirt is see-through or she's feeling particularly modest about her nipples.

Here are some things I've learned whilst flat:

1. Flat girls can wear bras as tops or excessively low-cut items without looking slutty
2. Flat girls don't know the alleged agony of "popping out" of their bras.
3. Flat girls often do, however, know the worse agony of looking down to see the stuffing or pads popping out of their bras.
4. Flat girls get less unwanted attention.
5. Flat girls have more choices in shirts.
6. Flat girls don't get ogled in P.E.
7. Or at the pool, or the lake or the locker room.
8. Flat girls don't need sports bras (although they usually own them, just for a sense of security)
9. Flat girls can shop in the girls' and boys' departments
10. People look us in the eye when they talk to us.

It's this last point I've fixated on.

My busty friends have always complained about men talking to their breasts. I myself have talked to many breasts. In fact, I have a hard time understanding how anyone could not talk to anything bigger than a C. And at D, they take on a life their own. It seems almost impolite not to address them personally. Even a C, the most common cup size, is hypnotic in anything low cut. And I'm not talking sexually. It's not sexual. It's just that--I don't know. They stick way out. They look yielding, plush, inviting,. Nothing like my little, hard, ribby breasts. Maybe it's bottle baby syndrome. I don't know what it is, but good luck getting me through a conversation with Rebecca or Rachel without at least glancing.

I've never sympathized with the complainers. Women and men alike always talk to my face, which is fine, but I'm devastated knowing breast-talking is allegedly commonplace yet somehow so elusive to me. I spent half of college in a bra-as-top state, and I garnered not one boob-related response. Wait--I take that back. I did get one wolfish stare, but it was after a long, sweaty show, and I was wearing a heavy-duty Fredricks push-up bra as a top. The bottom halves of the cups were solid high-density foam. I was so delirious with joy, I don't remember who the guy was or what he said, just that he said it to my boobs! The only other time a guy talked to my breasts was when my old roommate Chris accidentally walked in tot he bathroom while I was naked. It was kind of an immodest household, so that in itself wasn't a big deal, but Chris said "excuse me" not to my face, but to my breasts. I could've kissed him.

Instead of angrily avoiding unsolicited breast-talking, I spent years soliciting it with little or no effect. One time, a drunken acquaintance admitted he didn't really have anything to say to me and that he was just talking to me so he could look down my dress. At the time, I was wearing a push-up bra and a push-up corset (possibly with socks in it), but it still made my week. I've had a soft spot for him ever since.

Then everything changed. Curves, the expensive yet promising infomercial star, hit the scene. Suddenly there was fresh cleavage in every magazine. Knockoffs soon followed. On my lunch breaks, I would walk down to Eckerds and eye them longingly. But I just couldn't rationalize $30 for yet another disappointment.

But one day, as I made my usual half-hearted round of the clearance aisle, there they were, festooned with a flourescent orange sticker: $9.99! Hooray! Finally my ship had come in! I hurried up to the register, grateful that the ancient man ringing them up didn't seem to know what they were. When I returned to the office, I shared my purchase with the girls.

We removed them from their protective plastic bubble and examined them. They were plastic-coated silicone globs, squooshy and bottom-heavy, roughly the weight, texture and color of plump raw chicken breasts.

The next day, I decided to test them out with a tight black sweater. They wouldn't even fit into my regular bras. They did, however, fit into the fabulous leopard-print Wonder Bra Angele had given me--the one I never got to wear because it was so too big, even with double push-up pads. I fastened the Wonder Bra, stuffed in the chicken breasts, and lifted and repositioned my own boobs.

It was staggering. They were huge, and what's more, they were heavy. It felt nothing like the Frederick's foam stuffers or wonder walls. They felt like... well, like breasts. And I had cleavage. Cleavage! I couldn't believe it. After a few minutes, they were even warm. I was afraid to leave my room and risk the unavoidable teasing from my boyfriend. Even when I put the sweater on, I was astonished. I thought my eyes would pop out of my head from staring. I had jugs!

I left my room feeling about as conspicuous and fraudulent as could be, but my boyfriend didn't even notice. He drove me all the way to work without saying a word. I wanted to scream What are you--blind? Look at me! I've got huge enormous massive gigantic breasts!

When I got to work, I walked through the corridors feeling like Mae West. Surely someone would unmask me. But I didn't even get a glance. Oh, the girls I work with noticed immediately. Jen even stood up when I walked in and said "Look at you!" I think Jes stood up too. I hopped up and down in demonstration. My hefty accomplices followed just behind. Lax, of course didn't notice anything until we all started giggling, at which point he only noticed that the girls were once again giggling and wouldn't tell him why.

All day I felt dizzyingly freakish-they're in the way for everything: typing, making coffee, reaching a high shelf. It was intoxicating. So this was what it was like being on the other side of one of those busty hugs.

And that's how it went: I would wear the chicken breasts with progressively lower and lower cut dresses (not to work, of course-work was largely skinny, flat-chested blondes, so I felt especially duplicitous there). My girlfriends would ooh and aah (but never talk to them), and boys didn't notice.

Until one night, when I decided to go all out. I tarted myself up, put on my sluttiest booby dress and go-go boots, and donned the leopard Wonderbra con chicken breasts. I rearranged my dress to maximize cleavage and even show a little bra (a ploy I had tried before to no effect). I eyed myself critically, trying to identify the factor that would push me from voluptuous in my imagination to undeniably obejctifiable. And then it hit me: glitter. Like crows, men are mesmerized by all things shiny. I smeared a generous glob of body glitter over my modest cleavage.

It did the trick. Two hours and several drinks later, a friend of a friend-who had always looked me in the eye before--said "Hey! How's it going?" directly to my breasts. I answered for them: "Great! Better than great! How are you?" He must've known I was speaking for them, because he continued to address all three of us, although I didn't get more than passing eye contact during the following 30 seconds or so of small talk. Success! I was walking on air and bragging to anyone who would listen the rest of the night.

I haven't worn the chicken breasts since.

All Personal Breast photos by Robyn Eden.