Frankly I take the same stand towards my breasts that I do most members of my family: "Pick your friends, stuck with your family (breasts)." But you know, I don't think I've ever heard a single one of my girlfriend's say that she really liked her breasts, much less loved her breasts. At best we tolerate them, at worst we fixate and secretly admit that we might be convinced to have a little breastal slicing, dicing, scooping and/or stuffing to get us the breasts we feel that we truly deserve. It's tough not to be teat obsessed in our culture. Everywhere you look is like one big media driven titty bar frenzy and with the image of the implanted, flawlessly pert, up to your chin, perfectly rounded boob considered the norm; it's difficult at best not to feel a wee bit less than beautiful with the set you're carrying about.

Think about it, if you've looked at any porn in the last five years, you'd realize that the natural breast is a thing of the past. Now it's all about playing spot the nipple scars, a curious lack of pubic hair, injecto-rama lips and bleach blonde manes. It's bizarre and surreal that a woman with real 100% USDA breast tissue is the anomaly and a breast which actually moves around on film has become the freak show. Almost as if real breasts in porn are themselves on the verge becoming a purely fetishist item like toe sucking or amputees. It's pathetic when the image of the large breasted woman is considered so highly erotic in our culture, but only if those breasts don't behave as large breasts are wont to do and the only acceptable variety is a liquid filled sack of man-made mammary.

Envy..."The Breast is Always Perkier"

So do I feel about my breasts? To say I despise my breasts is probably something of an understatement. In fact I feel more hatred towards my chest than I do my worst enemy. Well maybe not, I think I might be more upset if a bus plowed into or over my chest--unlike, say... my worst enemy. These days when I look in the mirror I'm more or less pleased with what I see, except for when I take off my bra, at which point I cringe and think what I'd give for someone else's breasts. Some lucky gals have breasts which suit their personalities. Take my best friend: she's stacked and to be anything else just wouldn't suit. This woman's got charm, she sheds pheromones like a moth (even if she'd never admit to it), she has that sex on a stick take care of people thing going for her in gallons--I however, do not. Yet still somehow I ended up with the cleavage of someone far sexier and nurturing than myself. Given my druthers I'd have perfectly pert, nice little 34Bs--ya know, just a nice set of boobs that, when I take of my bra, rise to the surface like a pair of Portuguese man-o-wars looking to sting and paralyze a hapless swimmer (unwanted groper). Sometimes the first word which springs to mind when I think about my boobs, god help me, is "udder." And we all know nobody likes the girls with udders.

Unfortunately for me, my overall dissatisfaction with my breasts has been an omnipresent for the last five years of my life. My mammarial misery has encouraged even worse posture than I already have, self consciousness and an overall sense of feeling somehow almost dirty at times. I'd spent the last two years of my life hoisting around large 34Ds which have nothing to do with my identity and which were just making me depressed all of the time. I'd lie awake figuring out ways to pull together enough money for reductive surgery; desperate thoughts of selling off things I prize, like my record collection. Trying to convince myself that if I could only get insurance, they'd cover the medical costs--which I knew was totally unlikely. It was patently obvious something had to change when a small breasted friend told the best friend and me at supper one night that she'd worn a push up bra to supper because she knew she was "playing with the big girls." While meant in the nicest way possible, that comment made me feel like absolute shit. So I began a huge physical overhaul which apparently was going to be the only way I could shed twenty pounds and shrink down these beasties on my chest.

A year later and where do I stand? Nearly thirty pounds lighter and moderately happily wearing a non-existent 35C (slightly too large for a 34C, slightly too small for a 36C.) The best part to my new found exercise and controlled eating mania is I can look at myself in the mirror and think "My god am I almost hot!" It's nice, I haven't felt sexy in several years.

Guess this all sounds well and good, thinking that I'm the bees knees of pixie-cuteness, but I still hate my breasts and get almost nervous at the idea of ever getting involved with someone who would see me in a bra-less situation short of flat on my back. Unfortunately, gravity is gravity and even with what are now just average sized breasts, they didn't shoot right back up to the surface.

Why do I still hate what I see when I look at a braless me in front of the mirror?

When I was told about the photos for this piece, I told one of the lovely and talented editors that there was no way in hell I'd pose without a bra. I go nowhere without one of my trusty "keep those puppies in line" bras. In fact I nearly let someone possibly choke in a drunken stupor one night while I fished around in my room for a bra before heading out to the living room for a three am rescue. Hey, you have your issues, I have mine. Really it saddens me to be convinced that no man will ever find my breasts lovely. Why this should matter, I'm not sure: I can be cute as a bug's ear, I'm smart, I'm funny, I'm capable of being utterly charming, and I've got a great ass.

But still I look at my not so plucky tits and I think about things like how I'm really maybe not so hot after all...

All Personal Breast photos by Robyn Eden.