In California, I'll be staying with some good friends who had inspired previous blog posts (see umbrolli cutco and the wizardry of toto). In preparation for my visit, I decided to watch some BBC America so that I don't go through the television-viewing equivalent of "the bends" as I shift from my predominantly American sports-related TV watching to my hosts' particular viewing preferences. (As a guest in someone's home, it's really the very least you can do.)
While doing this, I came across a BBC documentary that shares the same name as this blog post. The documentary centers around a group of British women and the difficulties they have in living with their small breasts.
One is a petite Asian IT professional in her late 20s who approaches resolving her breast issues in a ridiculously proactive way. She opts not to consider breast augmentation surgery (which she is quick to say she would have no problem affording if she so chose to do so) in favor of using a vacuum pump apparatus in conjunction with herbal supplements in order to enlarge her bust. She takes her herbal (I love how the Brits pronounce the 'h' in 'herbal') supplements daily and affixes the pump apparatus (consisting of two plasticine cups attached by tubes to a vacuum-generating machine that looks like a cable box) to her tits while she sleeps at night. She lives with her boyfriend, who is "supportive" of his girlfriend's quest for bigger breasts, despite the fact they currently sleep in separate beds due to her nocturnal attachment to her breast pump.
She laments the inability to cuddle with her bf at night and the nuisance of the pump apparatus. As an IT professional who travels on business trips frequently, she talks about the inconvenience of carrying the added luggage of the apparatus (which weighs 7 kilos) on her trips and having to explain its function to airport personnel when passing through security. However, she is committed to not having the body of a pre-pubescent teen so she deals with these problems because of the encouraging results she's seen. A great deal of her portion of the documentary is footage of her standing in front of her bathroom mirror, trying to ascertain how much breast mass she has gained from her regiment.
Another cleavage-deficient woman on the show is in her early 20s and is one of the more attractive women I've seen. If she was a few inches taller, she would be indistinguishable from a professional model -- an occupation for which a large bust is not considered an asset at all. Regardless, she is disgusted with her "little girl's" body, so much so that she is considering registering with the Web site, myfreeimplants.com, where women who don't have the money to buy breast implan
ts get donations from men who do, in exchange for photos and letters chronicling their breast enlargement experience. (Btw, I am not making this shit up. Go ahead and look at the Web site yourself.)Before registering, though, she visits a boob doctor to become more acquainted with the breast augmentation procedure. He recommends an ideal cup size for her skinny frame and gives her instructions on how to simulate the experience of owning a larger set of knockers. According to his instructions, she boils a pre-determined amount of couscous and dries it out. After allowing it to cool, she divides the couscous into two mounds and packs them each into a piece of hosiery, which she then ties off, snipping away the excess hosiery with scissors, leaving her with two faux implants to put in her bra. These allow her, pre-surgery, to become accustomed to the weight of carrying the extra boobage, as well as gauge reaction to her new beamers while walking around in public.
The camera follows her through the streets of London, sporting her homemade implants in a tight top. They not only look real, and huge, but the knots where the hosiery has been tied off make her seem like she has hard, thumb-sized nipples, as well. Her faux bust proceeds to stop traffic. Giggling, she points out the gawkers and is all too amused by how her couscous-enhanced blockbusters are disrupting the pedestrian street scene.
Up to this point, the documentary has been nothing but supportive and understanding of these women and their particular struggles with their body image issues. Here, though, it finally suggests the ridiculousness of these girls' obsession with their lack of tit. As she walks down the street -- shaking her fake howitzers and turning heads left and right -- nonchalantly, she says that this, of course, is not why she wants bigger boobs. This kind of attention is an unwanted side-effect, she says, at which point the driver of a van pulls over to the curb and asks her if she has a boyfriend.
All the while, the makers of the documentary have chosen the Stone Roses song, "I Wanna To Be Adored" as the soundtrack playing through this segment. For those of you unfamiliar with the song, its lyrics consist of the following:
I don't have to sell my soul / He's already in me. / I don't need to sell my soul. / He's already in me. / I wanna be adored. / I wanna be adored. / I wanna, I wanna / I wanna be adored. / I wanna, I wanna / I gotta be adored.
I had planned to wrap up this post by asking how these attractive and otherwise intelligent women could become so deluded that they see themselves as ugly because they lack a robust bust? Is it a personal obsession? Are they damned, as the Stone Roses song suggests, with their vanity attributed to the Devil (He) inside of them? Or is the superficiality and materiality of our postmodern society to blame for these women not being able to see themselves for the beauties that they are?
Then I realized that I was making an assumption in this questioning -- that these women are, in fact, beautiful. One could argue they are not, and that presupposition would entail a different line of questioning.
However, I personally could never make such an argument, and I realize it is because of a superficial bias all my own -- I am entirely too attracted to hearing British women talk about their breasts, big or small, to speak about them objectively. (Btw, there is another BBC documentary "My Big Breasts And Me" dealing with the flip side of the coin.)
I always found the British accent to be alluring, but when discussing this topic of conversation in particular, it's simply irresistible. Perhaps I need help with this infatuation as much as they do. Maybe there's a Web site out there for me to turn to.
