५ नोव्हेंबर, २०२३

"The night before my surgery, feeling perhaps a bit of sadness at losing my identity as a 'large-breasted woman'..."

"... I took a last look at my breasts in the mirror and—on the advice of a friend—Marie Kondo’ed them. I thanked them for their (purely cosmetic) service, and bid them, in their current iteration, farewell. At the hospital, the surgeon twisted each of my breasts up as if he was about to cut bangs and marked them with a Magic Marker. This was, he explained, a French technique...."

Writes Xochitl Gonzalez, in "Me and My Bosom/I wasn’t ready for the 'Doña Body'" (The Atlantic).

After the surgery:
What I really felt was restored.... I feel rejuvenated. To feel younger would be to have this same body and not think it was enough. To feel younger would be to have this same body and compare it, incessantly, with the bodies of others: women I know, models and actresses I don’t. To feel younger would be to have this beautiful, fit body and squander it by living in an endless loop of insecurity and envy and doubt. 
So losing the bosom...

Earlier, Gonzalez had used the word "bosom" to refer to what had happened to her "my once-fabulous tits" — they'd "transmogrified into a bosom."

... might have made me look younger, but I feel—thankfully—a solidly healthy 46. I’ve probably lost 10 pounds of breast weight... 
Now that my breasts were smaller, my eyes zeroed in on my newly revealed stomach.... Perhaps this might have been my moment, the beginning of my slippery slope, and no amount of change or modification or injection would ever have been enough to capture the feeling of me “at my best.”...

I'm eliding the part about a family member with breast cancer. 

I started out wanting to write an essay about how, with this bevy of choices in front of me, I should age. The answer, I realized, is gratefully.

१७ टिप्पण्या:

Iman म्हणाले...

TaTaectomy?

Aggie म्हणाले...

Well.... she certainly seems happy with herself.

Amadeus 48 म्हणाले...

Did she ask the surgeon to make her look like Salma Hayek?

Lem Vibe Bandit म्हणाले...

My sister that passed away had to have this surgery done because their growth started to affect her spinal cord. I forget the reason why the runaway growth happened. She was told the cause I believe.

tcrosse म्हणाले...

"Poitrine" is a nice word, as a counterweight to "derrière". Each is a singular collective consisting of two parts.

n.n म्हणाले...

Some gender or sex-correlated attributes can be butchered, augmented, simulated, or groomed, perhaps. It happens for women, it happens for men, it is a difficult choice between quality and quantity of life. That said, people are resilient, and rarely exist in isolation.

Krumhorn म्हणाले...

It would be difficult for Val Chmerkovskiy to swing her around the DWTS dance floor if all the angular momentum from excess cellulose caused centripetal chaos.

- Crumhorn

Krumhorn म्हणाले...

….oops…wrong Xochitl

- Xrumhorn

Yancey Ward म्हणाले...

I looked at an image of her pre-surgery- I can see why she wanted them reduced in size.

Narr म्हणाले...

My wife used to criticize her boobage as too small (it's not--they are aesthetically pleasing, pert, and functional) until her busty friends got older and started complaining about back pain.



Joe Smith म्हणाले...

'Earlier, Gonzalez had used the word "bosom" to refer to what had happened to her "my once-fabulous tits" — they'd "transmogrified into a bosom."'

Somehow I would have equated 'bosom' with big and 'tits' with perky, but maybe that's just me.

Was she able to get rid or her 'My Eyes Are Up Here' t-shirt?

By the way, I'm stealing that 'twist up' move. Probably will leave the magic marker out of it.

Joe Smith म्हणाले...

Canadian shop teacher has no comment...

Anthony म्हणाले...

I've known a couple of women with very ample bosoms and they said it was a curse. Constant back and shoulder pain, bras that have to have extra wide shoulder straps or else they cut into their shoulders, etc. One finally had the reduction -- she's in her early 60s -- and is kinda POed that she waited so long.

Jamie म्हणाले...

All kidding aside, I have a couple of friends who have undergone mastectomy related to breast cancer or risk thereof. I've always kind of thought I wouldn't miss the girls if I had to lose them for health reasons, but what do I know?

gspencer म्हणाले...

Bosoms.

Reminds me of something that Terry-Thomas, playing Col. J Algernon Hawthorne, would say about Ethel Merman's hiding place for the keys to the car, from It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoi10P5b0Kg

gspencer म्हणाले...

Wife had them removed for health reasons six years ago this month. I do miss them but I certainly understand. Boob images can be found however.

Michael K म्हणाले...

Reduction mammoplasty is a legitimate surgery for those afflicted with those huge heavy breasts.