I read a column in O Magazine (that’s Oprah’s magazine, not Orgasm by the way) that gave the man’s perspective on his wife getting breast implants. He described it as bringing a new couple into the relationship. He loves them, but they are always present as someone else in the room. I thought that was weird when I read it, but he was so very right!
As much as I love my girls, they will always be “the girls”—something separate from me. My plastic surgeon is an artist. My breasts are absolute perfection. I take good care of my silicone friends and would not want them to ever leave me.
But they are not “me.” I can own a compliment about a nice dress, a new haircut, losing weight, but not about my girls. When people complement me—and swinger friends who explore the girls always do—I say, “thank you” and in my head I find myself adding, “I’ll let them know you said that.” The girls appreciate my love. It’s not my compliment to own. I don’t know why.
I also don’t like it when it makes other women feel insecure about their breasts. I go to pains to make sure other women are comfortable with my girls. So many women have murmured, “I need to get mine done” when looking at mine. No, no, no! These were all women with beautiful breasts. I love them just the way they are. I don’t want to be contributing to the notion that all women should look a certain way. And yet how hypocritical because I did it!
Within the lifestyle, people don’t make excuses for their implants. It makes the playtime so much better. All of the women that I know outside of the lifestyle who have breast implants have a story for why they HAD had to do it. One friend had a big lump removed and looked lopsided. Another said her size DD breasts turned into deflated balloons after nursing two kids.
My story—I was a size AA after nursing two kids. I spent so much time at the gym I had six-pack abs and still my stomach stuck out further than my flat boobs. People asked if I was pregnant when I didn’t wear a padded bra. Although I am in excellent shape, I’m built very wide. I come from a family of football players So it’s not cute and petite to have no chest on my 5’5”, size 8 frame. For me, I came to realize that I would never accept my flat chest. It would also be a cause of stress and dislike for me. And I was wearing fake boobs already based on my bra choices.
I say to myself, why do I need this explanation? It’s true. As are the stories of my friends. And I give this justification to lifestyle friends to convince them that they Don't need implants. Because they are beautiful just the way they are. I am so happy with my choice but I worry about a world in which everything is perfect including the way women are supposed to look. And I don’t like that I have somehow contributed to that problem by sharing my girls with the world.
My small town loves to spread the word on any implants that have been discovered. My vanilla lifestyle makes me someone who no one in a million years would expect to get implants. So I chuckle to myself as friends gossip about the implants that they have discovered all the while they are complimenting how great I look in my outfit today. I do not engage in the gossip with them but I keep my silence about why I look so much thinner than I have before (yes the girls make my stomach look so much more slender now that it is not the most prominent feature on my body).
So I guess I am a hypocrite. I love the outcome, but will not own my girls and I keep them an undercover secret, much like my super-secret swinging identity. They go hand in hand of course. I doubt I would have gotten the girls if I hadn’t wanted to walk around naked at Desire and otherwise in the lifestyle. And yet having the girls is so fabulous. I can’t deny it.
2 Comments
“I am so happy with my choice but I worry about a world in which
everything is perfect including the way women are supposed to look.”
No one is perfect or imperfect, and there is no way anyone is “supposed” to look. You look the way that you want to look, which is the right way to be.
This is a great post about guilt as the dark side of confidence. Women often feel responsible for the influence of our own bodies on the self-image of other women. But in the end we each need to make our bodies what we want them to be, rather than what’s “pretty” or how we’re “supposed” to be.
This is an interesting post. My wife (SM -Sexy Mama) got implants after loosing a lot of weight – a bunch of which came off her chest. I need to ask her if she sees them as separate from her or not. She got the implants to return her to her post breast feeding size, so I don’t think so.
I am going to add your blog to those I follow. I look forward to future posts.
TTFN
Mr. No Name