“Two. And not ten, like the fingers of the hand
Two, like the eyes, the nostrils, the earpieces of the heart… Twinning and femininity. However, we are far from being identical twins, for the simple reason that the appearance and growth of one has taken a small lead over that of the other. And this is where our story begins. But we must not lose sight of our originality in the human body: we are a very complex, even composite, organ. In us you will find nerves, blood and lymphatic vessels. Our main function is nutritional. Beyond the diversity of physical appearance (pear, lemon, papaya or watermelon shape), we have a lifespan as random as that of living beings. We age, shrink, and end up, sometimes flabby, flattened like empty water bags. Ah! The breasts… The approach of our birth creates emotions and tremors in the very young girl, but terror in the mother… A surprise, long awaited. It is through us that the gender difference is marked: the little teenager experiences physiological changes which distance her from her playmates: the boys. This change of status, ritualized, is experienced as a solemn entry into the life of the Woman. In Africa, for example, the birth of breasts opens the period of full adolescence. Abdoulaye Sadji’s little Maïmouna takes real pleasure in taking a bath, watching the water trickle down her young chest. She is finally allowed to let her hair grow, to braid it… It is therefore through us that the fairer sex accesses femininity, it is through us, at the slightest of our disturbances that Cupid shows his naughty little face :
“Cover this breast that I cannot see. By such objects souls are wounded. And that brings guilty thoughts.”
“Even this hypocrite from Tartuffe admits that he succumbs to our charms, I don’t say to ‘our provocations’! In other circumstances, women – the Amazons of Benin – did not hesitate to do without one of us, to increase their chance of winning the war by making themselves more efficient at archery. Almost everywhere in traditional Africa, bare breasts are not shocking. This was not the case, when Sophie Marceau, the famous actress of La Boum, stunned the audience at the Cannes Film Festival with “a bare nipple”… We know that the Suffragettes, who almost shook the United Kingdom in 1903, were followed by Working Women who fought to impose International Women’s Day. They are not foreign to the new function assigned to us: the nudity of the breasts brandished as a revolutionary weapon by “Liberty Leading the People” in the magnificent painting by Eugène Delacroix… So you see that we do not have only one function: to provide nourishing milk to newborns, to ensure breast-feeding for months, and even to serve as nurses to orphans, to princes whose mothers want to preserve the curve of their chests. While in certain regions of Africa, the custom was to prevent the harmonious development of the breasts, to “curb the sexual desires of young girls, today, throughout the world, the fashion is “La Bomba”! Cosmetic surgery gives any young woman frustrated by her too-flat chest the possibility of “puffing up” her assets and no longer going unnoticed.”
2023-10-21 12:44:10
#BREASTS
