Don’t be a tit
TW// Body Image, Sexual Harassment, Sexual Assault
Complaining about having big boobs is ‘pretty privilege’ for that spoilt kid that “worries” about which of their many toys they should play with first. It’s not exactly relatable.
I have a habit of making problems out of non-problems. I’d call it my superpower but the reality is that crippling anxiety wouldn’t make Marvel much money. Society says that boobs are fantastic- the bigger the better- they look great in tops and you’ll never pay for drinks. For the record, these boobs are not paying for their keep but I’ll get to that.
The point is everyone tells me that next to winning a golden ticket, I am the luckiest girl in the world. Friends, family, boyfriends, random people in nightclubs, random people on the street, random people in McDonalds, random Taxi divers. You name it- the vote is unanimous, no recount necessary. It’s a non-problem.
It’s all I have heard since I was 9 years old: the age I got my first bra only for me to outgrow it in a month. 9 is too young for bras but nobody told my body. I was among the first in my class and I was still at an age where we would change in front of the boys for P.E. . Safe to say, I didn’t take it so well.
From that moment on, I wasn’t just the awkward girl that liked to write books in the playground at break. Now I was that awkward girl that could no longer hide her lack of self confidence behind the pages of a book. My discomfort was plain for everyone to see
It’s called Puberty Becca, get over it!
I hear your sighs. It’s true that Puberty is a right of passage and a luck of the draw at that. We come out the other side and we’re all the better for it.
Are we? Am I?
From that moment on, despite still being a child in the eyes of the law, no one saw me that way or scarier yet, they chose to see me otherwise.
I tried desperately not to notice the way that white vans would slow down alongside me.
I would debate the ways to deal with wolf whistles and catcalling. Is it better to ignore them or shout back? I’m yet to reach a conclusion.
I suppressed the time that a stranger followed me the best part of my way home.
I laughed off the relentless stream of sexually charged comments from customers that I barely knew when I worked as a waitress.Or the time a customer paced the pavement outside my work until I came in for my shift.
I brushed passed the countless times that jokes have been made at my expense about my boobs and the conversations that my boobs had been party of where as the human being attached to them, I had not been.
I chose to forget the times I had been groped at parties and clubs, by strangers, drunk “friends” and people I trusted.
I’m sure there’s more than one of you, if not the majority that have experienced something similar. Some of this may feel uncomfortably familiar and bring up some memories that you’d rather forget. I understand that if reading someone else’s experience is too much, please stop. Look after yourself and know that I am always happy to listen should you want someone to talk to.
Believe me I understand, reading through people’s experiences on Twitter recently has brought up difficult memories and emotions that I had buried long ago. The stories are sickening but it iS beautiful that people have found the courage to share them and thereby, take away any power that they might have had over them. The most terrifying thought though has to be my own gratitude for not being amongst them. I was lucky. My experience was minor. They say that 1/7 womxn students have been a victim of sexual assault with only 4% reporting it to their institution and 10% to the police.
It’s sickening because we live in a world where sexual harassement ( especially against identifying womxn) is so commonplace that we don’t even recognise it’s happening. These twitter feeds have forced me to face up to my own experiences as I am sure they have for many of you. It’s sickening because I found myself belittling and casting aside my own trauma because it was less significant than someone else’s to the point that I thought I should count myself lucky to have only been groped, leered at, sexualised and objectified from the age of 9. I was lucky because it could have been a lot worse.
It sounds like the way that a lot of you have been feeling with 81% of womxn and 43% of men reporting that they have been sexually harassed at least once. It might be our normal but it shouldn’t be and we shouldn’t settle for it.
Sitting uncomfortably? I sure hope so. The point of this post is not to lecture or expose anyone. It’s not to tell you to never look, think about or imagine boobs ever again. Let’s be realistic, no blog post is going to achieve that. I will say, I hope it makes you think twice about how you talk or think about someone and reflect on how you have and will approach people in the future. We all have boundaries- emotional and physical- and it’s about time that we learned to respect them. To put it indelicately, just don’t be a tit.
Photo series by Billi Allen
If this piece has affected you and you want to talk to someone or need advice on reporting, I have included some links below.
