BREAST STORIES
Getting Naked in the Middle of The Airport
Scenes from a changing room
Some women yank off their tops with abandon. Others pull their arms through secret shirt holes like Houdini.
How confidently we reveal our breasts lies on a spectrum. And it changes over time. Like when I told my mom I had to get buck naked for the dermatologist.
“I’m dreading being naked under those fluorescent lights,” I said.
I imagined that moment like my nudity was going to be blown up on a movie screen in front of a poreless porcelain dermatologist who would be shocked by my humanoid pores and non-porcelain-ness.
“You think it’s embarrassing to be naked at your age?” my mom rebutted. “Imagine what it’s like when you're eighty like me.”
For women, stripping down to our birthday suits might elicit confidence, how you were raised to feel about your body, your degree of self-consciousness, shame, pride, humility, hubris.
I used to teach swimming with an older woman who strutted around the locker room naked after we taught. She had the body of a twelve-year-old girl.
