WEBVTT

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[sil.]

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Hi. Ola. I’m doing a about breasts,

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and I’d like to ask you some questions.
Please ask me. I have so much to say.

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Yes, I have my boobs done and I almost feel like I
can’t live in them because everyone’s staring at them.

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Before she had ‘em and after she had ‘em, there is a big difference.
Oh, huge difference Oh, huge difference Oh, huge difference Yeah.

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I breastfed both of my children

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and my mother had 13, and she breastfed all 13
of us and I don’t know how she could do that.

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There’s about two, three malfunctions.
One of them is called the banana.

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That’s this factor, you get a some here,

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it’s breasts similar to this shape. Man,
it’s pad man… It’s like a ski ramp.

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This is ski ramp and there is a hairy nipple,
and we call that (inaudible)Chewbacca.

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They don’t look at anywhere else. They
just focus right at your breasts.

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Hi, how are you? What’s your name? I had women complain about, \"Oh,
my breasts is (inaudible)He was playing with it too hard,\" you know,

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and that’s why I never let
anybody touch mine, you know?

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Who cares? You’re just freaking
breasts, like, who cares.

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[music]

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Those aren’t my breasts. I’m shy, so
I recruited some women who aren’t.

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Breasts are soft and womanly.

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But mine I’ve always felt like luggage I had
to carry and protect in a hostile world.

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They make me vulnerable.

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[music]

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That’s my mom.

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She was an artist.

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She loved my dad, my little sister

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and me.

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When she was 36, she was
diagnosed with breast cancer.

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My mom didn’t tell us she was dying.
Neither did my dad.

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The summer that she died,

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my sister and I had chickenpox, and Richard
Nixon resigned from the presidency in disgrace.

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We celebrated my sister’s third
birthday at the hospital.

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We ate ice cream at our mother’s bedside,

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and she looked beautiful and a picnic in a pink night
gown. She was thin like she always wanted to be,

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and then she was gone.

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It was 1974, and I was
just seven years old.

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My dad was devastated. We
couldn’t talk about her death.

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We stopped looking at her pictures.

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It felt like someone turned the lights out. We
lived in the dark. We just live with our grief.

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To me,

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breast was a bad word, and I was
ashamed to tell people how she died.

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One day, my teacher called home. She
told my dad I should be wearing a bra.

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I was nine and I had breasts. Dad had
to find a woman to take me shopping.

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He enlisted his best friend’s girlfriend.

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I wanted to be invisible.

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The other kids didn’t notice it first.
When they did, the teasing was relentless.

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I prayed to God to make my breasts go away.
The way I saw it,

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the boobs of doom had taken my mother.

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Now, they were after me. After
25 years of running away,

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I’m finally ready to face them.

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[music]

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When it comes to being
mixed up about breasts,

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I’m not the only one. I don’t
know what it is about breasts.

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They’ve never been loved, feared, covered

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or uncovered. Breasts are used
to sell every kind of product.

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Dodge. But mothers are sometimes
harassed for breastfeeding in public.

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Even the breast of statues are
controversial. U.S. Department of Justice

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spend $8,000 routing the statute so that
people like Attorney General John Ashcroft

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aren’t embarrassed addressing the nation
beneath a boson. In America today,

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there’s a lot of heat around breasts.
But in so many places around the world,

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breasts are, well, breasts just are. They are
functional, natural, normal, and out there.

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What I want to know is
why are we so obsessed.

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Flash those racks. Flash those racks.

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Flash those racks. Flash those racks.
Flash those racks. Show us your rack.

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I think my infatuation started in infancy.

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Aha? Yeah. Yeah.

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Can I see your breasts? No. (inaudible)

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We are here in Seattle on Friday. These people are waiting to get into
the listeners party in national broadcast of the Tom Leykis show.

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Tom is a radio shock jock based out of LA.

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Ha. Hoo yah. Tom’s got a loyal following.

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He advises lovelorn and frustrated men on
how to get sex without paying for dates.

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His claim to fame is the weekly promotion
called Flash Friday. We are number one in men.

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The ratings are good to us, but it’s kinda
fun to see a graphic representation

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of how many listeners we have. So we ask you
to turn the headlights on so everybody around

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you can see that you are listener. And so you could
see who the other listeners are. As your incentive,

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we ask the women listening
to show their breast to you.

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Yeah, show your rack, ladies. Thrust them out the window,
press ‘em up against the glass, pop out the sunroof,

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hang ‘em off the side of the El Camino.
You know what I’m talking about.

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Never been flashed on Flash Friday, and I keep waiting
and waiting and waiting, but it never happens.

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Tom Leykis, 1-800-5800-TOM.

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Tom Leykis, 1-800-5800-866. I got three
chicks in front of me in a Toyota Corolla

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flashing their breasts. Tell me
about those racks. They are nice.

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I love that. I love that. Tom,
(inaudible)name another radio show

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that gives you bare breasts in the afternoon. Absolutely
not. It’s Flash Friday on the Tom Leykis show.

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[music]

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I think that to a certain extent in this
society, women feel sexually repressed.

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You have nice responsive nipples?
Yes. Absolutely.

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You do. Yeah. Well, that’s a good thing and you
are ready to show these to the guys on the 4-5

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North bound (inaudible)coming from the airport.
That’s right. I think you could do Flash Friday

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and say Canada where frontal
nudity is okay on TV, or Denmark,

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or other countries that aren’t as repressed
as we are. Probably think was absurd.

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Let’s just get it out of
(inaudible)Three, two one.

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All right. Though we could boobs, we could say
bazoombas, we could say nice rack, we could say meat

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(inaudible)we could say nut job. What is the one
word you cannot say when you are national radio?

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Three, two, one.

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It’s amazing how we have no problem with women
objectifying a man’s ability to earn a living,

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but when we objectify body part. I mean, this a
quid pro quo. The man who makes the most money gets

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to pick the woman with the best body parts.
That’s how it works. The Tom Leykis show.

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[music]

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Had a breast reduction surgery
about two-and-a-half months ago.

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I didn’t want to go through all this pain.
Just to go up one size,

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it would not be that much of a difference.

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There are stereotypes that come along with having big
breasts. I don’t know why that is but even in high school,

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you get a reputation of being easy
because you have big breasts.

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I’m happy with the ones that I have.
They’re just not big enough.

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Girls will say just the rudest
things and guys will go out

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and (inaudible)make comments. All the
things girls go through in gym class

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and you know, locker rooms, boys
are mean, boys are just mean.

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Back in the 70s, one time I went outside without a
bra on because there was a big no bra movement,

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you know? And a neighbor boy yelled out his
window, \"Go back inside.\" But my bra back on.

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It kept me from doing a lot of things with
my friends, in the summertime, go to beach.

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I love going to beach but you know, it
wasn’t something I felt comfortable with.

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I think I felt like yeah, you’re right,

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I shouldn’t be out here. Like this is not is appropriate and
this is not culturally acceptable for a big breasted woman

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to be bouncing around like this.
If the norm was to be small,

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then I would fit right in and be perfect.

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They were never small. They’re just instant
labor, large. To me, a normal breast

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is one that looks like like a breast
and shaped like, you know, a breast,

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and just perky. It’s the
last thing on their mind

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but it’s always the first thing on your
way. It’s going to be nice to not have

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those things holding me back from
doing things that are really fun.

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I want a big enough for now, but I
want to leave a little bit of room,

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so if later I need to have them replaced,
I can, you know, take up the slack.

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When I decided to do the surgery

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the first time, I was maybe
three minutes away from being

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wheeled away and I said, \"Forget
it.\" I got up and left.

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Even looking downwards just a bit (inaudible)the
office right now, they didn’t really seem real.

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They’re high.

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Since your (inaudible)
Yeah, and you’ve cleavage.

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You want to see yourself in the mirror?
That’s okay.

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Here we go. Here we go.

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I mean, how do you tell somebody,
\"Oh, I’ve had a breast reduction,

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and my scarring is bad, and I don’t have
normal looking breasts.\" With the new surgery,

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actually she’s going to take out a lot of the scar tissue, so
I would be a B, and she’s gonna put in a very small implant,

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and then I’ll be a 4C, and I’m very happy
with that. My sister used to go to bed

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and wear bra every night to try to keep
growing when she was younger. It didn’t work.

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You see magazine ads, (inaudible)

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all the women in there have this, you know, beautiful breasts,
and they all… You know, that’s the image that they portray

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that’s how the size should be, you
know, that you can’t be small

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and have little A cup and be beautiful. But
you have to have this nice large breasts

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in order to (inaudible)be a woman

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[sil.]

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At first, I want to think these women
were different from me, but they’re not.

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I had slashed to hide my size most of my
life. I felt sad watching the surgery.

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I felt protective because one of the
women reminded me of my sister,

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and I felt queasy letting a knife
knew that part of your body

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if your life is in danger. Well, that
just seems crazy and yet I understand it.

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Everyone wants to feel accepted, and
sometimes, there’s no price too high.

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Altering the body to meet the ideal
of the day isn’t a new concept.

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This is Dr. Kathy Dettwyler,
a biological anthropologist.

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There was a time in Chinese history
where the upper class, upper status

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women would bind their feet so that they will be very tiny.
Tiny feet on a woman were considered an aphrodisiac for men,

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and considered sexy, and feminine. And they would take
a little girl, when she was about the age of four,

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and bind her toes underneath, so that only the big
toes stuck out and the other toes were folded under,

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and then the heels folded under, and
then wrapped so that you ended up with,

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if you were lucky, the best kind was called a golden
lotus, and it was a foot that was only three inches long.

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And mothers did it for their daughters because they
wanted their daughters to be beautiful and sexy

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and to be able to attract a higher class of husband
than they could. And if you read Chinese pornography

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about golden lotuses, it sounds just
like American pornography about breasts,

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but instead of big breasts, it was tiny
feet. The men thought it was just natural

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that tiny feet were sexy. They thought
it was, you know, just a huge turn on.

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For nearly all of our history, life depended on breasts.
Without human breast milk, babies usually died.

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If I’d been a live 25,000 years ago, I might
have had an idol like this in my hut,

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and we all would’ve been praying
for a healthy flow of milk.

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If you read parts of the Old
Testament, parts of the Hebrew Bible,

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and you find the ancient Hebrews
coming into these civilizations

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where they find these images of women

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with very prominent breasts, sometimes with their hands
under their breasts, and offering their breasts.

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The ancient Hebrews are dead set against

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these images and determined to
destroy them. This goddess bashing

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cleared the way for Westerners to cast their souls with a single, all-knowing,
and undeniably male God. From this time on, the view of breasts changes.

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In the Middle Ages,

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the small breast was fashionable.
Breasts the size of cherries

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or small apples at most, and that was

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because women often married at 13,
nd it was the youthful new bile body

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that represented the ideal breast.

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Late medieval fashions emphasize this forbidden
fruit. Later, some Christian moralists

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called the least openings of women’s
bodies as the gates of hell.

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Then you get these images of the nursing Madonna
which begin to appear in the 14th century.

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And suddenly, it is the nursing breast,

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the nurturing breast that
offers a different vision

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of the female. But this vision
didn’t inspire all Christian women.

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During the Renaissance, it became popular
for rich mothers do pay poor women

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to nurse their babies. Women
wanted to preserve their breasts

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from the so-called ravages
of breastfeeding.

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They wanted to please their husbands. The
husbands often felt that breastfeeding

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was disadvantageous to them
because the baby got the breast

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and they wanted the breast as an erotic object. In
the next centuries, the eroticized breast continued

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to gain momentum

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while breast-feeding went in and out of fashion.
With the invention of formula during the late 1800s,

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breasts were no longer a
required part of mothering.

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It was the dairy producers and the formula

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manufacturers aggressively looking for markets and trying to
generate markets and trying to play on women’s fears of inadequacy

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in the sense that
breastfeeding is a bother,

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and is not trustworthy.
Throughout the 20th century,

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emphasis on breast changed
with the politics of the day.

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When feminism gained strides, flat chests were in.
Other times, they were out. These rocket (inaudible)

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cut bras of the ‘40s made women look ready for war
and for love. The reality, many women went to work

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while only American soldiers turned
to the fantasy of the pinup girl.

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My clothes are daring. They are not much.
I must confess but I swear.

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She was a reminder of what they were fighting
for and what they hope to come home to.

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For many women, it was a lot to live up to.

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If it will bring you happiness.
An over-emphasis on breasts

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and a breast size that is unreal for
most women, that usually is a period

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as in the 1950s and the 1980s.

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When women are being told,
\"You should be going back home

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and nurturance.\" Whenever
there is a backlash

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against women who have become,
if you will to uppity

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or to prominent and public life,

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the focus on the breast is part of that.
It’s a way of saying

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you have breasts, you are different from them. Just
as American men, a lot of them are very resistant

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to the idea that breasts
are not inherently sexual,

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that that’s something that our culture teaches.
We deliberately teach both girls and boys

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to think of breasts as sex objects, to think of them as sexual
turn-ons. Different cultures have had different fetishes.

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In Japan, the nape of the neck.

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In Africa, the buttocks. In
the Near East, the belly.

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And women will say, \"But I but I get sexual pleasure
from my breasts.\" It’s like, \"Of course, you do.

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Nobody’s denying that. But if in our culture it was elbows, then
you would have learned to get sexual pleasure from your elbows.\"

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In 1951, a major report was
published on the study of sexuality

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in non-western cultures.
Researchers looked at attitudes

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in 190 cultural subgroups ranging from
Africa to the South Pacific and beyond.

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Breasts were found to be sexually
significant in only 13 of those cultures.

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Sometimes, the men in the culture liked small
breasts, and sometimes they like large breasts.

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So there wasn’t really any uniformity about what it was about breast, but only
13 out of 190 where they played any role in sexual attraction whatsoever.

00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:24.999
And then they also looked
at what role breast played

00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:29.999
in sexual activity. And again, 13
of one 190 where the men touched

00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:34.999
or fondled the women’s breasts as part of sexual activity, and in
the rest, the women’s breasts are never touched at all people.

00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:39.999
People are saying, \"But this
can’t be cultural.\" You know,

00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:44.999
I can’t help this. Of course, all men everywhere like women’s
breasts. It’s like absolutely not. In most of the world,

00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:49.999
women’s breasts are not sex objects at all.
Men don’t understand

00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:54.999
why men in other cultures think that breasts are
sexy. You know, in Mali, it’s all women’s thighs,

00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:59.999
that’s the hot part. You don’t dare wear short
skirt or shorts because you’ll get whistled at

00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:04.999
and propositioned and made fun of and stuff like
you would if you walked around topless in the US.

00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:09.999
I wanted to hear from the people themselves.
We didn’t have the budget to go to West Africa

00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:14.999
so we did what we could. We went for Senegalese (inaudible)
Everybody smile to the camera. Everybody smile to the camera.

00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:19.999
You can see women running without
nothing on the top, no bra,

00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:24.999
and it’s not, nothing sexual.
Like man who even,

00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:29.999
even out, they won’t look at the men,
you know, just like fixing her breasts.

00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:34.999
It’s like a way of living. They are free.

00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:39.999
But here, if somebody’s walking street right
now with bare, whatever, somebody would call,

00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:44.999
\"Man, what want for you.\" Why? Love of human
beings comes from the best feeding from the mom,

00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:49.999
and because women are so
important in our culture,

00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:54.999
and so respected that we believe

00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:59.999
that they are the one who form and
build and raise good citizens.

00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.999
And there is no greater job than that.

00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:09.999
In our country, we say, you know,
when you breastfeed your baby,

00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:14.999
he is going to love you whatever, she’s gonna love you. People tell
me they feel threatened by the idea that we are wired as a species

00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:19.999
to be hot for breasts. But so what if
breasts are universal pleasure pillows?

00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:24.999
We all grew up in this culture which see breasts
is sexy, and I don’t see anything wrong

00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:29.999
with that except when it interferes with our health.
Other cultures do manage to find some middle ground

00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:34.999
between the erotic and the nurturing breast.
Some of the Scandinavian countries,

00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:39.999
everybody breastfeeds, and people breastfeed in public, and
nobody looks twice at them, and yet they still view the breasts

00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.999
as being sexy and attractive, and they still
fondle the breasts during sexual activity.

00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:49.999
There’s a definite downside to
eroticizing the breasts to the extent

00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:54.999
that we do because then its primary
function is not only obscured

00:21:55.000 --> 00:21:59.999
but downgraded. There was
an instance here in Seattle

00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.999
where a mom was getting at the edge of the
pool and she was breastfeeding her son.

00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:09.999
And she was asked to leave on the grounds
that it that her breast milk might leak

00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:14.999
into the pool and contaminate the pool.
We’ll try not to laugh.

00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:19.999
There was a very big concern but
obviously there was probably…

00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:24.999
A pool for toddlers that I would not
be really worried about the breasts.

00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:29.999
We’re mammals like more than
4,000 other kinds of hairy,

00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:34.999
backboned, warm-blooded creatures. We’re
designed to feed our young from mammary glands.

00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:39.999
Even the word mammal comes from the
Latin word for breast. And yet,

00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:44.999
some people find breastfeeding offensive. Enough
nursing mothers had been harassed that many states

00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:49.999
have seen the need to pass laws
protecting women’s rights to breastfeed.

00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:54.999
On average, it’s now just over 60% of women
initiate breastfeeding, meaning that

00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:59.999
once ever the baby was put to the breast,

00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:04.999
and that rapidly falls off. A lot
of people are very defensive

00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:09.999
and they’ll say, you know, \"Well, my child is three and she was formula fed and she’s
fine.\" We’re like, \"Well, yes, but some of the diseases that formula increases

00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:14.999
the risk of are things that don’t happen until
you’re middle aged. Cancer, heart disease, diabetes,

00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:19.999
multiple sclerosis. Come back when she
is 16, tell me if she turned out okay,

00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:24.999
tell me is she didn’t develop allergies and asthma.\"
And people don’t want to talk about it that way.

00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:29.999
They want to talk about breastfeeding is warm and
fuzzy and good instead of breastfeeding is normal,

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:34.999
and the health of a breastfed baby
is normal. Breast milk has nutrients

00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:39.999
and antibodies you can’t get anywhere else. The
World Health Organization estimates that one

00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.999
1.5 million children die every year
due to a lack of breastfeeding.

00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:49.999
They recommend six months of exclusive nursing followed
by the addition of other foods with breast milk

00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:54.999
until the child is at least two. This attitude
that because we live in a country that has

00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:59.999
immunizations and antibiotics and clean
water that we don’t need to nurse

00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:04.999
for very long for our health, that we can get
away with not nursing the babies at all,

00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:09.999
which of course, isn’t the case. They do get
sick more, they do die more even in the US.

00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:14.999
[music]

00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:19.999
Are you getting ready to (inaudible)yet?

00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:24.999
You just give me that boobies.

00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:29.999
Studies shows breastfeeding reduces a woman’s
risk for breast and reproductive cancers,

00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:34.999
and it promotes that googly (inaudible)eyed look that
mothers give their babies. That’s the oxytocin working.

00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:39.999
Known as the hormone of love, it’s the same hormone that is
released during orgasm making mothers and lovers feel bonded.

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.999
You’ve latched on great
(inaudible)a nursing baby.

00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:49.999
They are the youngest competitors
in any event in any county fair

00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:54.999
(inaudible)the big (inaudible)The parents urge
them on and finally at last there is a winner.

00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:59.999
We have three generations now of
women that have not breastfed,

00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.999
and the women today who want to
breastfeed have to be pretty educated

00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:09.999
and have to be pretty motivated. There’s definitely
a class distinction about who breastfeeds

00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:14.999
and who doesn’t breastfeed. You will find
that your middle income and upper income

00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:19.999
women breastfeed and the
low-income women don’t.

00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:24.999
Today, formula manufacturing is a multibillion
dollar industry. A lot of women go into the hospital

00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:29.999
thinking that they’re going to be breastfeeding
and leave the hospital not breastfeed

00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:34.999
because nobody supported them and nobody helped
them. Almost all hospitals give out free formula

00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:39.999
and, the companies get the names of pregnant women, and
then they’ll send you formula before the baby’s born

00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:44.999
and after the baby’s born, a whole case of it
right to your door. If you asked the hospital,

00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:49.999
they will tell you that they
get a lot of money to hand out

00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:54.999
their brand a formula. In exchange,
the hospital gets money for building,

00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:59.999
money for education, continuing
education programs for the nurses.

00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:04.999
Often joke among ourselves that if somebody was making money
off breast-feeding, everybody would be breast-feeding.

00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:09.999
The things that we learn from
each other are just incredible.

00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:14.999
Just sitting in a room and watching a
woman offer her breast to her baby.

00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:19.999
And the first time, you’re just kinda like, oh, what is that, you
know, what is she doing, and that’s really kind of offsetting.

00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:24.999
But pretty soon that modeling makes you more comfortable
to touch your breast, to put your baby to your breast.

00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:29.999
Well, my dad has made a lot of progress.

00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:34.999
When my first child was born, (inaudible)the
baby, he would go stand in the kitchen,

00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:39.999
and I would sit in the living room, and we would
have a conversation around the dividing wall.

00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:44.999
And then when the second child was born, he would stand in
the doorway of the living room and we’d have a conversation

00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:49.999
from one end of the room to the other. And
now, you know, we can be in the same room,

00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:54.999
and we could even sit, you know, next to each other on the couch.
I’m not a mother. My biological clock has never ticked very loudly.

00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:59.999
But maybe I’ve just been
afraid to hope for more.

00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:04.999
It’s a lot easier to say motherhood is something I never
wanted any way than to risk loving another person that much

00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:09.999
and having to leave her behind. But
seeing all these happy moms and babies,

00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:14.999
it made me think, \"Could I do that?
Would I want to?\"

00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:19.999
Certainly when I was little, the answer was yes. But
then I developed early, and I discovered my new breasts

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:24.999
weren’t associated with mommyhood at all,
but things I didn’t even understand yet.

00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:29.999
I started to look womanly but I didn’t have much
of a clue about what being a woman really meant.

00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:34.999
I guess I’m not alone.

00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:39.999
The early teens are years
of upheaval and turmoil.

00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:44.999
Their years of physical and granular means…

00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:49.999
You go into girls’ doors. All the shirts
are tight. So they like see through,

00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:54.999
or they have like holes in it. I know, I started
hanging out with lot older people when I developed,

00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:59.999
a friend about 12 years older than me.
And, you know, made poor decisions,

00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:04.999
but I was, you know, I didn’t have everything to do with
my breasts but just the fact that I was embarrassed

00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:09.999
to the stuff that was going on in my body. I didn’t understand
it and I tried to make it the best anyway that I could.

00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:14.999
And when those breasts first start to
come out, it’s almost like, you know,

00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:19.999
the sort of clearer resonance of a
bell goes off. Mom goes into tizzy

00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:24.999
because she’s right there back to
what all this happened to her.

00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:29.999
Half of her is intent on saving her
daughter. From, \"My God, it was horrible,\"

00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:34.999
you know? And don’t… There’s another part is
jealousy. Then you’re wishing you were that.

00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:39.999
Even when you were that, it was horrible. But I wish I had the
body, but now the count and all that stuff gets mixed up.

00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:44.999
And no one really talks about… I don’t know, I don’t
know if mom’s talked to you but she never talked about

00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:49.999
getting your period and what you do, and going
and buying your first present, like, you got it,

00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:54.999
and you embarrassed of it. What?
Already? Oh, but Alice,

00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:59.999
I thought, well, I mean, after all, she is only… Oh,
daddy. Don’t be so silly. I’m not a baby anymore.

00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:04.999
I know dear but… Wow. are

00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:09.999
The father’s perspective… It’s very,

00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:14.999
very difficult for fathers to stay deeply engaged
in their daughters’ lives to this period.

00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:19.999
And not because he doesn’t love her,
but he gets scared, he gets confused,

00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:24.999
he doesn’t know how to deal with it. First of all,
you’ve got a little girl blossoming into a woman.

00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:29.999
So all of the connotations of
sexuality that is emerging

00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:34.999
are right there in front of your face, and
yet part of her is still a little girl,

00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:39.999
your little girl who used to jump on you, and hop on you, you would
always hug and everything else, and now, you’re totally conflicted,

00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:44.999
\"Oh, my God. How do I deal with this?\"

00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:49.999
It’s almost like, you know, Madison Avenue
(inaudible)couldn’t have figured it better.

00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:54.999
Dad suddenly pulls the rug out from under
wonder. Well, now she is susceptible

00:29:55.000 --> 00:29:59.999
to all these advertisements that say, \"Boy, there is something
wrong with you. But if you have our product, you’ll be fine.\"

00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:04.999
It’s a tragedy, it really is.
It’s hard. It’s hard.

00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:09.999
(inaudible)up getting babies.

00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:14.999
When I was a teenager, my dad would actually stand out in front of our
house, and chop (inaudible)wood when my dates came to pick me up.

00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:19.999
I see now that my budding
sexuality scared my dad.

00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:24.999
It’s a funny thing about puberty is unavoidable
and yet everyone acts surprised when it happens.

00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:29.999
Michelle was about to take her daughter shopping, something I wish I could
have done with my mom. How old were you when you got your first bra?

00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:34.999
You know, I was thinking about that earlier

00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:39.999
and I think that was probably your age.
I think I was probably 11 or 12,

00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:44.999
and back then they called them training bras.
I don’t know why you were in training for

00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:49.999
because when you’re developing and you’re getting your
breasts, you’re getting them, there’s no training to get them.

00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:54.999
You just get them. So do you think the reason
it’s embarrassing now for you even it’s just

00:30:55.000 --> 00:30:59.999
because it’s (inaudible)and
nobody’s used to it yet? Yeah.

00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:04.999
Do you feel nervous? Oh, a little.

00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:09.999
Here, right there.

00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:14.999
How (inaudible)is the medium for the other
one? I think it’s exciting. It’s exciting

00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:19.999
from a mum’s perspective to see these
girls growing up and see the changes.

00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:24.999
It brings a lot of memories of my own changing,
and I love being a woman and mother.

00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:29.999
(inaudible)ladies who can help me. Sure, so
that we can see if we’re on the right track

00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:34.999
with the metering part, okay?
Can we come in? No.

00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:39.999
I guess it’s sort of a milestone for me because
when I’m older around like my mom’s age,

00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:44.999
I’ll probably think back and say, well, when
my kids are probably in my stage right now.

00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:49.999
\"Oh, my gosh. I remember when I went through
that,\" and I probably help them a lot because they

00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:54.999
(inaudible just in there
as I was this morning

00:31:55.000 --> 00:31:59.999
to go bra shopping for my first bra.

00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:04.999
I have one for you.

00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:09.999
Oh, mom. Yeah.

00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:14.999
Very funny. You don’t
think that one will work?

00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:19.999
Very funny, mom. And so I remember being in the
locker room and looking at other girls’ bras

00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:24.999
and how they were developing and comparing
myself to them and feeling really sad

00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:29.999
that I didn’t look like they did. Things do round out,
but at the very beginning, it isn’t like that at all.

00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:34.999
It’s pokey, and hard,
and like I said, itchy

00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:39.999
and uncomfortable
sometimes, isn’t it? Yeah.

00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:44.999
It feels pretty… Well, it’s more
comfortable to talk to my mom

00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:49.999
because she’s gone through it. But my dad,

00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:54.999
he understands because
he had an older sister.

00:32:55.000 --> 00:32:59.999
So he understands a lot about this.
He’s done few bras in his day.

00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:04.999
Eww.

00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:09.999
So you think you’re gonna start wearing those like
staring tomorrow? Maybe. You’re a (inaudible)

00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:14.999
There’s more life, so it’s a big change.

00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:19.999
I want to talk to some people

00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:24.999
who are generations away from first bras. I thought that
over time, bras surely will lose some of their power.

00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:33.000
[sil.]

00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:39.999
It was harder than I expected. Most
people were reluctant to talk.

00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:44.999
Yeah, you get to embarrass me.
I’m sorry. I mean…

00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:49.999
Yeah, 62 years old, you are embarrassing.
I’m so persistent to try.

00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:54.999
(inaudible)it.

00:33:55.000 --> 00:33:59.999
And you think I want to be on TV that talk about a tit? Eventually, they loosened up. That’s the first
thing when you shake your girl, you talk to a woman, you wet up your… Your hands are all over, you know?

00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:04.999
Men are attracted to them very much.

00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:09.999
So you find out there’s lot more
to life than just, you know, sex.

00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:14.999
That’s what fed my children,
that’s what makes me a woman.

00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:19.999
We are bringing it up a notch

00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:24.999
because I’m… These eyes can’t see but these
holds key. My mother put me in a bra

00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:29.999
when I was 12 years old, and it
was like a little training bra.

00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:34.999
Oh, just be proud of what your body. That’s the
whole thing to me. So I’m very proud of my mine,

00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:39.999
no matter how heavy I am, I love me.
Jack (inaudible)must like them.

00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:44.999
He likes to (inaudible)unlock, so…

00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:49.999
She’s a high school teacher. Don’t do it right the first
time, you have to do it over again. Did I say that?

00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:54.999
[sil.]

00:34:55.000 --> 00:34:59.999
But I have a question.

00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:04.999
What would you do before I go

00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:09.999
and have this tumor removed?

00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:14.999
What would you do if they told you
I had to have a breast removable?

00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:19.999
I told you. My first wife died of cancer.

00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:24.999
She was 42 years. What did I do?
I simply (inaudible)

00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:29.999
But I wouldn’t be the same. So? 80 years
old, (inaudible)worry about, right?

00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:34.999
See, but this is a man’s perspective.

00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:39.999
See, this is, I told you… See,
this is a man’s perspective.

00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:44.999
Now this thing is going to
happen within the next month.

00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:49.999
And my point is I would
feel less of a woman,

00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:54.999
and I am very frightened,

00:35:55.000 --> 00:35:59.999
very frightened.

00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:04.999
But I have to face it and go through
it, and there’s a decision to be made.

00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:09.999
Now will you be angry with
me if it’s cancerous?

00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:14.999
And I tell them you’re not allowed to remove the breast,
remove the tumor, and then do whatever you need to do,

00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:19.999
but don’ take off the breast, will you be
angry with me? No. You’re body (inaudible)

00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:24.999
Thank you. Here is a man
who thinks clearly,

00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:29.999
who thinks clearly.

00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:34.999
Thank you. Thank you.

00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:39.999
Thank you so much. I never
thought I would be cover girl.

00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:44.999
No, it was not my ambition. When
this photo was taken in 1980,

00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:49.999
breast cancer was still a closeted disease.
This image was radical.

00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:54.999
I remember seeing this picture in college,
and I felt this huge sense of relief

00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:59.999
like there was life after breast cancer, that you might not just
die from it. And I always wanted to meet the woman in the photo.

00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:04.999
Once I had the idea that
I should do a picture,

00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:09.999
I was like a woman, possessed,

00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:14.999
and I could not find a photographer. You know, it’s
like, you couldn’t find anyone to look at your body

00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:19.999
and not be disturbed by it. Deena
Metzger is a writer and healer.

00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:24.999
She and her husband Michael live
in the Los Angeles area. In 1986,

00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:29.999
Dina discovered she had breast cancer. And
then I remember the night before the surgery,

00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:34.999
I actually held the breast
in my hands and sang to it.

00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:39.999
The breast that had nursed my children,
and that had been a source of pleasure

00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:44.999
and loving and comfort, that was gone.

00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:49.999
I knew somewhere that there would be a time

00:37:50.000 --> 00:37:54.999
when… Or hoped that I would be with a man

00:37:55.000 --> 00:37:59.999
who would touch my body And that

00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:04.999
his hands would either touch a flat surface or a
fake breasts. Deena decided to have reconstruction.

00:38:05.000 --> 00:38:09.999
A very strange thing happened.
There was a freak storm,

00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:14.999
and all the electricity
went out in the hospital.

00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:19.999
Cedars-Sinai, major Los Angeles’ hospital,

00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:24.999
just does not happen very often. And so
when I woke up, I was still flat as a boy.

00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:29.999
So I yielded to fate.

00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:34.999
I was able to speak out about how it
was really okay to have Mastectomy.

00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:39.999
It was really okay to be one breasted.
If I had the artist,

00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:44.999
I’d say that I became a single
woman, and I had quite a few lovers.

00:38:45.000 --> 00:38:49.999
I found men generous and loving.

00:38:50.000 --> 00:38:54.999
It really challenged those stereotypes

00:38:55.000 --> 00:38:59.999
and everything that I expected.
I thought about it a long time.

00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:04.999
I wanted a tree

00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:09.999
for the tree of life and that image meant

00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:14.999
that someone could look at my chest and not have to look
away. It’s no surprise that a woman would be struck down in

00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:19.999
that place where she is most woman,

00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:24.999
and perhaps, words that come to me

00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:29.999
feel very strong, but I’m,
you’ll say, the most despised.

00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:34.999
You come home from the hospital, and you’ve had knee surgery, and the
first thing you do is lift up your pant leg, and show somebody your scar.

00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:39.999
You’ve had an appendectomy, you
pulled down your waist span

00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:44.999
and you show somebody your scar. You’ve
just come home from a mastectomy.

00:39:45.000 --> 00:39:49.999
Do you lift up your blouse and show somebody your scar?
Less likely. When leaders of The Breast Cancer Fund

00:39:50.000 --> 00:39:54.999
launched its Obsessed With Breasts campaign,
they planned about hundreds of posters

00:39:55.000 --> 00:39:59.999
like this one in San Francisco area bus
shelter. Only a fraction ever made it up.

00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:04.999
The people who run the poster services, the
billboards, just absolutely freak out.

00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:09.999
We drew more international media
attention to that campaign

00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:14.999
than we could have if the posters had remained
up. We wanted people to talk about it.

00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:19.999
We wanted people to debate it, and we created materials for them to
use in the schools to discuss with children if it became an issue.

00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:24.999
It was not the kids who had a problem
with it. It was the grownups.

00:40:25.000 --> 00:40:29.999
It was… And men had a tremendous
problem with this campaign.

00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:34.999
It just shocked them. It made them close their eyes and just feel, like, \"I don’t
want to look at that, that’s not the way I want to see the human breasts.\"

00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:39.999
Well, it’s not the way we want to see it either, and it’s not
the way any woman who faces breast cancer wants to see it.

00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:44.999
And so our job is to really
start with the reality

00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:49.999
of what this disease does to a woman.
We wanted to take away that idea

00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:54.999
that if you’ve had a mastectomy, you lose
everything. Yes, you’ve lost your breast,

00:40:55.000 --> 00:40:59.999
and that’s a terrible and tragic loss,
but you have not lost your core self.

00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:04.999
The same year I lost my mother, First Lady Betty Ford
bravely went public with her own breast cancer diagnosis.

00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:09.999
This was a time when you couldn’t even say
the word breast implant (inaudible)company,

00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:14.999
let alone breast cancer which conjured up a
scary mix of death and sex and motherhood.

00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:19.999
But after years of whispering, women got fed up.
They demanded more research and better treatment.

00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:24.999
Soon, a powerful new movement was born. Corporate
America wanted its share of the success.

00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:29.999
So it launched a new marketing strategy. Shop for the Cure.
Breast cancer awareness month was initiated by industry.

00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:34.999
It wasn’t initiated by advocacy groups,

00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:39.999
it wasn’t initiated by breast cancer survivors. It was initiated
by industry to call attention to products available to women,

00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:44.999
to market to women who are
facing breast cancer,

00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:49.999
pink wash their images. When the
media takes the pink ribbon

00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:54.999
and takes the pink teddy bear and
has it symbolized the whole issue,

00:41:55.000 --> 00:41:59.999
when those images replace

00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:04.999
the need for our outrage, when
they’re used to soften our message,

00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:09.999
that’s when I have a problem. You’re
fighting this flood of images

00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:14.999
that are normalizing it,

00:42:15.000 --> 00:42:19.999
that are making it a congregation
of people all together.

00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:24.999
We are all to move not all together on the
issue, we are not all one about this,

00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:29.999
we have not had the will to look at what
some of the causes of breast cancer are.

00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:34.999
We have not had the will to look at our environment,
to look at the environmental exposures.

00:42:35.000 --> 00:42:39.999
So yes, I think that it’s too soft. More
Americans have died from breast cancer

00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:44.999
in the last 20 years than were killed
in both World Wars, the Korean War,

00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:49.999
and the Vietnam War combined. A friend
of mine, a breast cancer survivor said,

00:42:50.000 --> 00:42:54.999
\"I will know our survived breast
cancer when I die of something else.\"

00:42:55.000 --> 00:42:59.999
I think some attitudes about breast cancer be deadly. I mean, there are
some cultures where women are taught not to touch their breasts at all.

00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:04.999
So that’s one issue. It’s just not okay to touch
your breasts, and obviously that makes for problems

00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:09.999
in doing breast self exam, and trying to
understand what your breast tissue feels like.

00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:14.999
It feels like…

00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:19.999
Do you want to see it?

00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:24.999
That’s what we find out here.
That’s the difference.

00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:29.999
[music]

00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:34.999
The breast.

00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:39.999
My children have had fun
playing catch with it,

00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:44.999
using it as head… Head gear,

00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:49.999
and I get a little bit nervous

00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:54.999
when they’re playing catch though because I don’t want
it to break. This is my, yeah, this is an essential part

00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:59.999
of my going out and facing the public.

00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:04.999
It looks kind of scary
and surprising because

00:44:05.000 --> 00:44:09.999
first, you didn’t know that

00:44:10.000 --> 00:44:14.999
that was going to happen
because she looked fine.

00:44:15.000 --> 00:44:19.999
There wasn’t really any physical marking

00:44:20.000 --> 00:44:24.999
that she was having breast cancer.

00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:29.999
To hear that you actually have cancer,

00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:34.999
that the veneer is cracked,
and you’re vulnerable,

00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:39.999
and yet I’m a parent. And to be
too vulnerable is a scary thing.

00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:44.999
They did a lumpectomy first. And another lumpectomy,
there they widened, and then ultimately,

00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:49.999
she did end up losing the breast.

00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:54.999
But it’s strange. After I realized we
were out of the woods so to speak,

00:44:55.000 --> 00:44:59.999
and I say that how much in the woods am I,

00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:04.999
you know, that I wasn’t… We went through it
but Evelyn was bearing the brunt of this.

00:45:05.000 --> 00:45:09.999
That’s when it started hitting me more.
It’s almost like afterwards, I’m realizing,

00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:14.999
\"Good Lord, Dan. You are
too stupid to even realize

00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:19.999
how close you came to losing your wife.\"
I felt like if anything would go wrong,

00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:24.999
then I would lose one
of my favorite people,

00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:29.999
and

00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:34.999
and I don’t really know how o lvie
on if my mom wasn’t there anymore,

00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:39.999
and

00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:44.999
and I found it hard to concentrate in school.
My dad was, like, the only one to be with.

00:45:45.000 --> 00:45:49.999
You’re going to be there for your kids.

00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:54.999
You want to keep the engine running,

00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:59.999
you know? I’m still the
breadwinner, I’ve got to be there

00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:04.999
to make the money, and it’s…

00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:09.999
And your wife’s going through all the time.
I had no idea how big a breast is.

00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:14.999
I don’t mean that, you know, you don’t
realize how extensive the breast is,

00:46:15.000 --> 00:46:19.999
how far it wraps around, how high…

00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:24.999
It’s the mastectomy, they’re no more.

00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:29.999
Then you couldn’t even touch her

00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:34.999
because she was hurting so much.
We were very lucky

00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:39.999
to have found this Cancer
Lifeline Support Group

00:46:40.000 --> 00:46:44.999
which we went to once a week,

00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:49.999
and the girls… It was actually
designed for the girls. And one day,

00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:54.999
Sofia said to me with her little
outstretched palms, \"You know,

00:46:55.000 --> 00:46:59.999
you can’t catch cancer.\" It was so sweet,

00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:04.999
and I knew that they were addressing
questions that I hadn’t even thought of.

00:47:05.000 --> 00:47:09.999
I think that I’m cancer-free. You
never know for sure, of course,

00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:14.999
but I’ve done everything that I’m supposed
to do, and I don’t see any signs any longer.

00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:19.999
I am a survivor.

00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:24.999
Every six months Evelyn
goes in for a mammogram,

00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:29.999
and field (inaudible)her breath.

00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:34.999
I feel closer to Evelyn now,
you know, without the breast.

00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:39.999
I find her more attractive strangely.

00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:44.999
We are in a very breast centric society.
And I’m affected by all that. I mean,

00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:49.999
I’m your regular guy, you
know, that’s attractive.

00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:54.999
But there’s something more attractive

00:47:55.000 --> 00:47:59.999
and that is character and still physically,

00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:04.999
I mean, Evelyn is a goddess.

00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:09.999
I told them they’re beautiful
and they are beautiful.

00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:14.999
But how unimportant that
physical beauty is.

00:48:15.000 --> 00:48:19.999
They’ll hear enough of that in their life.
So much more important what’s in here,

00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:24.999
whether they’re kinder people.
I think it’s given them,

00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:29.999
and particularly Ava again,
because she’s a little bit older,

00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:34.999
a kind of a wisdom beyond
her years about breasts.

00:48:35.000 --> 00:48:39.999
A lot happened to her in time,

00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:44.999
and a lot happened to me too
inside of me. I changed,

00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:49.999
I appreciated my life more,

00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:54.999
I loved the people who I had more.

00:48:55.000 --> 00:48:59.999
When I was a kid, I didn’t get to ask
questions about breasts or cancer.

00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:04.999
The way I saw it, my mom just
disappeared without saying goodbye.

00:49:05.000 --> 00:49:09.999
I was angry. I felt robbed, and blamed
my dad. I blamed God, I blamed her.

00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:14.999
But those were different times. There were
no support groups for families like mine.

00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:19.999
We were on our own. Attempts to
save the mother’s life left my dad

00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:24.999
with a staggering pile of medical bills. And for a single
dad, even simple family outings could be a hassle.

00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:29.999
Nobody wants to see little girls changing
into swimsuits in the men’s room.

00:49:30.000 --> 00:49:34.999
I saw how it could be different

00:49:35.000 --> 00:49:39.999
and somehow things got clear in my mind, even with
all the crazy ideas our society has about breasts.

00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:44.999
Being a woman, being a
mother didn’t seem so bad.

00:49:45.000 --> 00:49:49.999
Maybe it was even kind of lovely.

00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:54.999
I started to feel myself standing a little straighter. What
would it be like to be completely at home in one’s body

00:49:55.000 --> 00:49:59.999
to appreciate the shapes and even how to
laugh about it all from time to time?

00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:04.999
The members of Seattle’s Burlesque Burlesque
have given it some thought. Burlesque is amazing

00:50:05.000 --> 00:50:09.999
because it embraces the full woman.
In fact, it’s kinda funny.

00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:14.999
It’s a little bit biased against
more slender women in some ways

00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:19.999
because there’s so much emphasis on
the shimmy shaped, the bumping grind.

00:50:20.000 --> 00:50:24.999
Awesome having people
cheer and clap for you.

00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:29.999
I mean, that’s feel great. And it’s a challenge
for me too because I’m a curvier girl.

00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:34.999
I don’t think you see a lot of
naked curvier heavier women.

00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:39.999
Blonde. Black. And I think it’s cool even though
I don’t have the greatest body image for myself,

00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:44.999
when I go on stage and I do a show,
after wards, women are not perfect

00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:49.999
come up to me and always tell me
how great it is that I’m up there.

00:50:50.000 --> 00:50:54.999
I was also made of fun for by flat-chested

00:50:55.000 --> 00:50:59.999
and also being a beanpole and whatever
terms people will come up with.

00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:04.999
And but when I’m on a stage, it was power.

00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:09.999
[music]

00:51:10.000 --> 00:51:14.999
Nobody else have their normal hair. I
like the red (inaudible)the brush.

00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:19.999
Okay, I’ll wear both.

00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:24.999
Women just always (inaudible)healthy.

00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:29.999
Oh, comfort. One and all,
one and all gathered.

00:51:30.000 --> 00:51:34.999
I know that people like them, and I’m
like, \"Wow, that’s cool, you know?\"

00:51:35.000 --> 00:51:39.999
It makes me feel pretty.

00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:44.999
[music]

00:51:45.000 --> 00:51:49.999
It tells a story about a woman having

00:51:50.000 --> 00:51:54.999
a sexuality and being able to express it, but
on her own terms, and being able to say,

00:51:55.000 --> 00:51:59.999
\"Look, this is what’s sexy to
me when you think about this.\"

00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:04.999
We think that

00:52:05.000 --> 00:52:09.999
our bodies are very serious things,
and in fact, having some fun with it,

00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:14.999
seeing people having fun with their own bodies will give
just tremendous comfort and confidence in their own bodies,

00:52:15.000 --> 00:52:19.999
creates a much healthier and more
positive environment for everyone.

00:52:20.000 --> 00:52:28.000
[music]

00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:34.999
As beautiful as (inaudible) And I think that
the combination of a lot of Burlesque’s acts

00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:39.999
is the exposing breasts,
it’s twirling tassels,

00:52:40.000 --> 00:52:44.999
showing off the pasties. I mean, there you
have it. This like, exact spot on the body

00:52:45.000 --> 00:52:49.999
that’s so alluring and so mysterious, and it’s
covered with sequence, and this big tassel

00:52:50.000 --> 00:52:54.999
that people are spinning around in circles.

00:52:55.000 --> 00:52:59.999
[music]

00:53:00.000 --> 00:53:04.999
I can make them do this thing
I want to make them do.

00:53:05.000 --> 00:53:09.999
I can look this amazing way that
they can (inaudible)of my own body.

00:53:10.000 --> 00:53:18.000
[music]

00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:24.999
And who wouldn’t want to be a star in his or her own
body. I am not likely to don pasties anytime soon,

00:53:25.000 --> 00:53:29.999
but for now, the thing I have to remind myself
is that nothing stays the same, times change.

00:53:30.000 --> 00:53:34.999
We forget that in the 19th
century, there was so much

00:53:35.000 --> 00:53:39.999
discomfort with the female leg

00:53:40.000 --> 00:53:44.999
that even piano legs
were covered up and very

00:53:45.000 --> 00:53:49.999
prudish people referred to legs as limbs.
So at one point,

00:53:50.000 --> 00:53:54.999
the sight of a shapely ankle was
considered a stimulant to male desire.

00:53:55.000 --> 00:53:59.999
Men couldn’t control themselves at the
site of an ankle, God forbid a knee.

00:54:00.000 --> 00:54:04.999
There was a time when men were
not allowed to go topless

00:54:05.000 --> 00:54:09.999
or to go bare-chested in this country.
And if you look at the old bathing suits

00:54:10.000 --> 00:54:14.999
of the 1910-20, they covered up.
So maybe there will come a time

00:54:15.000 --> 00:54:19.999
when women will go topless too.
Let them be top free.

00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:24.999
Everybody has a breast. Even
if we didn’t go this far,

00:54:25.000 --> 00:54:29.999
we may be better if women could wear what
they wanted without fear of repercussions

00:54:30.000 --> 00:54:34.999
and mothers could breastfeed forever without giving
it a second thought. I think that it’s important

00:54:35.000 --> 00:54:39.999
that in cultures like ours,

00:54:40.000 --> 00:54:44.999
for women to think about what’s the cultural
impact of having breasts, you know,

00:54:45.000 --> 00:54:49.999
what is the culture telling me and what do I want to buy
out of that, you know, because I really have a choice.

00:54:50.000 --> 00:54:54.999
They are just saying that breasts are inadequate until
they kill you, and for most of my life, I believed it.

00:54:55.000 --> 00:54:59.999
Those who make money off breasts,
wouldn’t mind if we were never satisfied.

00:55:00.000 --> 00:55:04.999
But I don’t see what’s in it for the
rest of us. I’m ready to break free.

00:55:05.000 --> 00:55:09.999
I’m not completely at peace with my breasts, but in my
mind, there are now much more about life than death.

00:55:10.000 --> 00:55:14.999
And I think my mom would be happy
about that. Okay, I’m not that free.

00:55:15.000 --> 00:55:19.999
My audience would smell, but
it still felt pretty good.

00:55:20.000 --> 00:55:28.000
[music]

00:56:55.000 --> 00:57:00.000
[music]