The title of this post comes from a comment on the stuff.co.nz article on NZGirl’s “empowering” marketing ploy pornbait “awareness” campaign.

Because apparently, objecting to a website’s exploitation of breast cancer to get attention makes me (and specifically folks like Boganette and BiscuitCIB who are quoted) a prude.

A prude.

Apparently, the objections can only be because we feminists, who frequently say fuck and have tags on our blogs like “vagina vagina vagina“, actually hate breasts and think women should go around covered head to foot and we need a (wait for it …) “more european” attitude to breasts.*

And enough people are harping on about this theme (apparently without actually bothering to let the words on the screen process through their brains before hitting “Add Reply”) that apparently this is some kind of logical train of thought to a lot o people.

So let me explain.

Women’s bodies are amazing.  Whether they have pert little breasts or full and wonderfully heavy breasts or racks of doom or no breasts at all.  Whether their thighs are taut, soft, long, curved, sliding into hips that can be straight, angular, bulging, nipped into a tiny waist or anchoring a proud belly balancing out a butt wide or narrow or apple-shaped.  Whether their arms are all muscle or all sinew or all flesh or any combination of the three, whether their hands are “dainty” or “strong” with calluses or painted nails or both, whether they’re in wedding dresses or swimsuits or pyjamas or business-casual or a corset and stockings.

Speaking as a heterosexual woman, women are fucking hot, because their bodies are physical manifestations of their souls and personalities and existence as human beings.  And those bodies [and existences] are constantly constrained, criticised, measured, found wanting (no matter which bits of the above paragraph they fall into), labelled, judged according to archaic condescending patriarchal bullshit (and yes, NZGirl, “rating” the photos on your site is pretty much just that).

Women get self image issues because they are constantly being told how much they don’t measure up physically and how much they must suck as human beings because of that.  Women get daddy issues because we live in a fucking patriarchy that says “you will be dependent on male authority for everything so you may as well like it”.  Women get religious indoctrination issues about not showing their bodies because the religions that preach that kind of bullshit know full fucking well how hard it is to run society without a handy slave class to do the shitwork.

I want women to be able to be proud of their bodies and open about their bodies.  I want to live in a world where posting an anonymized photo of your tits isn’t “empowering” or “enlightening” because it isn’t a fucking taboo to say “I like my breasts” or to know what other women’s breasts look like.**

I want all types of cancer research to get enough fucking funding to find a cure as soon as humanly possible – not just the ones we can market really well to a guilt-ridden middle class by saying “think of the babies” or “think of your mother” or “think of your husband”.

In conclusion: I love breasts.  I would love to know that any woman [or man] could go topless down the street showing theirs off whenever they wanted.  Why I somehow must not feel that way because I think a website encouraging women to post anonymous boob shots for marketing purposes and indirect financial reward =/= empowerment … is kinda beyond me.

~

*Flashbacks to Jezebel!fail.

**And when ratings and financial incentives get involved, NZGirl editors, you don’t get to claim you’re participating in any kind of activism towards this goal.