Keep Your Tits Real

I spent the first 15 years of my life as a tomboy. 

I dressed like a boy, hung out with the boys, and acted like a boy.  It wasn’t until I was older that I thought I maybe wanted to be ‘feminine’, but by then it was too late.  I felt like a pretender.  And it felt awkward, like I was trying on someone else’s clothes.

What makes this kind of hysterical, is that I had DDDs.

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Conforming to what we think society expects of us makes frauds of us all.

#3 of Squawkfox’s incredible “How To Be A Woman” article, was “Keep Your Tits Real”. 

“Stop knocking your knockers.  Stuffing yourself with silicon may bring satisfaction in the short-term, but the long-term ramifications may leave you feeling a boob.  It’s no mystery most women have terrible body images.”

No kidding.

How does a girl with DDDs feel unfeminine?

I don’t know, but somehow I managed to do it.  I always felt like I was holding back. I tried not to be too aggressive, too assertive, too intelligent.  I even had one guy dump me because he said I was ‘too smart, smarter than any other girl he’d dated’ and he didn’t know how to handle that.

It wasn’t until I met my husband that I really felt feminine. 

For the first time in my life I felt like a goddess. 

Why?  Why now?  I don’t believe that men should have the kind of power to ‘make’ us feel that way because it means we let someone else define who we are.  How could being with my husband make me feel like a goddess?

Because I didn’t have to hold any of my ’self’ back.  His sense of who he  was had nothing to do with how I  was.  He wasn’t threatened by my intelligence or assertiveness or badassery, and I could fully be those things with him. 

My tits are real.

Things that are considered ‘masculine’ are many things which I excel at.  Confrontation?  Debate? Argument?  Aggressiveness?  Assertiveness?  Decisiveness?  That’s a HELL YES to all of the above.

Before, I felt like there was something wrong with me for liking and doing well in those arenas, like I was some kind of freakishly mutated female.  Looking back at lists I made as a child I actually wrote  “1. Be more feminine”.

It breaks my heart to read that and remember the younger me who felt so wrong, so broken.

W-O-M-A-N

If you cut me off in a parking lot, believe that I will let you know how rude you were.  Much to the chagrin of his brothers, I’m like a pitbull when it comes to my husband and I don’t let anyone  treat him like crap.  I won’t hold myself back when arguing with you.  I love power tools, pants, and most of all – Star Trek.

And, yes, I feel like a goddess.  How could I not?  I am fully, wholly, authentically myself with no preconception of what I should  be.

So, how does my He-Man feel?

He thinks that I am adorable when I am chewing someone out. He is proud that care enough to stand up for him.  He doesn’t feel threatened by my assertiveness. And, surprisingly, I have become a less aggressive person for having been with him. Like, now that I can, I don’t really want to – or it isn’t necessary.

Should is the most evil word in the English language.

We spend so much time thinking that we should be thinner, richer, younger, better.  We pick apart our bodies with intensity that the CIA would covet; hips, thighs, face, and - most of all – boobs.  And, worst of all, we let others pick us apart too.

We are ever more careful to censor our negativity.  We have eliminated ‘can’t’ and ‘no’ from our mental vocabularies.  Should, however, is stealthily seeking to constrain our beliefs and abilities.  Should is just as limiting and negative as the word no.

Your perfect ‘you’ is who you are.  No ’shoulds’ about it.

Heed the words of Squawkfox, philosopher-poet, and keep your tits real.

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Thank you to SquawkFox for graciously allowing me to use ”Keep Your Tits Real” from her piece on “How To Be A Woman“ and to Hunter Nuttall for inspiring this post with “Desegregating Our Minds“.