Zoe Beaty is 26 and counting. Counting the days until payday (four) and the charges on her overdraft (£40). She's in her mid-twenties and in the midst of a phase where you're not sure if it's ok to eat chicken nuggets in bed at 2am on a Tuesday or if you should really be getting your shit together. This is her weekly column for everyone else who is also 20something and counting…
If you clicked on this link believing it was an invitation to critique my breasts, I apologise. (That's a lie, I really don’t.)
It is, however, about nips: by now you’ve likely seen that feminist movement #FreeTheNipple is to be made into a film, and has already set tongues wagging about a possible nomination for Breast Motion Picture. (Sorry.) It’s a film which stands up to oppression, inequality and fights for chestice. (I know. That one didn’t work.)
In the trailer, as a striking shot of a woman running, bare-chested into New York’s Time Square, a provocative line is spoken thoughtfully over the montage: ‘Why is my nipple more obscene than a murder?’ the woman’s voice asks. Which made me think immediately: ‘Shit, are mine, too?’
Aside from once shouting ‘GUYS COME AND LOOK AT MY NIPS’ at a load of mates whilst skinny dipping in Spain, I’ve been lucky to have had minimal boob anxiety. Perhaps the song they made up and sang at me about this for the rest of that week reassured me, some. Hm.
But seeing The Cut’s brilliant feature this week, for which they asked more than 50 New York women to draw their breasts, taking an interest in the brilliant Free The Nipple campaign and, of course, Lena Dunham, I started to think about the way we see women’s boobs: why is it abnormal for the lady nip to see anything other than a bedroom or the back-end of a bra? And, more importantly, how does that make us feel about them?
26 & Counting... Nips
Refreshingly, most of the sentiments penned next to the ex-pert-ly drawn chests were positive. They ranged from inspirational ‘no more cancer’ to Cornershop lyrics. Others echoed the sentiments I’ve heard from friends over the years: ‘not big enough’; ‘movie boobs never have hair like mine do’; ‘sometimes I treat my breasts like a design piece and sometimes I just ask people to lick them' (yes).
There’s a reason that boob jobs are so commonplace, and perhaps Free The Nipple is a possible answer to helping women feel more comfortable with their bodies. Men’s nipples were also once banned (in the 1930s) and they fought for their right to get ‘em out and won. Now nobody takes much notice of a man peck, but women are sexualised on account of theirs - and are constantly striving to achieve an unattainable breast and body shape that only evokes feelings of inadequacy.
What we need is diversity. Right now the only boob-counterpart we have to the entire porn industry is Lena Dunham. Instagram has banned them (for women). Facebook has a difficult history with breastfeeding. Barbie’s had a ‘real girl’ make-over this week, but as far as I know, even she wasn't allowed to show any nips.
If we Free The Nipple or, at the very least, champion a media that celebrates naked boob variety - in a non-sexualised manner - and if the ‘norm’ steers away from the (br)aesthetics we see on porn stars, then girls might not feel they have to go to lengths like surgery to be accepting of themselves.
Because reason I, so eloquently, asked my mates to stare at my chest whilst standing starkers in the Mediterranean was partly because of those disturbingly luminous shots you only find at Spanish resorts and partly because I wanted reassurance that mine were good. (And they are. And yours are too.)