“My breasts started growing in the sixth grade. Just like any other girl, I was confused, excited and scared. I remember when my mother first handed me my training bra, saying, “Always cover them fully”. I was 11 then and I’m almost completely sure that’s where my unhealthy relationship with bras started. We belong to a family of heavy breasted women. My mother would always give us the ugliest bras, like the ones old people wear. I know she didn’t mean to but she made me feel ashamed of them.
In eighth grade, I would hang out with my friends without a care in the world. To me, we were friends, gender less and innocent. I remember a couple of guys coming up to me and saying, “Don’t hang out with S*****, he’s not really your friend”.
I fought with them because S***** was my friend. I had known him for years. They just shook their heads and left. Later, I found out he was going around saying, “I only hang out with her because of her huge tits”. I was 13 then.
In the tenth grade, I was asked to wear a saree to school. I was insecure. This time, not just my boobs but the rest of my body would also be put to scrutiny.
Somehow, I got through the day BUT towards the end, my ‘girlfriends’ laughed and pointed at my chest and said, “You have the boobs of a pornstar. You could be in racy movies with those racy tits of yours”. I was 15 then.
In my first year of college, I went on a college trip with my ‘friends’. Excited about the freedom we had, we drank a lot of alcohol and it was fun, till a ‘friend’ decided to grab my boobs. He bit my tit and when I cried in pain, he simply disregarded it and in fact made fun of me in front of the group of people we came with. I thought about it a lot, “Did my actions indicate that I somehow wanted it?” “Was I too comfortable around him?” I was 18 then and I now know that I just wanted to have
some fun with my friends and thus let myself be silly and a little drunk.
There have been many times I have been sexualised for my body and my boobs. And because of that, as a 22 year old, I’m scared of attending events because people look at my body. I’m scared to tell my mother about all the pain my body has suffered because of a fucking feature that runs in my family. I’m scared to tell her because I might hear,“You didn’t cover them fully, did you?” I’m so angry that I
cannot tell my own mother of the pain of my abortion or that I had one.
I’m a 22-year-old who wears sad bras that old people wear because I want them to look as small as possible. I’m broken in ways I don’t even understand yet I force myself to brave the bad days and embrace the good as much as I can and I refuse to give up.”
They wanted to be drawn among flowers.
Background reference: Heinrich Vogeler
Induviduality 