BREASTS TRANSCRIPT FINAL 10/23/96
Produced by Meema Spadola & Thom Powers
Directed by Meema Spadola

TITLE: CINEMAX REEL LIFE PRESENTS

SUPER-8 WOMEN ON THE STREET

TITLE: BEFORE FILMING WE CIRCULATED QUESTIONNAIRES...

TITLE: ASKING WOMEN TO TELL US ABOUT THEIR BREASTS...

TITLE: 208 WOMEN AND ONE MAN RESPONDED

TITLE: AN ELEVATOR PICTURES PRODUCTION

TITLE: A DOCUMENTARY BY MEEMA SPADOLA

SERIES OF SHOTS OF WOMEN REMOVING THEIR BRAS

TITLE: BREASTS

LISHA: There are breasts, there are titties, there are boobs, there are them. Because they're a separate entity.
They're a monster within themselves.

HELEN: Hooters...

NELL: Hooters,

HELEN: Boobs, and boobies.

LISHA: There are melons, there are watermelons, there are cantaloupes.

NELL: Snack trays.

GHISLAINE: Baby bottles.

RASHEEDAH: Watermelons, boobs, knockers.

GHISLAINE: Balls.

MOLLY: Tomatoes, bazongas.

SUSAN: I kind of like that cause it has a kind of conga rhythm to it.

MOLLY: The puppies with the pink noses.

MAYA: Tits, nipples, knockers, chachas, tatas, titties.

NELL: Tits.

HELEN: I've always liked tits.

NELL: I like tits. Breastices. Um... Breastices.

LISHA: They're boobs to my husband, titties to me.

HELEN: Gondolas! Did we say gondolas?

NELL: Gondolas.

K.C.: Big knockers.

EVELYN: A bust!

SHANA: A bust.

LISHA: All I know is that they're mine. They're my breasts, they're my boobs, they're my titties.

NELL: Balls of ice cream.

HELEN: Is that one you just made up or you've heard that one?

NELL: No.

LISHA: It's like I woke up, they were there. And there was nothing that I could do about it. So I just tried to deal with it.

ARCHIVAL SEQUENCE ON PUBERTY

ARCHIVAL V.O.: There are so many wonderful things to look forward to. Growing up, it's an exciting time!

HELEN: There's something about when your breasts begin to develop, it's like when you begin your period. Those are all of the rituals of, ah, of, ah, you know, achieving womanhood. And like we're all going to go through, you know, the beginning of menstruation. That's, that's a given. We're all going to go through menopause. But breasts are going to develop at different ages and in different stages and in different sizes. And in some ways, I don't know whether because I'm small in general, and flat chested, that for me, I just feel like I never like reached that certain, that certain point.

NELL: It's funny that you should say that...

HELEN: Is it?

NELL: Well kind of about being gypped on that rite of passage into womanhood...

HELEN: You know something?

NELL: ...of developing breasts.

HELEN: You know something, it is a gyp. I never thought of it that way. Now I'm pissed.

NELL: I started developing breasts so early that I had just the reverse view on it. I mean, I hated it and it made me feel completely uncomfortable and self-conscious and not ready to deal with people telling me that I looked like I was fifteen or sixteen...

HELEN: Right.

NELL: And pinching my boobs and Uncle Johnny saying...

HELEN: Oh that's right, that's right.

NELL: In front of me, in front of the entire family, "Oh, you've got boobs now Nell!" I'm like ten years old.

TERESA: If a boy comes up to me and says, "Teresa's getting breasts!" I'm going to punch him dead in the face. I wouldn't want somebody, if we're in public and they say that out loud I'm just going to smack them or punch them in the face. But if they say it in my ear, and they're a close friend and they're only joking, I might say, "Hey!" and push them but not hard.

K.C.: It was very painful for me, physically painful to grow breasts. I remember kind of being alarmed, and going to my mother and saying, "Mother, my breasts hurt and there's this hard lump in there. What's going on?"

KATIE: As my daughter was getting towards the age where girls begin to wear bras and begin to develop. Um, it did occur to me. Um, it wasn't just I would be left in the dust. But I realized I was still wearing size ten children's clothing.

RASHEEDAH: I was ashamed around my family. But in school, it was like the big thing you know. All the girls around that age was developing, so it was pretty cool...

K.C.: In high school, I was a vice president of the itty bitty titty committee. The president was my girlfriend, who had actually smaller breasts than I did. But something strange happened when she went to college. And she came back and she had very large breasts. And we impeached her.

MARY: I had fantasies about smaller breasts. I could get a fairy that would transforms them to just normal size. Maybe just a little bit big.

HELEN: I never developed breasts. I mean I was always, always, always flat chested and, you know, I come from a family of big breasted women. My mother was like this. I mean talk about tents, when she used to call up, "Bring me my brassiere!" I mean like, you knew, this was a, this was a real task.

LISHA: I think I was in third grade, like six, seven, eight. I was like eight years old when I started developing. I started developing before everybody else did. I started wearing bras before everybody else did. And I hated it, I wanted to hide `em. There had to be something physically wrong with me. I had a disease. That's what it was, I had a disease cause no one developed that early, so there was something. I was a mutant.

ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE OF BRA COMMERCIALS

ARCHIVAL COMMERCIAL: A bra this sheer? When you're built like me?

ARCHIVAL COMMERCIAL: Just cross your heart, see?

TITLE: BRAS, FROM AA TO E

TERESA: There's a clip right here, and there's a little hole. You just snap it. A training bra is for people whose breasts are in training. Like if your breasts aren't big enough to wear a regular bra, of course you got wear a training bra because you're just in training of what it's going to be like wearing a bra.

BIRGITTE: This is a bra that I vacuum, clean the house in and mop the floor, I dust. This is my honey-got-to-tuck-it-all-in-and-strap-it-down-because-you-got-things-to-do-bra. This is my two hour bra, because this is so extremely uncomfortable. And only very special people get to see this. I would go grocery shopping in just this bra. This is my cleavage bra, that I wear at night. And it makes me feel incredibly sexy.

TERESA: It's not my favorite bra, it's one of my first bras. I call it the gym bra. Because I always wear it when I have to go to gym.

KARIN: This is actually my babysitter's mother's bustier. I like it because it wasn't meant to be worn on the outside.

SUSAN: I'm sitting here in my bra as opposed bare-breasted thinking about two things. One is I've always had trouble buying bras. Because if you have, um like a, fifty something inch bust line, and you don't have something out here to support the rest of it. It's not really easy to find a bra. And the bra that I am wearing is, I got from a fat ladies' catalogue. And they call it a jogging bra. Although, I have to tell you the truth, I haven't seen many women my size jogging.

HELEN: When I was in high school, and I was in a sorority and we used to do Friday dinners together. And it was one time after Valentine's Day, and she was just one of those girls, who was amazing looking. She had blonde hair, she had big tits. She was fabulous looking. She said I've got to show you what Gibby gave me for Valentine's Day. She opened up her blouse, and all she does was just pulled back like this. And she was wearing a bra, a brassiere, that had a heart on it. It had his initials embroidered in it. I mean it was just a gas.

NELL: Are you serious?

HELEN: It was amazing. It was all part of that look, you know that look in the fifties to be big breasted and wear all that great underwear. You don't wear underwear when you have no tits. You were wearing white cotton slips, you were wearing white cotton underwear. You weren't wearing that stuff.

HELENE: I came at the tail end of the flapper era. And the flat chest was really in. Girls with swelling breasts were regarded as somewhat fast. And we all wore, the moment the breasts began to appear, the tightest bra we could find.

K.C.: I don't own a single bra. And in my life time, I've owned one bra.

SUSAN: I sent away for a bra from a company in Seattle. They custom make soft bras. And they have a completely different sizing system. And for them, I was a 58E. And I thought that was hysterical. An E?!

RASHEEDAH: I'm seventeen years old. My breast size is 38Cs.

K.C.: I am a thirty-four, 'cause I have a kind of wide rib cage, barely A. Just fitting into an A.

TERESA: I think I'm going to be a, double, double C in breasts, I don't know. In training bras, in bras, I don't know. I guess I'll see when I grow up.

ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE OF WOMEN'S "BAD BODIES" VERSUS "GOOD BODIES"

TITLE: THE PERFECT WOMAN

MAYA: There are women who have very big earth mother breasts. There are women with perky little titty breasts. There are women with big nipples, with no nipples. And all these breasts are beautiful and they show the variety of women, of bodies, of genders, of expression. The power of breasts is the diversity of breasts.

BELLA: Jessica Rabbit is a perfect woman. So is Betty Boop.

GABRIELLE: This one has the perfect breasts because they're not too small and not too big.

BELLA: The perfect woman was meant to have everything in the right place. She was meant to have a small waist, an hour glass figure, proportional breasts. They don't have to be large. They just have to be proportional. You know, and, um, I always wanted to look like a cartoon character.

EVELYN: I've always had, what I considered to be the right-sized breasts. I've always been very admired for them, you know, when I was growing up. It was the "Sweater Era." And Lana Turner, who just passed away, epitomized that sweater and we wore Maidenform brassieres that stuck out like points. And mine were the like ideal.

ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE OF WOMEN'S BREASTS BEING MEASURED

TITLE: MEASURING UP

MOLLY: An acquaintance of mine, one day, with really big boobs, said, "I gave myself the pencil test." And I, not knowing, this was recently, said, "Oh, what's the pencil test?" and she said "Well, it's to see if your breasts are too saggy or not." And she said, "I passed the pencil test." Which means that the pencil, when put under her breast, fell out, dropped to the ground. Well, I went home, and I took a pencil, and I did the pencil test. I'll show you. A vice-like grip. Means that I have imperfect breasts. My breasts fail, so there you have it.

KATIE: I was about twenty-seven years old and I went to buy a bra and they didn't have size 28 AA so I took some size 30s into the dressing room and the saleslady... sort of barged into the dressing room as I was taking the bra off, looked at me, and almost screamed in my face, "Oh, my God, you have no breasts!" She ran away, as I quickly was trying, to put on my clothes, brought another woman in and said, "Show her. Show her you have no breasts." It was so humiliating.

K.C.: The myth that only women with big breasts are desirable to men is just a lie, it's a complete lie. I've never felt inadequate, I've never felt less desirable because I have less breasts.

EVELYN: To me, my children, no matter what their bodies look like, are beautiful. And she does have a beautiful body, but I've always wondered how she felt about her breasts because I know what breasts mean in this society I know that they meant when I was growing up and she wants to be an actress and how important society views these full sexy breasts, so when she said she was very satisfied with her breasts I've never known if she meant it or if it was sort of like sour grapes. Did you mean it?

SHANA: Do you want to know?

EVELYN: Yeah!

SHANA: Of course I meant it. I always liked the fact that I never had to wear a bra if I didn't want to, and I could wear certain things that you know, were revealing. And I felt free about it.

EVELYN: You didn't bounce around.

SHANA: No, I like my breasts the way they are.

RASHEEDAH: I wouldn't change anything about my breasts. Nothing!

ARCHIVAL SEQUENCE ABOUT ACHIEVING A GOOD FIGURE

TITLE: BIGGER

ARCHIVAL V.O.: There’s one thing that every woman wants and it’s awfully hard to get and awfully easy to lose. I mean a good figure. A perfect figure is something that very few women ever achieve.

RACINE: I got these huge nipples, as we can all see. These really... big, gigantic nipples, and, um but I wasn't really happy with my breasts because they were really small although it was fine to have small breasts. This was back in the eighties. I was tall and skinny. Small breasts was fine. But, for me, I wasn't happy. So I went from having none to getting my first pair of silicone breast implants.

BELLA: I had perfect sized breasts before the baby. They were C cups. They were very... they were perfect for my proportions, so I would have never gotten them enlarged unless they got deformed like that. They were... they really looked terrible after the baby.

KATIE: I didn't have a man in my life, I wasn't married at the time. I wasn't dating. I didn't get them to attract men. And I wasn't dating not because there weren't men around. I mean, I was cute, all I had to do was go like this (beckons with finger) and I could have somebody. So it had nothing to with that.

LURA: During an augmentation they either put an implant over your pectoral muscle or underneath it. And they can either do it here or here.

RACINE: ...which there would have been an ugly scar or through my armpit.

LURA: And mine are here.

RACINE: The small scar right there, which he went in through...

LURA: ...they roll them up and stick them in there and they unfold them and then they pump them up...

BELLA: (squeezing breasts) See, this one is softer. This one is harder than this one.

KATIE: Well, you don't see them for two days. You're bandaged, so the suspense sort of, um, builds. And then when they took the bandages off and I looked down... I was completely horrified. I just wanted a little bit of breast, enough to fill out an A cup. I didn't want, like, a C cup. I was...I was...I was stunned. I was completely horrified ...when I saw them.

BELLA: I should have got them larger. Because they're still saggy. And you can really see that they're implants because you see this contour over here. Men don't know the difference, but to a professional eye you can really see the difference.

LURA: I don't think they look real in the slightest. I've seen real breasts that look great. I've seen real breasts that look terrible. I’ve seen fake breasts that look great. I've seen fake breasts that look terrible. And looking good and looking real are not necessarily synonymous. It's whether you like them and they're fine, so I got what I wanted out of it. I don't expect them to look real. It's not what I wanted.

RACINE: Some of you may know and some of you may not know, but I didn't start out this way. I was born a male and over the course of the past thirty-one years have sort of transformed myself into a female, which I should have been from the get-go, but, you know, there's... mistakes are made...but I feel, definitely and...um...unconditionally that my breasts are the best thing that has ever happened to me.

TITLE: SILICONE

ARCHIVE FOOTAGE ON THE DANGERS OF SILICONE GEL IMPLANTS.

V.O.: Silicone can cause infection, leakage, hardening of the breasts...It showss a company that put a product on the market that was profit-driven and not safety-driven. Plastic surgeons have launched a multi-million dollar lobbying effort. Silicone implants can break or more often leak...leaking silicone into the body, causing cancer or causing auto-immune diseases... I am asking physicians to cease using silicone-gel implants.

KATIE: This isn't anything I can prove, and I didn't understand until a lot of the information came out in '92 when silicone was taken off...when it was taken off the market. But all of a sudden it explained something to me. I was told, one, it was innocuous and that if I was in the most severe automobile accident and a breast were to be punctured that it would just flow through my body and it's... it's not...silicone is in everything...it's not ...it's nothing...it was nothing...it was innocuous. Well, I realize now that I have some immune problems. I've had the flu six times in the last four years, which is not normal. Before the age of thirty-five, I had one cold and I had the flu once. I know my immune system has been compromised. I'm concerned about that...because what about...what about it getting older, degrading and I was told, "Yes, the life span is twenty years." And I said I wasn't told that when I... when I got my implants. And the doctor said the doctors didn't know it either at the time. So every year that goes by now I, I'm living with a time bomb. It would actually be worse if they did an explant because they have to scrape tissue to get the explant out. And I already told you I had no breasts so apparently I would be concave. I was proud of myself for years until I realized that silicone was probably destroying my health then I felt foolish ...and deceived by what I was told.

ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE OF BREAST EXAM

ARCHIVAL V.O.: No part of your body will be overlooked as your doctor probes and feels. Some organs, such as your breasts, receive special attention.

TITLE: THE BREAST EXAM

K.C.: Okay, my doctor experience. This falls under the category of bad breast experiences.

BIRGITTE: I went to the doctor for a routine, I thought I had an ear infection.

K.C.: So I went to the doctor to get a throat culture.

BIRGITTE: Ten minutes into the exam, I suddenly was told that I needed a breast exam.

K.C.: And he said to me, "Okay, let's do a throat culture, and we better examine your breasts."

BIRGITTE: And if he looked at my medical records he would have known that two weeks before that I had had a full gynecological exam with a breast exam.

K.C.: The following time when I came back when I thought I had mono, he said, "It sounds like you have mono, we better do a blood test and we better examine your breasts."

BIRGITTE: So I definitely didn't need a breast exam, but he thought I did.

K.C.: And I was thinking, "Well, this is kind of weird. I don't really understand why he'd want to examine my breasts if I have strep throat, but of course it couldn't be anything sleazy, because he couldn't possibly want to cop a feel on my tiny tits. He'd only do that to a woman with big breasts.

ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE OF WOMEN IN BIKINIS

TITLE: MASTOCONCUPISCENCE: N: AN UNNATURAL OBSESSION WITH BREASTS

BELLA: Men act really silly next to a nude woman. And the breasts are a big part of it no matter what they say. You know some men say they prefer small breasts, some men say they prefer large breasts. The moment they see breasts period they just... you know, forget all...everything they claim to really mean.

BIRGITTE: I think it's a mother thing, they feel really comfortable. They feel like they're being mothered and being taken care of and and loved and, and nurtured. I think that's what the big breast thing is.

LISHA: I met him through a friend and we went out on a date to the movies and as I'm watching the movies he's watching my breasts and and, you know, and I, he's doing like this and I catch him looking at me on the side and I'm like is there something and oh no no no no no I'm like oh, how's the movie, he's like oh fine, fine, fine. I'm sitting there watching the movie, watching the movie. You know doing one of these, and he's doing one of these you know, so...

SUSAN: Well I do, I do stand-up comedy and one of the first things I do when I go out on stage is because as I'm approaching the stage I hear people in the audience going oh my God and then the little comments because whether or not they're willing to admit it, half of the men in the room are staring at me, and probably wondering if she's that big everywhere else, she must have some set of hooters.

LISHA: My husband didn't want me to show my breasts completely because then he would have no more privacy, these would not be his anymore they would be America's and he wouldn't have anything left for himself because everyone would know what he has.

EVELYN: I remember when I was waitressing in a hotel, and I met this older man, who was waiting there, very nice man and we became friendly and he got drunk one night and he sort of like made a thrust towards my breasts and made some kind of obscene remake like.....you know like, "Oh those bambas!" And I remember being so disappointed and so disgusted. And yet I wanted to look provocative.

"LOLITA" MOVIE TRAILER

TITLE: LOLITA

K.C.: This is what I think men like about my breasts. It's the total pre-pubescent thing. It's like a way for them to indulge in their Lolita fantasy of like because my breasts are basically the same size they were when I was fourteen or fifteen when I was at that Lolita age and um but I'm not fourteen anymore but if the lights are off and you kind of catch me in the right mood. I can look like I'm fourteen and I think a lot of men really like that. I like represent um their first girlfriend you know Susie whatever her name was who um you know they kissed once you know in the boiler room in high school but never got to go all the way with and now they do.

ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE OF SMALL BREASTED FLAPPER TYPES

TITLE: SMALLER

NELL: I never regret ever in a million years getting my breasts reduced in fact I just had my five year anniversary the other day and it kinda of came upon me by surprise

HELEN: June first?

NELL: June first and I realized and I thought God five years since I had whales. I mean my friends and my sister used to call my breasts Shamu!

HELEN: They did?

NELL: Oh yeah, or just or just the beached whale when I was sunburned except for my tits because they were like these large herking white pieces of flesh, fatty tissue flesh. My old bra that was pinned up on the corkboard for a while, I mean this big and one cup would fit over your entire face and that's pretty much what it came down to that. That's when we realized how out of hand the breast scene was. And it was a really basic operation cutting beneath the cup and then up and then around aureola which you can kind of see the scar a bit although they healed really well and I took care of them a lot. And they are the perfect 36C. What do you think about perfect breasts on me?

HELEN: Oh should I be... Am I to respond to what my notion is about your perfect breasts?

NELL: Sure, why not?

HELEN: No I think they're great, I think they're absolutely wonderful.

ARCHIVAL SEQUENCE WITH VEGAS STYLE SHOW GIRLS

TITLE: THE PROFESSIONALS

BELLA: The first reaction I get from men when I work, when I strip is "Are they real?" You know usually oh great tits, gee look at these. I never worried about men looking at you like you are a piece of meat because that's just the way the world, you know? Whether they are blue collar workers or lawyers or doctors or big shots, whatever you wanna call them they all act the same. They all sit there "ahhhhh.." like this and you know and I get a kick out of it.

LURA: Boobs are shoptalk. It's like, I don't know, football players talking about their, you know, knee injuries or what have you, you know, oh you have nice boobs are they over the muscle, are they under the muscle, who's your surgeon, you know, how long ago were they done, oh is he in town, what did he charge, blah blah blah... It's total shoptalk. The way I feel about my breasts is sort of mixed bag because they are my work, they are my tools but they are also part of my body and I love them now partly because they are a creation. I went out, I earned the money, I selected a surgeon, I went through the time, the pain the risk, all this stuff. A good pair of breasts is gonna cost you between three and six thousand dollars, maybe more, it depends on who you go to. That's a lot of money. I'm not gonna throw that kind of money away every day so, um, and they are absolutely, as far as my business is concerned, they are essential, because I cannot get hired at any better clubs without them.

ARCHIVAL SCENE OF WOMAN IN BAR

TITLE: POWER TOOLS

RACINE: I feel that breasts are definitely a power tool. They sort of get me through doors, in doors, behind doors and they sort of give me a certain power that I don't think I've had before even with smaller breasts. I think larger breasts definitely sort of demand right off the bat, more respect.

BIRGITTE: I love it when men notice my breasts and sometimes I'm actually disappointed if they don't.

BELLA: It's just that it makes me more confident because I know the moment that bra comes off I'm in control of the situation.

BIRGITTE: I don't walk around like a topless dancer or something like that, but yes I definitely, my breasts make me feel very powerful and I know that if I want to I can turn it on that night and wear a really revealing outfit and things will happen.

NELL: I like being able to reveal more skin on my breasts or show more cleavage or not or. I mean manipulate the fact that, that is what's sexy about women on some level, that they have breasts and you can use that and you can show cleavage or not, but that’s what sexy about wearing clothes, you can take them off.

HELEN: That's right but, but sexy I don't think has anything to do about breast size.

NELL: No I didn't say breast size, I said breasts...

HELEN: You see this is, you see my own hang ups...

NELL: I know!

HELEN: Because I'm the one who brings in the word size. You didn't say anything about size?

NELL: No.

HELEN: Are you sure?

NELL: No, because it's not, and I'm saying I don't think that it was the size of my breasts that made me more sexy or not, it was my attitude about them following the breast reduction.

HELEN: You're right, you're right that's different.

RASHEEDAH: It's flattering now when older men look at me, it doesn't bother me at all. Sometimes I go through little phases that I wanna act like, I wanna show off, so I wear things like this.

LISHA: I always thought that they controlled me more than I controlled them, so when I first did get intimate with my husband the lights had to be out cause I would not undress in front of him. Period. And when I did take off um, and if I did I dove in under the covers, but once you know everything started free flowing it was fine, but to physically let him look at me I would never... I wouldn't let him look at me for a long time.

ARCHIVAL CARTOON OF MAN TOUCHING WOMAN'S BREASTS

TITLE: OBJECTS OF PLEASURE

RACINE: Breasts are obviously the first thing that you see and when you are in bed with a man, you know, they are there and they are to be played with and fondled and massaged and kissed and licked..

K.C.: It's a real source of pleasure. To have them touched, to have them kissed, a place of, of warmth okay and um love.

MOLLY: He was groping at my breast and I know he was trying to, to find the nipple, putting his mouth like up here, and here... and I felt like oh this is really embarrassing.

RACINE: I think one of the things I would definitely, like to convey to most men, in general, that you should put your money where your mouth is you know. I mean most men they will go on and on about how great breast are and they love big breasts and usually when you get them into bed they don't know what the hell to do with them. They play with them for a few seconds and then they are gone. It's like hello, I'm up here, I need attention, play with me...

BIRGITTE: Men always want to suck on my breasts in bed and they think that I get incredibly turned on to it and it's an incredible sensual experience to me and quiet honestly I could be balancing my check book.

KATIE: Here there is tiny bit of breast tissue and it's sort of like looking for Waldo if one can find that, then I have sensation there and also the nipples um there's the sensation there also.

HELEN: And there also used to be a saying, "The closer to the bone you know the sweeter the meat" so there was that whole thing about, that gave us some hope, those of us with flat chest, you know who bought into that, that was about thirty years ago whatever, but she used to tell me that.

NELL: I don't know about small breasts versus large breasts and nipple sensation. I really. I think for me mostly before the breast reduction I had such kind of amorphous breasts and really no nipple definition there was no echoed of even had much nipple sensation but since then, I mean, it doesn't take much for my nipples to get hard and I like that, that's great.

RACINE: So all you men out there um listen up and um just sort of, you know, do the right thing.

ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE OF BREAST FEEDING INSTRUCTIONAL FILM

TITLE: BABY BOTTLES

GHISLAINE: I call breasts baby bottles because they're big and there's a little a little pink thing just like on baby bottles and the babies drink out of them and it's filled with milk.

JENNIFER: The beginning breast feeding was incredibly traumatic. She would just sit at my breast and turn away and I would be all sweaty and sitting there crying every two hours. At that time I was using a suction pump and I would just be yanking away on my breasts constantly, I felt like this went on for two weeks, the longest two weeks I've ever experienced...shhh... shh... ok... ok.

LISHA: So now you have this little person, this little entity. You have this big breast and somehow you're supposed to get both of them mesh together without anyone showing you how, so I looked at him, he looked at me, he said, "Oh you're my mother." I said, "Beautiful son," I said "Are you hungry?" He said "no," and he went to sleep and I left out of the hospital feeling very inadequate.

EVELYN: I did breast feed all my children and I have to tell you also that when I breast fed they got very large and they felt absolutely wonderful. I can't tell you the feeling I had with these large breasts that fed my children. It was such a earthy mother type of thing that was just so wonderful.

BELLA: My nipples cracked, it was terrible, it was a nightmare, you know I would never have another baby just because of that, because I know that happens and it was terrible.

JENNIFER: When you've had a baby climbing on you and sucking on you and pressed up next to you all day long, sometimes you just need to not be touched at all. So, I, I'm gonna miss the bonding but I will be kind of glad to be able to wear nice sexy bras again and you know and not worry about exposing everything all the time. I'm using them for what they are intended to be used for, when she is not using them then they revert back to sexual objects perhaps but...you know when she is using them they are clearly, I mean they're filled with milk so... Hi...

FOOTAGE OF CANCEROUS CELLS

TITLE: FIBROADENOMA: A HARMLESS LUMP FORMED IN THE BREAST

KARIN: I was 23 when I discovered a lump in my breast and actually I was not the one to discover it um, I was in a routine GYN exam and the gynecologist discovered it which I actually felt pretty ashamed about because I had been doing all this women's health activism and education and talking about breast self exams but the fact was that I was really afraid to do a self exam. When the surgeon suggested I have a biopsy one of the things that I was not consciously acknowledging to myself was what my fears were about the scar. I can actually show you that the scar itself is very light and, um, one of the things that they do is cut along the nipple so that helps disguise it. When I first took the bandages off I was really upset because it was angry looking, it was very red and there were stitches in it and it scared me but as it started to heal there was something about having kind of gone through this experience and survived it that made me feel this bond and I kind of developed this friendship with the scar and I actually sort of decided that it was sexy and got excited about it.

ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE OF DOCTORS, OPERATING ROOM, MAMMOGRAMS, ETC.

TITLE: AN OVERWHELMING SHOCK

MARY: I think of my right breast as the one left behind. The twin that lost its mate, the only one that's left.

HELENE: I never thought much about my breasts until at age 42 I had my first mastectomy. A year and a half later, I had the second. I thought a great deal about my breasts after that.

MARY: The surgeon came to change the dressing and that's when I got my first look at it, and it was much redder that it is now, it was just an angry red scar. I was horrified, words fail me. I couldn't believe it. I knew, of course, that it would be gone, but to see what it looked like was overwhelming.

HELENE: It was really a kind of numbing overwhelming shock. On the other hand as I say there was a sense of relief that it was over and that I had survived. When I asked the surgeon who had done the mastectomy, the first one, whether there was any procedure for substituting for breasts, he laughed and said, you're in your forties, you have a husband, you have two children, why in the world would you be worried about breasts?

MARY: The prosthesis is a piece of silicone. I've had to modify all my bras to put this little pocket in, so this is what it looks like. It's a bag, it's got silicone in it, it's got plastic on the outside. This is the second one I've had, and it's a false breast. If a fairy came along and said okay, I'm going to wave a magic wand and you're going to have two beautiful C breasts, I'd have to think about it. I don't know whether I'd jump for it right away. Because I've done, I've gone through this whole process of rethinking my body image, rethinking myself, who I am. It would mean doing that work all over again, to all of a sudden be a normal female physical person.

HELENE: My husband, by way of being supportive, emphasized that it was not important to him at all. But it became obvious that it was very important. It had an immediate effect on our sexual relationship and one that was never really completely reversed. He died about seven years after the mastectomies. Years later, when I had another relationship, the absence of breasts was again a severe deficiency in our lovemaking, although again, he denied that it meant anything significant to him. It wasn't true. If I allow myself to think of what the cost has been of losing my breast in terms of my relationships with the men I loved, I would give a great deal to have it to do again. It made a very significant difference in our relationships, and it was a loss for them as well as for me. I'd certainly love to have a chance to do it again with both breasts intact.

MAYA: These two mounts of flesh hold a great amount of meaning, a great amount of power.

ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE OF WOMEN TAKING OFF TOPS

TITLE: THE STRONG BREAST REVOLUTION

MAYA: Strong Breast Revolution is a time for women to come out, feel their breasts flapping in the wind, feel the power, feel the strength. To be fierce, to be loving, to see other women, to be with other women. Taking off those shirts, taking of those bras and feeling what it's like to sit in the grass and have the sun hit them to get a sunburn on your tits you know, why not. Strong breasts!

SUSAN: All of this, all of this rhetoric just makes it seems so much more ridiculous and now I have to take off my bra. All right, just don't shoot me taking off my bra. Well these are them. I don't have names for them, I don't paint happy faces on them, I just kind of live with them and they live with me. So this is the thing. Because of the way that my breasts are and the shape and I suppose my weight has a lot to do with it the nipples are just like kind of hidden so I guess there's a little bit of modesty there, right? It's like built in pasties. But I have a friend who's very buxom, to put it mildly, and she calls my breasts wrap-arounds because my breasts are not just two independent units which happen to be attached to my chest, they kind of merge in to the rolls of fat, it's kind of all in one set up... Jeez! I can't believe I'm talking about this. See I don't think I'm poorly endowed, I think they are just right, I mean there's so much stuff here where else could you put more? It just doesn't seem fitting.

ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE OF CLOCKS, OLDER WOMEN DANCING

TITLE: TIME + GRAVITY =...

HELENE: I remember my long term companion saying to me, you really shouldn't feel badly about not having breasts. At your age he said, most women have sagging breasts, you don't have that to worry about, he said you have the boyish look still.

HELEN: Aging and small breasts. Big breasts... You don't have to worry about all that sagging. You don't have to worry about that sagging that goes along with being big breasted and getting old. Um.. so in that sense I don't really think too much... I don't think, you know what, in general, I don't think about my breasts as much as I did when I was younger.

NELL: Really?

HELEN: Yeah.

EVELYN: I don't have the same preoccupation with my body as I did when I was younger of course. That definitely has to change, but it's still there.

KATIE: I'm old now, I'm almost 50, I need to hold on to those looks just a little bit longer I wouldn't mind it just a little bit longer.

MOLLY: And I hear about women, older women, talking about how their breasts are starting to sag and I have no sympathy because mine have always been like this.

EVELYN: They don't stand up anymore and they're not firm anymore but I think for my age they're pretty good and I'm satisfied with them, I think they're fine. And I also have to tell you that when I took my top off I felt really very uncomfortable, and very peculiar, but now I feel marvelous. I just feel free and natural and uninhibited and loose and great.

SHANA: So you'll be going topless with me at the beach?

EVELYN: No. If I looked like you I'd go topless but not the way I look.

SHANA: You look fine!

END CREDITS