Twist of the Wrist

I used to be in a politically radical performance group. For one skit, several of us dressed in suits and pretended to be greedy, sexist businessmen. My friend N. had a line where she was talking about big boobs. Every time she said the line, she cupped her palms inward, as if fondling huge imaginary breasts of her own. We went through several rehearsals, without anyone in our all-female troupe catching on to the inconsistency of this gesture. It took a visitor, I’m pretty sure it was a guy, to point out that no male chauvinist would pantomime a pair of tits as being his own. From that moment on, N twisted her palms away from herself and grabbed invisible breasts belonging to someone else. It really improved the piece, and made her persona believable.

I think about this theatre bit whenever I read about reconstructed breasts “feeling” natural. I know they’re not able to re-attach the severed nerves. I can’t imagine the transferred flesh they stitch on as a nipple is able to communicate anything but the vaguest pleasure or pain back to the brain. Doesn’t it feel like a big numb lump? I don’t know. I should ask someone.

But I strongly suspect that when patients or their doctors refer to reconstructed breasts as “feeling” natural, they are talking about the way they feel in the hand of someone not connected to them. I haven’t read anything that talks about how it feels to the woman wearing the breast.

This is what I would care about if I was considering the surgery. How will it look to me, and how will it feel…to ME. I mean, why does it matter what it feels like to another person?

I understand and agree that the full, warm, squishy-ness of a woman’s breast makes a friendly handful. But, come on. The really cool thing, the thing that matters, about touching a woman’s breast is how it makes her feel, right? It makes her feel good. It makes her excited. It makes her want you to touch her more, and in other places. The way the nipple shifts and changes is confirmation that you are successfully communicating your desires, and making her feel them too. You’re connected. You’re contagious. You’re hot, hot, hot.

It seems to me that all the people, both doctors and paitents, who write and talk about re-contructed breasts feeling "natural" have got their wrists twisted the wrong way. Only by turning them around are we going to get the right answer, because the question is not, "How do these breasts feel to a hand?" The question is, "How do they feel to a person?"