A Breast By Any Other Name …

Boobs or breasts?

I admit it: I just can’t call my breasts by affectionate nicknames.

Well, I take that back. I do call them my “girls” occasionally. However, there are a whole host of names that I just can’t call them.  One of those names is “boobs.”  

I realize that some women consider “boobs” much more friendly than the more clinical “breasts.” While I can understand what they are trying to get at, I just can’t agree. The term “boobs” strikes me as much too derogatory to be friendly. After all, I’ve heard one too many a bad driver called a “boob” for me to ever want to call one of my favorite body parts by that name.

Personally, I find it funny that full-grown women can’t call their own body parts by their real names. We’re not talking about a crude or rude name for that obvious sign of femaleness. It’s the name that you’ll find in the anatomy books.

I’ve never seen the word “boob” in an anatomy book.

I suppose in life it’s all about names. We want to give things names that appeal to us. We hate to sound as if we’re out of step, out of fashion or over the hill. We want to be trendy. We want to be “hip.”

Here’s a great example: no one wears a girdle anymore – they wear Spanx. When I was a kid, my mom wore a girdle. She called it a girdle. Her friends called it a girdle. Today, no one would be caught dead in a girdle. In fact, the whole girdle business has morphed itself into the “shapewear” business, which has exactly the same objective as the lowly girdle. We’re trying to get all of our bits to lie nicely.

Another fashion undergarment from years gone by is the “long-line” bra. My mom had one of these too. She wore it for those more structured fashions. She clearly wore it to feel sexy, as it was standard on any date with my dad. No one has a long-line bra anymore: they wear a bustier or a basque.

So, the next time you put on your shapewear, slide into your bustier or pull on those control top panty hose, consider taking a chance and calling your “girls” your breasts.