I declined when Josveek Huligar invited me to participate in Anguilla’s Save the Boobies 2019 Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign. Josveek and I are cordial, and whether he knows his starboard from his stern, I along with many of the 2.9K members of the The Captain’s Lounge, the Facebook group he founded, acknowledge that he’s raising the energy around Anguilla’s boat racing. To my mind, (and I know they’re not even vaguely analogous), breast cancer is at least equally deserving of attention as boat racing. So why then did I excuse myself from membership in Save the Boobies when it’s fundamentally a matter of life and death?
My gut reaction was “I’m not brave enough!” But I promised to reconsider Save the Boobies overnight and to give a final response the following day. Back home, scrolling in bed, FB reminded me of somethings I’d posted 4 years to the date. “Breast cancer awareness is meant to save lives not boobies” it admonished, “Mammogram not Instagram!”
I mulled it over. Maybe my 4-years-younger self had already known why I’d say “No” to Save the Boobies? No doubt, when compared to chemotherapy and radiation, mastectomy is still among the least physically debilitating treatments available for breast cancer. This means that the breast(s) often can’t be saved if we want to save the lives. The Save the Boobies campaign was starting to look like the Speed and Comfort on the 2019 Blowing Point race (UFO sank her).
But is photographing the bosom equivalent to sexualization? Mammography is a sort of photography and for those of us that have had our breasts squeezed on cold metal plates within an inch of Johnny-cake thinness – we know there’s nothing sexy about that. The sexualization label is reserved for those initiatives – and Anguilla’s Save the Boobies is just one of many worldwide – that utilize primarily female models (breast cancer is more prevalent in women than men) wearing lingerie, swimsuits or partially clothed, to raise awareness and in some cases raise funds for Breast Cancer prevention, detection, treatment and research.
Is baring our breasts sexual? Not necessarily. I am a fifty-something woman who grew up in the seventies and eighties in the Southern Caribbean. Public breastfeeding was fairly common. I understood a publicly unclothed breast to be directly related to infant health and well-being. More generally, various levels of non-sexualised dishabille were also common in the neighborhood back yards and beaches and other public spaces of my childhood.
On the other hand, I’d have to agree that baring our breast(s) IS sexual. I remember the first girl in my Grade 5 class to wear a training bra. I remember mine. White. Lacy. More like a vest. I wore it to school. It wasn’t required on weekends (except to church). I figured out its main job was to hide my nipples (because I had nothing to fill it out) and indoctrinate me into the false desirability of lacy underthings (I now believe that cotton is way more comfortable). But from Grade 5 even before we experienced the less visible markers of womanhood (menses, pubic hair), we all could very visibly see that our breasts distinguished us from the boys…and from the ‘little’ girls.
I’d be willing to bet that nearly every woman diagnosed with breast cancer and having to undergo a mastectomy would face some level of female identity crisis above and beyond their fundamental physical disease. If we lose our breast(s), will we still be sexy? Will we ever wear a swimsuit again? Will we ever ‘feel’ for sex after our breasts are gone? Will our partner find us desirable? Women who undergo hysterectomies question their wholeness as women. Imagine how much tougher it must be for the female sexual identity when we wear the loss so visibly on our chests.
So we come back full circle to Anguilla’s version of Save the Boobies. I went online to check out the 2019 campaign so far. There were 5 posts by October 13th. Each accompanied by a short informative tidbit related to breast cancer. The photos are lovely. Real. Well done Josveek!. Congratulations to every model! If there’s make up it’s not overdone. There’s cleavage (mature and youthful), chest, skin, arms. There are even legs and feet. And there are faces. Two of them are women I know. The Save the Boobies campaign is definitely Body Positive. But sexualized? I don’t think so. And so what if it is? The race against cancer is like a boat race; different boats, different trim but all heading to get round the buoy and win!
CARLA HARRIS
