Nope, It’s Still Not Ok For You To Talk About My Boobs

I watched Pamela, a Love Story on Netflix last week, and by the middle of the movie, I was seething with anger. I watched as the documentary showed clips of several men commenting on Pamela Anderson’s breast implants on talk shows. On live television. With zero apologies. It was their presumed right to point them out, make fun of her, and ask the same questions repeatedly.

I remember watching a lot of these interviews when they originally took place back in the ‘90s, and at the time I didn’t flinch. It was the norm, and no one was held accountable for this misogynistic behavior. Sure, we’ve grown a lot as a society since, but some people still seem to think famous women or really anybody who decides to get breast implants and wear low-cut clothing is asking people to say something because they’re attention-seeking. It’s happened to a lot of celebrities: Salma Hayek, Sophia Vergara, Katy Perry; they’ve all been asked if their boobs are real. I say it’s 2023, and it’s time we all (finally) learn that commenting on someone else’s body isn’t okay. Ever.

I can understand a little bit of what Anderson went through. When I was younger, I had much larger breasts than all my friends and constantly tried to hide them. I never liked going to the beach because I felt like I would get teased. I was self-conscious and always wore a one-piece suit that could smash down my chest.

It wasn’t just me being a self-conscious teenager, either. I wore the same tops my friends did, only I filled them out more. Older boys and men made comments that made me feel uncomfortable about my chest, and some of my friends would make fun of me. It was as if they thought it was acceptable behavior just because I was large-chested. Once while I was working at a clothing store, a woman came up to me and said my “boob job was out of proportion with my body.” It was in front of a bunch of customers and I had to swallow hard to fight back the tears. I was a teenager! What was this woman thinking?

I’d like to think the ‘90s were just a totally different time, but my teenage daughter is now going through the same thing. If we go to the beach, she won’t take her T-shirt off. Grown women and men have said something to her about how she dresses and her body. And every time, I get so angry because it’s beyond me why people feel entitled to comment about how someone looks.

Being a woman in our society, whether you’ve had plastic surgery or not, does not mean you are on display for others to critique. We should be allowed to wear what we want without anyone commenting on it. We deserve to walk around without anyone making comments about what we are wearing, our bodies, or the plastic surgery we may or may not have had. If we want bigger breasts, who cares? If we wish to do a facelift and lip filler, that’s our business. If we want to wear a low-cut dress, it’s not up for discussion.

We need to recognize making comments about bodies impacts how younger generations feel about themselves and morph their idea of what a healthy body image is. It shouldn’t even be a thing that they have to listen to but unfortunately, that’s not the world we live in. And it's our job as parents to remind them that it’s not okay to comment about someone’s body, and it’s not okay if someone comments about theirs.