Two Boob or Not Two Boob?

If you were to ask me my favorite book when I was ten, I would have replied confidently: “Redwall.”

For those who were not as fortunate to have this piece of literature grace their childhood, it is the first in a children’s fantasy series about a group of good-hearted mice going to war against an evil rat, Cluny the Scourge, and his horde of woodland creatures. It’s adventure, it’s bloody, it’s brutal—it’s what all the fourth grade boys were reading in the 2002 elementary school scene. And at this particular time in my life, I took great care in observing what boys were doing.

Growing up with two brothers prepares you early on for the balancing act of living in the hyper-feminized world of a pubescent tween girl while still being able to be “one of the guys.” It’s a precarious thing—finding this intricate meshing between burping on purpose and painting your nails. Other girls would learn this later in college as they begin to hang at frat houses and “keep up” by chugging beers in their spandex-tight skirts. But for me, it started with being able to successfully peel and spit sunflower seeds at my brothers’ baseball games.

I pretended to be interested in video games and parroted athletes’ names I’d heard my dad talk about. I’d play Super Smash Bros. but only if I got to be Jigglypuff, the fluffiest and pinkest Pokémon in existence, whose strongest power is singing other players to sleep. I set limits for myself on each “boyish” endeavor I learned, so as not to master it more than my male counterparts. (“Be competitive but not threatening” was a Seventeen tip about flirting I most certainly took too far and out of context.) My first makeup experiment was inspired by Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean. I remember parading around the house, proclaiming loudly: “If Johnny Depp can wear eyeliner, then so can I!”

I was your average fourth grade girl. But I was also “just one of the guys.”

Dissecting and categorizing every movie, slumber party activity, or Pac Sun T-shirt I came across, it became difficult to determine if something was interesting to me as myself or interesting as “one of the boys”. Lest she think I was becoming too feminine, it took me months to work up the courage and tell my mom that I wanted to start shaving my legs. It was a skewed way to grow up because it was not entirely fair.

In Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, readers aren’t supposed to like her dark-minded female lead, Amy. But when I arrived at the chapter where she depicts her persona of Cool Girl Amy—the archetypal “hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer…”—I almost dog-eared the page. “DAMN, GILLIAN GETS IT,” I thought. I reflected on my own experiences as her words continued to resonate: “Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want.” I realize it is a caricature of a personality but the idea of putting on an air about oneself, being the “bro with breasts”—I had never related to a piece of fiction more.

That was not all me: That girl, trying to successfully use Jigglypuff’s star power on Link and Mewtew atop Donkey Kong’s tree house was Cool Girl. The girl that always had to pick her boyfriend up because he “just didn’t see the reason to have a driver’s license.” Yeah, that—along with her gas money—was Cool Girl too. And no, I have never actually enjoyed giving a blowjob. No one, aside from Cool Girl, likes sucking a dick as much as they say they do.

Cool Girl is a perfect summation of my feelings growing up and, indeed, she is still alive with me today. Within any initial interactions with a male, I will always make it known that I can A) shotgun a beer at any given moment and B) find a way to work the word “fuck” seamlessly into normal conversation. I have barely mastered one of these things. Cool Girl has to present herself before I can truly be myself and sometimes, she really gets in the way.

Back in the 2002 elementary school scene, between neighborhood-wide flashlight tag and fishing for crawdads in the creek, my peers began to talk about training bras and boobs. According to my subconscious Cool Girl mental guide, “breasts” fell hard into the category of things I should be absolutely uninterested in. I knew I was going to be a woman, yes, but I was going to be a “cool” woman. I wasn’t going to have boobs! I had no desire to carry around these external attachments of flesh that would so outwardly present myself as a female.

So there I was—a gangly, frizzy-haired fourth grade honor student and I thought having boobs was a choice. If there was ever a need to prove just how flawed the “birds and the bees” unit is for young people in our educational system, perhaps the fact that I confidently assumed having breasts is a decision—like checking off a box on a multiple choice quiz—that women had to make, is a stark and screaming example.

One substitute teacher we often had was also the mother of one of our school’s most “tom-boy” girls. I vividly remember her and noticing in a light gray V-neck how particularly small her breasts were. I thought, “How cool of her. She doesn’t have to deal with all that.” Her daughter starred in every Capture the Flag game and won the Presidential badges in gym class. Who better to be my inspiration in becoming a boob-less anti-woman? It was decided. I was “not two boob.” At the time, I didn’t know I was defying biology—I just thought I was being a Cool Girl.

We grow up in environments that demand to know our identity in so many different ways. How many and which color elastic band bracelets you wore around your wrists meant something. What would joining the handbell choir say about me? People expect you to know what you want to be when you grow up by the time you enter high school. There was a lot I had to sort out—boobs seemed to be an easy and definite “no.”

For as much as discussion as there is about body positivity and loving the skin we’re in, there is so much going on in our bodies biologically—37 trillion cells bouncing around—that we get absolutely no say in. While I can’t consciously tell my heart to stop pumping blood, I do try and will my 23-year-old hips to stop expanding for the baby I’m not (and maybe never will be) ready to have. (There are some days I look in the mirror and I feel this voodoo magic just might be working.)

But not even mental preparation and Karma energy could work against the burden of breasts that was to come. It was a matter of weeks after I made my very-adult-fourth-grade decision “not two boob,” that mom brought home an extra bag from Kohl’s with several soft, unpadded cotton bras. They were white and lacy, light pink and nude. And just as I despise the cottony colors and too-sweet taste of angel food cake—I hated them. There wasn’t much explanation that took place between my mom and I, except that I started to be more aware of my nipples showing prominently from under my Aeropostale polo on the days I refused the bra’s “support.”

I don’t have any regrets, really. But I do wish that I had been more open-minded about my “not two boob” decision (which, of course, was swiftly overridden by biological inevitability.) I think it would have made things a hell of a lot easier. I was so wrapped up in being Cool Girl that I basically neglected the upper half of my torso for two years. Or at least, until I began to learn how to actually appreciate them. If the choice “two boob” was presented to hormone-stuffed fifteen year olds, I don’t think there would be near as much befuddlement. But a Cool Girl fourth grader who read fantasies about mice going to war? I was lost.

Maybe if someone had told me—just as a friendly FYI. I imagine a small, otter on my shoulder in the animated fashion of angel vs. devil dichotomies (this was my favorite character in Redwall). It would speak to me softly in a Marcel the Shell voice:

“Molly, you can see your nipples in that cami—maybe put on the bra you tried to hide in your mom’s underwear drawer!? Just a thought!”

Or maybe it’d be a bit more of a harsh realist:

“Molly, you’re going to have boobs and there’s nothing you can do about it. Prepare to suffer from sore nipples once a month and the male gaze for the rest of eternity.”

Or just simply:

“Molly, you’re going to have boobs. Two of them. It doesn’t make you cool or uncool—but it will become part of who you are, part of your body.”

And I think, back in the fourth grade elementary school scene, I would have thought that to be pretty fucking cool.