Boobs Are Back In Town

 When I was a teenager, some of the raciest movies we saw were really nothing compared to...well, I saw Lord Of War, and the sex scenes in that would eclipse a lot of what made us gasp in the 80's.
Like Fatal Attraction...although FA was less about boobs than about adultery. Not so withDangerous Liassons. It showed women wearing corsets.
Their boobs would be pushed up out of the dress, turning them into bulging melons. When Uma Thurman or Michelle Pfeiffer took a breath, so did their bosoms.

Disclosure, with Demi Moore, showed the power of a female boss (with big breasts) and the dilemma of the lucky (some would say poor)man working for (some would say under) her.
In the movie Me, Myself and Irene, Jim Carrey walks by a women breastfeeding on a public bench. Seconds later, he is suckling - but then he is beside himself. Same thing in the french flick, Betty Blue.


Many men though, understand that compulsion. It may be funny, but it remains powerful.
In Marilyn Monroe's era I think boobs were big too. Because she put them, and just about everything else, on the map. Well, what I mean is, on display.It took a while, to catch on everywhere else. It's starting to catch on - furiously - in China. Sexual openness I mean, and everything that goes along with that; sex before marriage, teenage rebellion, experimentation, overindulgence, unplanned pregnancies, disease, and somewhere in that heady mix, some deliriously happy teenagers.

Today the icon is Angelina Jolie. She's stylish, she's intelligent, and she's not afraid to be sexy. Men want her, and women want to be her.

But growing up in Bloemfontein, boobs were always under wraps. Maybe that's what made it so hard to grow up. Or why some people took so long to grow up here. I know I took longer than most. Legs were okay. Bloemfontein girls weren't shy to show their long legs. And after legs, midriff and bellybutton, but not boobs.

I have been out of South Africa for four years, living in a country that is even more conservative - actually, a lot more conservative. In a way, asian women have to be more conservative, they have little choice. Did you catch that? Because...because they have little to work with.
But in my last year I noticed the Pamela Anderson effect starting to emerge. Not in a great bloom...but in a cautious budding, a slow swelling of confidence.

Being back in South Africa, and Bloemfontein, I am pretty stomgeslaan that boobs are so...well...in your face. It's common in South Korea to have plastic surgery on the nose and eyes. Here, it's pretty common to get lifts, implants and more delicate procedures, all to the breast to get our attention.
I'm not complaining.
I just sometimes feel that I might run out of eyetime (as opposed to airtime) when running a random errand, and jugglers catch the eye. When you're focussed on the goal that's ahead of you, breasts can lead you astray.
Still, I hope they'll be around for a long time yet. That way, there'll be enough time to take it all in ;-)