“I am not my tits”

When your insecurity is something our society generally sees as a blessing, it’s hard to find the words to explain how something so good can become so overwhelmingly negative.

What I think it boils down to is when you have the mind of a child but the body of a woman your life gets a little confusing, and at times overwhelming and scary. I think, like most every person in their adolescence, the main question driving the past years of my life is a deceptively simple one: “Who am I?”, and as an incredibly social, loving, sensitive person I fell into the trap of letting other people answer that question for me. And the thing most people notice about me right away, the thing I’m most complimented on and the part about me most envied over by other women are my set of 34Fs.

Over my teen years I’ve become so insecure about who I am that I hide behind my breasts and when thrown into unfamiliar social circles put on a overtly sexy, flirtatious exterior completely unbefitting a 19 year old, and more than that, completely unbefitting me. I am smart. I am talented. I can hold my own in discussions from history to physics and I am a voracious reader. I use words like voracious on a regular basis. But somehow after spending time with a group of people I thought I was becoming friends with, they described me to a newcomer as a flirt who would play him and break his heart with one bat of my eyes.

I am more than a body. But since I was just a kid I have been dealing with wandering eyes and blatant comments. From wolf whistles to, “Hey, tits! Look over here!” from frat boys I pass on the streets, I feel defined by what are meant to be milk glands for my future children on my chest. I can’t in good conscience sit here and play the victim though. I have been that girl in the revealing dress and the too tight shirt and the one who played dumb just to get attention. Because all I thought I wanted or needed was attention, especially from men. And I know I have made my share of mistakes and broken as many hearts as have broken mine. But now as I’m growing up a little I realize attention for the sake of attention is not fulfilling at all. Now I want attention for who I am, what I say, what I do. Of course my body will always be a part of that, but I want it to be just that–a PART.

I want to be beautiful, I am grateful I am beautiful, but I want others to know and appreciate the other parts of me too. I want others to know it, and, most importantly, I want to finally believe it for myself.