Breasts Boobs Ta-Tas

One of my colleagues went off on a tirade the other day at a breakfast meeting. I'm not sure how the conversation started, but she was commenting on having read an opinion piece about the "Go Pink" campaign in support of breast cancer research and breast cancer survivors. The general focus of the point of view was a negative response to the over marketing of 'pink' products in the name of fund raising. The argument, of course, that more people are personally profiting from the 'go pink' sales than the actual source of research needed to bring about change in diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of breast cancer. Then she went on in her rant to express her own personal disgust with the "Save the ta-tas" t-shirts and bumper stickers she had been seeing around. "Perhaps," she admitted, "it has something to do with age. But if I were to ever get breast cancer, and had to deal with everything that comes with it, I certainly would not want anyone referring to my breasts as 'ta-tas.' And I certainly wouldn't refer to them that way."

I didn't respond to her impassioned speech in the moment, because I respect her a great deal, and I also disagreed with her in part. I didn't really feel like 'going off' on her 'going off.'

But, of course, the in-my-head response to her not referring to her breasts as 'ta-tas'?

Well then don't.

But don't get angry at other people expressing their support in a way that is comfortable to them.

In the moment that she was most vehement about the degradation of a woman's anatomy, and in the moment most people who know my feminists proclivities would think I would be rallying right by her side, I was actually thinking of a student of mine. A very robust, buxom, young woman who wore her "Save the ta-tas" sweatshirt to class. My response? "I haven't seen that one before." Which allowed her to openly discuss her aunt's bout with, and eventual recovery from, breast cancer. She was proud to wear the message, across her own large ta-tas, and seemed eager to share the story of how she helped her aunt through a very difficult time in her life.

And she never once used the word 'breasts' except in combination with the word 'cancer.'

An age difference? How about maybe a class difference?

This student is poor. Her family are all poor to nearly destitute. I can only imagine from my brief conversation with her, and hearing her say the words boobs, boobie, and ta-tas not in combination with the word cancer, that she and her family most likely never used the word breasts to describe a woman's anatomy outside of medical terminology.

That my colleague was so incensed at other people's use of the 'lower end' terminology made me think it was an elitist response to an illness that is not elitist. Cancer is indiscriminate. Being about to talk about boobs and ta-tas was the language my student knew and felt comfortable using in her expression of her life experience. Would she have been able to share her story without using those words were she to be reprimanded or otherwise been made conscious of a degrading nature of the language? I'm sure she could have, but then it would no longer be her story, and she perhaps would not feel as comfortable in sharing it as she had.

We are always telling our students to 'find their own voice' and to 'write in the language that they know.' It's how we have such wonderful prose from writers like Dorothy Allison, Allison Walker, Sherman Alexie, and Ira Sukrungruang. That we might be uncomfortable with some of the ways they put words together, some of the terminology that they may use is exactly what makes their writing so strong and so real. If we are discomforted by it, it's not their fault; it's ours.

So, to my colleague, I say if you don't like the terminology, then don't use it. If you get breast cancer (heaven forbid), then share the story of your experience using language with which you are comfortable. If in doing so, others might refer to your anatomy using terms with with you are not comfortable, tell them so, tell them why, and offer them the alternative which is acceptable to you. But don't take away from others the language which empowers them to share their life experiences. Don't silence their stories for the sake of your own sense of what is acceptable. Please do not silence their attempt to support and to heal using the language they know and with which they find themselves, with which they can most identify.

In this struggle to make devastating health issues a concern of the past, we need more ways to talk about them, cope with them, learn about them, and heal from them, not fewer. And this learning, coping and healing is for everyone, from all walks of life, who use all kinds of language to express themselves. Devastation and hope are not elitist emotions. We all feel them in response to this issue of cancer. We all need to talk about them. And we all need to listen and hear and heal beyond the surface level of language to the deeper sense of what it means to be human.