How to Have Sex

Big Mouths Only — A Breast Story

If you want to suckle, you’d better have all of your teeth. Confessions of a childless 30-something

It wasn’t until after my dad died that I grew breasts. I was 28 years old.

I don’t remember being born. My earliest memory is the fear of being. I felt my existence unloved and alone. My inability to communicate my plight was only one of the problems in my childhood home surrounding the time of my birth, but it was the problem that affected me the most.

This is my breast story, but it is also the story of the tiny baby girl in her crib, fearing her being. She needed a kind smile and to be held close but instead, she grew into a small child looking for answers as to why no one came.

A haunting discovery

She wondered why her parents couldn’t look her in the eye. She saw the guilt and aversion in her mother’s face when she sought love and thought that it must have been that she wasn’t…right. Perhaps she wasn’t made correctly.

One day, her father told her a story. It was after the third of three girls was born. He said that he had been sure they were having a boy three times and it never happened. Our family would never be “blessed” with a boy.

It seems my father was led on; persons in our local hospitals erroneously predicted his boys by listening to the strength of my sisters’ and my heartbeats. Well, it seems the combination of my mother and father made three women with very strong heartbeats. He was devastated.

When I asked him if he wanted a boy he looked sheepish. In time I found out that he wanted a male heir to pass along his property and legacy, but at the time he assured me that he wouldn’t trade any of us for anything.

That didn’t allow me to forget. The idea that was planted in my mind grew to become my truth: that he would have preferred me as a boy if I had just been born that way.

A decision made

I didn’t do it for his property (I didn’t know what that was at the time) and I didn’t do it for favor, but I was a gap filler and I was often told I had “a boy’s name.” It just made sense. I decided that I would be as much a boy as I could for our family. If we needed one, I would try.

Despite my best efforts to provide my father with a male heir, I was raised to be a mother, to care for my father, and to put my family before everything and everyone, including my own needs.

My mouthfuls

When my parents divorced, I became his confidante. We talked about everything. One time I told him I was worried my breasts were too small and he told my 15-year-old ears not to worry, “Men are only looking for a mouthful.”

That didn’t resonate with me. I laughed it off for him.

If only I knew then what I know now:

…that he meant only men were meant for my mouthfuls, and he would disown me when he found out I had shared them with a woman.

…that he always thought of me as less than a boy, no matter how hard I tried.

…that my entire body was stunted by my desire to be what he needed. My periods didn’t begin until I was 13 and I was mortified by my femininity.

…that when he died and I was allowed to thrive, to live freely, to own my sex and my body without fear of him and his God, I grew breasts.

I won’t argue the suckleability of breasts. I am absolutely pro-suckling.

At 36, I am still leery of abandoning my breasts to any human devoid of teeth. Also, I require that the suckling human possess the ability to receive and respond to communication and sense minuscule degrees of nibbling pressure.

That doesn’t keep people from asking when I am going to donate my 8-year-old breasts to a toothless human who I must first grow, inside of me, until it grows so big that my body pushes it out in hopes that it won’t die and I won’t rupture.

For now, because I get to choose, big mouths only. I don’t care to donate them, even temporarily, just yet. Until then, I will continue to enjoy them. Sucklers welcome.

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