How to Have Sex

Tasting With Tongue and Teeth — A Breast Story

Learning to love my breasts so much I can taste it

I haven’t told this story yet. I’ve kept it safely hidden from my breasts. Or so I thought. It turns out they knew all along. I didn’t expect to write this story with the support of my breasts but honestly, if they weren’t holding me upright I wouldn’t keep typing.

I suppose they're grateful for the attention I’ve been showing them lately. I’ve given them a little winter love, the breast gifts, new bras, decadent creams, and a reputation on Medium, but I didn’t expect anything in return. But maybe, just maybe I’m the one who’s more connected to them.

I’m finally listening to their story. It’s one of the hardest I’ve had to write to date.

I tried to be a happy kid through the chaos of my childhood. I tried so hard and coped so hard that it began to show.

When I was about 6 or 7, I found out I was fat. I didn’t even know what that meant, but my parents — particularly my mother — would pass worried glances from my plate to my mouth to each other while I ate.

They stared at my mouth, my tongue, my spoon, my food. They didn’t see me. They didn’t see my eyes. What were they looking at?

My eyes are up here, I thought. Silent and confused, I ate with shame as I willed them to stop with my tiny mind.

As I grew, I grew up and I grew out. I grew round.

I awoke to flesh that stuck out in tubes around my belly and filled my little chest with triangles of fat.

I didn’t have breasts yet, but my parents noticed my nippled triangles and commented to each other about my plight. In no time at all, I was outfitted for the first of a lifetime of bras.

I was mortified. Not only because I was trying to be a boy for my father, but also because I didn’t know what breasts were. I hated them for being.

My body kept growing up and out until I was in the 8th grade. I was just over 5 feet tall and over 200 pounds. I continued wearing bras because all of the girls were doing it, but I wondered why my breasts were fat, fleshy, folded triangles instead of looking like other girls’ perky pincushions.

My ponderance was fleeting; I didn’t have time to care. Between dealing with the 2-year-old divorce of my parents, playing the wife of my dad, raising my younger sister, keeping straight-As, and over-eating to feel love, I was pretty busy.

But still, I knew enough to hate my body, to hate my fleshy triangles of fat that couldn’t keep my life together. When I began to crumble, I knew enough to know that I didn’t deserve love. And so one day, I decided to stop eating.

My journey into anorexia wasn’t all that complicated, but it wasn’t just stopping food either. First, I decided I would lose weight.

As I lost weight, I met my need for the love I used to feel by eating with the high of being told I looked great. I sought validation as my shrinking triangles of fat turned to indents. My ribs stuck out like jagged, monstrous teeth.

My breasts were gone. People were proud of me. I looked great for the first time in my life. I was getting good enough for love and I was happy. I was delusionally happy.

I would have been “happy” all the way to my grave.

I had to eat to get better. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but I am still here.

Today, I have issues surrounding my relationship with food. I still eat my feelings and restrict myself when I feel unworthy of love.

But I also take sips of wine and taste the flavors of earth, water, and wind. I distinguish nuances between fancy cheeses and can diagnose herbs with a single lick.

I sink my teeth into my passion for food as art. And now, I sink my teeth into — and ask others to do the same — the love I have for my breasts.

It might be the creams. It might be the writing. Whatever it is that has brought me to this place, I am grateful.

The girl with the fatty triangles tried really hard to be loved. The girl with the indents over jagged ribs tried really hard to keep herself from a future she didn’t think would hold anything better.

All that’s left of their stories is me and my breasts. I’m here today to tell those girls that they are me and I’m proud to say:

I love my breasts so much I can taste it.

I’m Brett Jenae Tomlin, The Anxious Enthusiast.

Find more of my breast stories on my profile (linked above) or at Breast Stories.