having nipples as a woman in society.

     i thought the times of the past were dead but they are very much still alive. The concept of a woman having nipples and wearing them proudly in our society has long been a foreign concept and still is today. the sexualization of a female's breasts has been so overdone throughout society that it has been subconsciously programmed so deeply into our minds that when we do see something like that in public, or even more often on the internet(these days), we tend to make judgements or place that memory in a bank far off from us because of these taught perceptions. I was born in 1997. that means like right before the 2000's. As I was growing up as a kid there was first a really epic time where women(in their 20's and 30's) did wear shirts without bras and nipples were the hottest thing out there,. you can see it all through television history and even, if you're lucky, in the fancy schmancy film photos your parents have. but ever since social media came out, along with the internet in general things have really changed. now I personally have a really interesting perspective. Firstly, I showered with my parents when I was a little girl, and then when that didn't happen anymore, we all changed in front of each other until I was at least 7/9. But on top of all of that, I grew up as a dancer. As a dancer, you are literally rarely wearing more than a little sports bra and some dance shorts for basically your entire dance career. You also all change, men and women, in the backstage room. It's like being naked was and has always been such a normal thing for me. I actually remember being in high school and just going right at it and changing in front of others and like shocking the absolute shit out of my friends that I was so willing to just change right then and there and wasn't going off into a bathroom to change. I did it all the time and got used to shocking people, but that all feeds into how I am so comfortable showing my body these days.
​     Secondly, as a teenager, my dad had this friend who was a photographer and took nude/implied content for women. This was all before onlyfans every existed so it's honestly hilarious to think about. This is like 2015 ish and around those years. This guy would come to my dads house for weeks at a time to shoot in the utah mountains and my dad's house. he would have like 5+ models at the house the whole time he was there(of course all the models were over 18), and I would see these girls shooting in basically no clothing and sometimes actually no clothing. They were pretty good about hiding the nudity while I was still a teenager though, gotta admit. So after growing up as a dancer, not thinking my body was a sexual thing, changing casually, seeing these women half naked all around my house in my teens, etc. I really learned that bodies were just bodies and that you could either be proud and in yours or be someone else. I was obviously the first one. But things really changed for me when I was around 21 because I surgically changed my body and i learned so f much. At like 18 I started modeling and I was a cute, fit girl, I was like hot energetically but i didn't really have the body of a woman. I had never really been through a ton of specific sexualization, only within my relationships and the casual sexualization that we are all taught of women and that every woman I know has also been through. But around 21, after modeling for a few years, the online social world and "what was pretty or attractive online" really had started to get to me. I started my journey into the world of augmentation. the first thing I ever did was get some lip filler, of course, anything i did or have done I have really taken the time to think about for like years or at least 6-12 months before making the final decision. I really have always been the person to want to ensure I am going to like something once I have made that decision. So I got my lips, I remember the day after they were so swollen I literally fell on the floor bawling because I thought i had just deeply fucked my face up haha. it was genuinely insane. but i got over it and fell in love and realized that the first time i did way too much, so going forward i only did half the amount! Most of the way through being 21 I had been thinking about a breast augmentation for years and finally decided to do it. I finally had saved enough money and really thought everything through, done my immense hours of research, etc. i had a b/c cup my whole life, it would shift up and down based on my health but when I was 17 my best friend died in a tragic car accident. It was literally the hardest thing I have ever been through and in the depressive episode afterwards I literally lost 20 lbs. I went from weighing 130 lbs to 110 lbs and i've never gained the weight back. When I lost all that weight, my boobs shrank to a b from a c cup and i really struggled with having the smallest boobs i had ever had in my life. insert the idea of a boob job. So that's what led me down this path. I went through surgery and got boobs, like legit big boobs for the first time in my life. 
     now here's the thing, I was oblivious AF to what it's like to actually have boobs as a woman. After getting boobs I actually started getting comments in real life and online about my breasts. Things that had never been said to me before and I genuinely had never really been one to have a ton of people staring at my chest while literally talking to my face but that changed so fast it was insane. The way everything became about my breasts within the next few years was just absurd. I mean, luckily for me, I chose them and really wanted them so for the first year it was actually flattering to realize I finally felt like a woman. After 5 years though, which is where I am now, it's not quite the same. Today I now have so much more respect for so many young women that I knew growing up who had boobs and would be more protective of their bodies over the time I knew them, i really didn't understand the derogatory comments made on a regular basis and that happening while you're so young. my heart. 
     As I grew up never wearing a bra(because itty bitty tittie committe didn't have to) and never being someone who hid my body, I owned that shit once I got my boobs. I was so excited, of course, so I posted them all over IG and tiktok. Went viral several times too solely for my boobs. Thousands and thousands of comments all about the knockers on my chest, from both men and women(many not as kind as they could be). Today I have finally really found my voice and even though I share it, more often than not, the comments still relate to my chest rather than the infinite poetic words in the video, though of course, I am not wearing a bra in my videos because that has never been the type of person I am, so of course my titties are free as can be enjoying life while I am young and in my 20's. I have this HUGE rule where I do not read the comments on my account anymore bc there is so much hate and even if there isn't, it is so easy to get triggered by one hate comment that it just isn't worth it for your own mental wellbeing(and lord knows i need my peace). I'm currently working on my second poetry book proposal. something that is really important in a proposal is the recognition of your followers appreciating your poetry, and yes, that means through comments. I spent last night reading through my comments on my poetry videos to see if I could find any that could be used in my proposal and let me tell you, the hate i read through last night was so intense that I wasn't even sad, I was completely dissociated. I felt nothing. It was like I was numbly staring off into the distance. That's kind of just my life and also any other influencers life, but it really got me thinking about having nipples as a woman in society. Most of the comments weren't even about my boobs being large but the majority were upset that you could see my actual nipples, which are something that poke through every single shirt I have unless I wore a bra. it's pretty insane to me considering that is the part of a woman's body that literally feeds a child while they are growing and first born, that is the part of a woman's body that can activate her pleasure centers and open her heart center, that is such an absolutely beautiful part of a woman(i appreciate the f out of it bc i am also into women) and yet it's considered so offensive to be seen publicly or anywhere other than in a private setting. in my head, it seems so obviously programmed to be an issue that it's almost absurd that so many people really feed into that type of hate or energy, the kind that drains them even more than it could drain the person they're throwing it at. 
     I learned a while ago that we are all here for a revolution of the unconscious into the awakened conscious. This in and of itself feels so much to me like exactly that, a part of the revolution. Along with many other weird things that are societally taught to us, I've experienced a few personally, but a lot of the concepts that society or groups of people still think need to be played out within a box, living by these rules that only exist because we think they exist. This is our time to slowly shift that paradigm and shatter all these damn boxes or molds of what is "supposed" to be. It's a huge part of me as a whole, especially considering this character I get to watch myself play out on a daily and lifetime basis, "challenging" all these concepts so constricted. I definitely love it, despite all the hate, or projections, or whatever it is that is being thrown around today. As long as we're all learning and growing, I'm good. I know I am. And I also know that I am not the type of girl to wear a bra. I do realize though, surprisingly, over time that I am feeling less and less need to share my body so freely on the internet as I get older. It could be from me finally finding my voice, or the energy it takes to be perceived only as a nude shell for so long, or it could just be me growing and changing and wanting to find more of a sacred energy and space within my sexuality to share with those who really reciprocate love. No matter which it is or even if it is all three, it's quite astounding to recognize and witness of myself and of the many other women I also know who live a similar experience to mine in the realms of work and a vessel forward life. we're all growing man. it's pretty f dope.