Tits Up
About This Book
After years of biopsies, Sarah Thornton decided to have a double mastectomy. Once her reconstructive surgery was over, she was left wondering what she had lost and what she had gained. Used to investigating subjects as a researcher and writer, she set out to look behind the scenes at what breasts mean socially and culturally. The result is Tits Up, an investigation of five strange worlds that revere women's chests.
Her journey runs from the strip club to the operating room, from the oldest human milk bank in the country to the fitting rooms of bra designers. Along the way she draws on plastic surgeons, lactation consultants, body-positive witches, lingerie models and "free the nipple" activists to examine how breasts have come to stand for femininity. She also looks at how they have turned into a billion-dollar business and a stage for arguments about race, class, gender and desire.
At every turn Thornton meets chauvinistic myths that quietly justify limits on women's control of their bodies and weaken their political standing. The book blends sociology, reportage and personal narrative, with optimism and wit, and its overriding aim is to free breasts from centuries of patriarchal prejudice. Thornton is also the author of Seven Days in the Art World.
ISBN: 9780393881028
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