Breasts and Us

Yesterday the congressional hearings on breast implants concluded with a recommendation that they be permiited again under certain circumstances. This morning Ellen Goodman has a syndicated column about the matter that raises the most important question that was never brought up in the hearings.

Why do women want breast implants?

I know the answer is obvious; it makes them more attractive, more desireable to men and thus, one assumes, happier with themselves. But that still doesn't answer the question; why? I suspect the real answer is both too subtle and complex to be within reach of our conscious minds, and perhaps too embarrassing for us to give an honest answer. Is it that none of us has been adequately mothered, fed, when we were infants? One witness compared breast implants to men taking Viagra. And while there are a host of questions about the boom in potentcy drugs, the comparison seems flawed. Women don't need large breasts in order to have good sex.

Or do they?

If so, we are a more infantile culture, totally molded by TV and the mind wasting commercials than we even have thought. If so, it is going to take more than perky breasts and aging men's erections to restore our place in the thoughtful arenas of humanist society.