SALON

Thursday, Sep 28, 2006 1:30 PM UTC

Charitable breastfest turns 5

The annual Blogger Boobie-thon raises eyebrows ... and money for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

By

Topics: Broadsheet, Breast cancer, Health, Love and Sex,

Anyone who can’t stand the idea of objectification for a good cause, read no further. The Boobie-thon is not for you.

What might arguably be called the most breast-centric of breast cancer fundraisers began in 2002 as a joke among friends. Stay-at-home blogger mom Robyn Pollman decided to raise money for a fellow blogger’s Thanksgiving airplane ticket. In exchange for donations, Robyn and her friends offered up shots of their breasts, as well as a video-cam feed of a naked hot tub party. All manner of flame wars ensued, mostly involving women (I wish I were more surprised) bashing other women for being too fat to fundraise.

But the self-exposure paid off. Not only did the friend get to fly out for turkey dinner, grateful gapers kept plying Robyn’s Pay Pal account with funds. Realizing she’d struck a shrewdly efficient way to raise money, Robyn turned it into an annual feast of mammaries for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

The rest is Boobie-thon history. Five years later, hundreds of bloggers have bared all sorts of chests (slight and supersized, naked and clad, male as well as female and those transformed by mastectomies), raising over $26,000. This year the event opens on Oct. 1 (thanks to Nerve’s Scanner for the tip!) and the Boobie-thon Web site is currently accepting early rack shots now.

The Fifth Annual Blogger Boobie-thon, as it is formally known, is one of those happy Internet phenomena in which the medium bumped into the message by accident. For years, the blatant spectacle of breasts has drawn predictable criticism that the event exploits women, but it seems the pro-boobie camp is winning the culture wars. Every year the fundraiser gets more positive than negative press, and brings in more money than the year before. These days, even venerable institutions like the Breast Cancer Research Foundation have cast off the pale pink euphemisms of their early years and embraced a more direct method. Their logo is now hot pink; their ongoing “Expose the Truth” campaign offers pictures of beautiful, topless women.

Carol Lloyd is currently at work on a book about the gentrification wars in San Francisco's Mission District. More Carol Lloyd.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 8 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations