Never show them your back

Sat, 24 Nov 2012 01:00:00 +0000

I used to flash my bra when I was good and drunk. I didn’t really care. It’s funny how this happens, how some part of your body considered “secret” and “scintillating” just feels like more skin. But my boobs arrived early, and grabbed second helpings on their plate, and so men would saunter up to me with that greedy look: Can I touch? When? Now? Eventually, it got easier not to care. Here, have at it, America: My tits.

But when I flashed my boobs, I kept the back of my shirt down. I did not raise it up entirely, not even when I was zombie-eyed and slipping off bar stools, because to do so would have been to reveal the part of myself that was seriously hidden, raw and vulnerable. It would have been to show you the moles on my back.

I was 7, maybe 8, when I discovered my back did not look like other people’s. Nothing dramatic: Black buckshot on a white canvas. But those things were like hideous scars to me.

Salon.com > Exhibitionism

Never show them your back