A Cheer!

We were discussing her breasts. They are incredibly large breasts. It was me, her, Doug and Jay.

I am certain they come up in conversations on a daily basis. She brought them up. We didn't. She was talking about the back problems they create. The cat calls they demand. She was trying to be nonchalant about the whole matter. She seems to carry them with a reluctant pride. Like she should love them because they are what men want. Like she should embrace her curves and be a "real" woman. But, really she has just resigned herself to acceptance not embracing. If she were offered a breast reduction at no cost she would jump at the opportunity. She continued to tell us how she let her new puppy loose on a guy who wouldn't stop hissing and kissing at her breasts.

Doug and I were giggling a bit but with apologetic eyes. We were laughing with her when she gave us the go while making sympathetic eye contact. Our expressions didn't match the sounds falling out of our mouths. Meanwhile, Jay was mostly silent. I think he was on his third or fourth cosmo, depending on how many he had at dinner before arriving at the bar. Then Jay took his index finger and pointed to her nipples. Her nipples were large and very obvious through her white cotton blouse. He pressed his finger on her left nipple like he was pressing an elevator button. Then, immediately, he pressed her right nipple the same way. He didn't say anything he just pressed them. She looked at him dumbstruck then back down at her breasts with the same expression on her face. Doug and I made eye contact. The kind of eye contact you send to your friends after a crazy drunk person just tried to speak to us, failed, and walked away. Quizzical is the right word for this, I believe.

Doug said, "Jay, stop that. She's a woman. You can't just touch her like she's a brand new piece of electronics."

Jay said, "Whatever, she knows me. I am gay."

Doug said, "That doesn't matter. She's a woman talking about being hooted and hollered at by slimy men and you just reach out and touch her."

Jay fell silent. So did I. She again tried to laugh it off. Doug went on to tell a story about getting a hard spankin' from his father when he was ten years old because he pinched his older sister's but. His father told him the beating was to learn never to touch a woman like that. Doug comes from a good family with strong morals and values. Some of those morals and values Doug could do without, others he still holds dear. One of them is man's treatment of women. I agreed with him.

I don't know what it is like to be a woman. Let alone have breasts. I never will. I can try to relate my experiences to theirs. I have tried to relate a few instances with other women's. "Gay men can be just like straight men,"I say to my girlfriends attempting to console, comfort, connect. Cat calls and weird grunting noises when you pass by a crowded booth at a local gay night spot. Smacks on the ass when you squeeze by a tight line of boy's waiting for the bathroom or coatcheck. Or, a nice squeeze of the crotchal area by the creepy guy in the trench coat lingering at that smallest corner of the bar. I remember being 20 years old and walking into my first gay bar and having my crotch grabbed and firmly squeezed by a man in his mid thirties (who at the time looked 50 to little ol' me). It crossed my mind that night that this is what women deal with every single day. I encounter it once in a blue moon. I can't relate. I can't imagine.

I don't believe I have ever touched a girl in any awkward, uncomfortable, or violating way. But, as I have grown increasingly more comfortable in my friendships with women and with my own sexuality, I fear I might have.

To all my girlfriends out there, I don't think because I am gay I am allowed to grab your breasts or poke at them like I am popping balloons. I don't think I ever have. I hope I never do. I am sorry if I ever did. Unless you were drunk and you asked me to (in a non-sexual, non-threatening, non-violating way!)

I hope women know that I can never understand what it is like to be you, but I will always try. And trying to understand is one half of full understanding. Comprehension is the other, and it will take a lifetime to comprehend all of the wild, wacky, crazy, beautiful things that make us different. I just wanted you to know that you have a cheering section and someone is on your side.

Give me a W!
Give me an O!
Give me an M!
Give me an E!
Give me an N!

What's that spell?!