The New Yorker:

Breasts are subject to capricious restrictions and contradictory norms. What would it take to set them free?

By Lauren Michele Jackson

Who’ll take pity on the breast man? If such a creature still exists, that is. The targets of his fixation have demurred in the face of changing tastes. The new millennium’s Everyman, if we’re to believe his representation in mass culture, no longer sniffs for cleavage like a truffle pig on the hunt. Take Jimmy Kimmel, who used to be the patron saint of drunk, red-blooded, horny guys watching television. His early-aughts Comedy Central production “The Man Show” flaunted a cast of “juggy girls” and ran its closing credits over footage of, as the tagline went, “girls jumping on trampolines.” Kimmel has since suited up in the tasteful, white-collar interest of ribbing Donald Trump on late-night TV and at the Oscars. “The Man Show” aired its final episode in 2004, by the way, some months after that year’s Super Bowl halftime show jerked America into temporary sobriety with the unsanctioned appearance of a pop star’s decorated brown breast. And, indeed, breast augmentation has been on the decline since 2007, our curiosity newly captured by the surgical pursuit of better buttocks.

Breasts (and butts, for that matter) have long been relegated to the stuff of underclass juvenilia. Fashion and ballet and black-tie anything have little use for such protuberances in their silhouettes. The evolved prefer a nicely turned pair of legs, so thinking has gone. But in recent decades we seem to have decided that breasts are not merely tawdry, not just child’s play, but damn near regressive. For a relevant artifact, I think of “Pam & Tommy,” Hulu’s 2022 limited series about the storied nineties couple. Like so much current media about feminine icons, the show’s professed aim is the redemption of its female subject. But it is as wary of Anderson’s appeal as it is critical of misogynist recoil. The episode “Pamela in Wonderland” alternates between a vile deposition—“Mrs. Lee, do you recall how old you were the first time you publicly exposed your genitals?”—and flashbacks to a younger Anderson’s earliest forays into selling her image. 

Go to link