Book review | A funny biography of the most popular human body part

Back in the Renaissance, French kings loved to commission paintings of their mistresses. These weren’t your average “hey, let’s hang this in the hallway” paintings. No, these were masterpieces that showed “look at my lady’s gravity-defying breasts.” In those same paintings, wet nurses were shown – with their breasts sticking out – doing the hard work (literally!) of feeding the royal little ones. It’s like an old episode from Keeping up with the Kardashiansbut with more nipple.

Then Marilyn Monroe came along in the 1950s, strutted into Hollywood and left everyone open-mouthed. She was the ultimate sex bomb and played in Gentlemen prefer blondes and poses topless in the first issue of playboy. Can you imagine Marilyn thinking, “This is a way to get something off my chest”? Man, this copy is flying!

Breasts, tits, boobies – whatever you call them, they are always in the spotlight, but are rarely taken seriously. Too big? Taboo. Too small? Taboo. When Sarah Thornton, author of Tit’s Up: What our ideas about breasts reveal about life, love, sex and societynamed her silicone implants Bert and Ernie after her two mastectomies, it was both hilarious and weird.

But why not? If “tits up” means something is broken, why can’t we reclaim history? After all, there are over 700 terms for breasts in the English language – most of them coined by men. It’s time to flip the script, hey!

Thornton’s book is a hilarious, deep dive into the five fabulous facets of breasts – hard-working tits, life-saving breasts, precious breasts, active tips and sacred breasts – while skewering feminists who oppose prostitutes and porn for infantilizing sex workers.

Thornton also spills the beans on breast augmentation—it turns out that breasts lift like lollipops, since silicone implants make up 40 percent of plastic surgeries. And bra math? Every brand—Wacoal, Natori, Calvin Klein—has its own secret formula, like algebra with underwire. Remember the mythical bra burning of 1968? Turns out it wasn’t about setting lingerie on fire, but throwing bras into “freedom trash cans” to protest the objectification of women at the Miss America pageant. Bra burning? More like bra throwing, but hey, “trash can-throwing feminists” just didn’t sound as good.

Dr. Shubhda Chaudhary is a research fellow at the Centre for India-West Asia Dialogue

Tits Up: What our ideas about breasts reveal about life, love, sex and society

By Sarah Thornton

Bluebird

P. 321; 899 Rupees