Upon entering a college bar last Thursday night, I am immediately confronted with quite the startling scene: several people surround a college-aged woman unabashedly stroking, poking, and bouncing her breasts, literally fondling her in what resembles some orgiastic public peep show, the type of spectacle that would cost you a pretty penny in Amsterdam.
But, this is not Amsterdam. It’s Ohio, so I’m thinking I should call security, until I realize all the bouncers are watching, too.
“That girl just got a boob job,” a friend announces, rousing me from my awestruck stupor. “She named them: The right is Sandra Day O’Connor, the left is Willow Smith.”
I take closer notice of who, for the sake of the story, we’ll just call Boob Girl. With arms outstretched above her head, neck tossed backwards, mouth wide in ecstasy, she basks in a sea of curious hands. She giggles, her eyes and chin simultaneously gesture downwards towards her chest, granting permission to another passerby—a female—to cup the former Supreme Court justice and the ten-year-old pop star. As the bar begins to fill up, Boob Girl is seemingly swept away in a tidal wave of attention. Parched, I turn to my drink.
Later in the night, in what I assure you is a strictly incidental run-in, I pass Boob Girl on the dance floor.
With beaming pride, she puffs her chest in my direction. “Hey, want to feel my new boobs?”
If for no other reason than to avoid insulting the proud mother of new twins, I oblige. (Plus, seriously? Boobs!)
“Ruth Bader Ginsburg certainly is a pioneer,” I offer, timidly reaching towards her.
“You mean, Sandra Day O’Connor.”
Next thing I know, I’m going all airport security on a complete stranger. I thoroughly observe them, using all five senses (OK, mostly just sight and touch; I didn’t waft the things) to test their mass, shape, and relation to gravity as if performing a physics experiment.
How does all this make me feel? Hard. Her boobs, I mean.
Scenes like this may be uncommon—outside certain male heterosexual fantasies, at least—but the question it provokes is one my collegiette™friends ask me frequently: how do guys feel about girls with breast implants?
First of all, for college guys, a set of silicone tatas is like a rainbow: we mostly see them on movies and TV, and in the very rare occasion that we confront one in person, we’re almost never close enough to touch. Most college guys barely know any girls with implants. Think about your campus: how many 19-year-old NBB majors have boobs that resemble that Kardashian’s—you know, the one that is neither talented nor married to an NBA player?
So, if we see a set of fake boobs, especially on a college campus, our first reaction is probably a double take, followed by a series of questions that precede our formation of any opinion: So, what, you got them in high school? Did your parents pay for them? Are you a mirage?
Let’s say she’s a real college student on a real college campus sporting real fake boobs. The next question any guy asks himself is, are they nice? “Nice” is relative, of course, but an egregiously botched boob job is worse than any pair of natural breasts.
Then, the question becomes whether guys prefer smaller natural breasts or larger fake ones, which, as they say, is like comparing apples to (plastic) melons. Again, “small” is relative, but in a very unscientific survey of several college males, I’ve found that a B cup is more than substantial. (Plus, I don’t see anyone complaining about certain A-cupped beauties, i.e., Keira Knightley pre-implants and Natalie Portman pre-pregnancy.) If given the choice, a guy would always prefer nice real breasts to nice fake ones. You can equate it to the idea “natural beauty”: a woman who “wakes up beautiful” is more attractive than one who wears a lot of makeup, and not just because caking it on may give her the appearance of a clown, albeit a sexy one.
Fake breasts, like one’s clothes or hairstyle, inevitably lead to assumptions about that person’s character. The unfortunate truth is that breasts have become so sexualized that, especially to guys, they seem to exist solely as an object of the male gaze. If a woman enhances a feature with such an erotic connotation, guys tend to read that—whether correctly or incorrectly—as an attempt to garner more male, i.e., sexual, attention. (Quick experiment: to replicate a guy trying to read a girl, copy this article, paste it into Word, and change the font to Wingdings.)
In terms of a mere hookup, fake boobs do have the appeal of novelty, and when someone breaches the subject in a game of Never Have I Ever, a guy has permission to put down a finger with either elated pride or feigned bashfulness.
But, in terms of a more substantial relationship, fake boobs aren’t necessarily ideal. If a guy is actually interested in and attracted to you, he probably likes your body the way it is. If you are looking to improve your body, there are plenty of ways to do it besides cosmetic surgery. I don’t know what Zumba is, but it sounds way more fun than an expensive procedure, a painful recovery, and the scars to go with it. Plus, silicone will not help you learn to rumba, or whatever.
The bottom line is that for guys, fake boobs are overrated. But, then again—hold onto your bras, ladies—all boobs are overrated.