My friends joke all the time about wanting huge boobs like me and how I should ‘share’ some of mine with them. Little do they know I suffer serious back pain and life is just more expensive with huge breast. By expensive I mean physical therapy and finding clothes that will actually fit. Trust me, you’d be baffled at how many places wont carry bra sizes and bikini tops that fit comfortably and supportively for DDD breasts, or best yet don’t even sell sizes exceeding past DD’s. Being an athlete my whole life, I always struggled working around my boobs and it became more of an inconvenience the older I got. As a 22-year-old, having large boobs might be ‘great’ to some, but not for this gal. So where does this leave me? Thankfully, breast reductions have become increasingly popular for those who suffer like me. Research has found that breast reduction relived symptoms of back, shoulder, and neck pain, posture problems, and bra strap compression. Best part about the whole thing is that insurance covers most of it. Sounds like a miracle! 

So why haven’t I planned the appointment yet?

I have lived with having big boobs my whole life so how do I live without them? Physically, I know that it is the right thing to do for my body, but there’s so many what ifs. What if my breast come out disproportional from each other? What if I choose the wrong surgeon and they botch my reduction? Can I deal with the scars I get from surgery? Yes, I know this may sound vain. But after reading various blogs, I found I’m not the only one with these anxieties or thoughts. Boobs have been apart of my physical identity and changing them could mean changing how I view myself, or vise versa how the world will view me. The Body Reader has a great quote that may explain why I am feeling this, “the proliferation of stylized (ideal- ized) images of the body via the media (advertisements, fashion magazines, popu- lar film, television) constantly and relentlessly inundate individuals like never before. This process reinforces the ideology that if the body is maintained cosmetically, it will reap a number of rewards such as thinness, beauty, increased sexual potency, and overall healthiness.” It truly is hard in todays society not to compare yourself to others. Breasts have become so overly sexualized and me getting rid of some of mine, may make me feel less womanly and unsatisfied with my body. 

The Shawshank Redemption is a film created by Frank Darabont and written by Stephen King. The plot of the movie is Andy Dufresne is wrongfully convicted and sentenced to years in prison. He struggles in the beginning in prison by ‘learning prison culture’, but with the help of his friend Red (who’s been in prison for over 20 years), he quickly learns the ins and outs of prison. Eventually these two men find solace and ‘redemption’ through decent acts. Furthermore, we see many acts of violence and rape happen within the film. 

            The book The Body Reader, provides some good insight on why prisons are so demanding and harsh to inmates. The book explains how, “the social pecking order among male prisoners is established and reinforced through acts of sexual subjugation, either consensual or coerced submission to sexual penetration” (Moore & Kosut, 95). There was a group of men in the prison called “the sisters”, they were considered deviant and people to not mess with. This label ultimately provided the ‘sisters’ with a lower self-concept and made them cause harm to other inmates, including Andy. The ‘sisters’ were abusing Andy by raping him, beating him up, and taunting him while in the prison. The way they abused Andy only confirmed and fulfilled their label of being deviant, making them well known as ‘people not to mess with’ at Shawshank. Going back to the quote from the book, you can in see how “the sisters” asserted their dominance over Andy by forceful acts of violence and rape, which in turn made them high in the hierarchy of the prison. By instilling fear in their victims, “the sisters” were able to keep their high ranking in the prison and in turn were never attacked/raped by others. 

Unfortunately, through all of this, Andy had to deal with these violent acts of aggression by himself. “The sisters” took some of his agency away from him for a good portion of the film/ his first couple of years in prison. The book provided a great example how rape culture in prison feels, “Like all forms of slavery, these situations are among the most degrading and dehumanizing experiences a person can undergo” (Moore & Kosut, 95).  

            Lastly in the film you witness a lack of effort to stop these rapes from happening. The prison guards are aware of what’s going on, but they do not seem to care enough to stop the rapes. Even though it isn’t said in the film, I feel like the prison guards do not care because they feel like the prisoners are lower than them and that they deserve it for being ‘bad people’. The book also correlated with what the film was trying to present, saying “prisons officials condone these practices, leaving inmates to fend for themselves. Inmates reported that they received no protection from correctional staff, even when they complained” (Moore & Kosut, 95). 

            Hopefully in the future, the prison culture in America will change drastically. The rapes that happen in prison, which effect almost every prisoner will have lasting effects on these individuals for the rest of their lives. Most will go on without verbally telling another person for fear of masculinity and or people not believing them.