Laura Dodsworth
Bare Reality: 100 Women, Their Breasts, Their Stories
Pinter & Martin; 2015
This is a fascinating book in which 100 women share un-photoshopped photographs of their breasts alongside honest, courageous, powerful and sometimes humorous stories about their breasts and their effect on their lives. The women come from all walks of life: from a Buddhist nun to a burlesque dancer; ages ranging from 19 to 101; everything from a 32AAA to a 36K bust; entirely natural through surgically enhanced and surgically reduced to bilateral radical mastectomy.
The cover blurb suggests the book will make you reconsider how you think and feel about your own body as well as those of the women in your life. And yes, it may for those who have not thought about these things before. Has it for me? I don’t think so, but the jury is still out. But these women’s perspectives and experiences are certainly revealing, intimate and at times moving.
The stories recounted cover the whole range:

• I hate my breasts — I love my breasts
• I wish they were bigger — I wish they were smaller
• They’re totally non-sensitive — they’re so sensitive it’s painful
• They don’t do anything sexually — they’re my most erogenous feature
• Breastfeeding is so gross — I love breastfeeding
• Breastfeeding is what they’re for — sex is what they’re for
• I love bras — bras are the work of the Devil
• I hated them, so a had them enhanced; now they’re horrible and I hate them more
• I could never have them enlarged/reduced — can’t understand why everyone doesn’t have a boob job
• This is the first time I’ve ever shown them to anyone — I’m nude all the time
• How is it men never learn what to do with our breasts but my girlfriend just knows?
• And of course, why are (most) men so fixated on breasts?

Probably everyone would agree there are a small number of real stunners (though we probably wouldn’t agree which ones) and there are an even smaller number of horrors (like one spectacularly bad boob job); but the vast majority are just breasts — normal breasts — just like you’d see on any topless beach; nothing to get hung up about.
Which is all very much as one might expect so I can’t say I was struck by anything at all surprising. Sad; pathetic; moving; joyous. Yes all of those. But no moment of “OMG how did I not know/suspect that?!”. And in a way I found that disappointing. I had expected there would be something profound about women and their breasts that had passed me by, but if so it isn’t revealed here.
That having been said I did find the book both interesting and compulsive reading. Whether you are male or female, if you want an insight into how women view their breasts this is a must read. I would commend the book to everyone, but especially to teenagers — of both genders, but boys especially — as an essential part of learning, understanding, cherishing and being completely comfortable with your, and everyone else’s, body. To which end we could now do with the equivalent books of male and female genitalia.
Oh, and do not expect the book to be titillating. It isn’t.
Overall Rating: ★★★★☆