My breasts

Ha-ha! None of you saw that one coming.

So here's the thing: I really like my breasts. This hasn't always been especially true; for most of my life, they were just there, doing their business unremarkably. But one of the few advantages of gaining weight over the past couple of years is that the ladies have become increasingly lovely, gaining a certain plump roundness that greatly adds to their aesthetic value. I find them totally delightful and beautiful, and find myself dressing so that not only can I enjoy them, but so that they can be shared with others.

It's not so much about the sexual side of them, although I'm certainly aware of their power in that regard. I love bodies - their shapes and topography, their colors and textures, it's all so varied and fascinating. (I also love hair for much the same reason.) It's a whole world of exploration when you get to really study someone's skin, or follow their lines and curves; it's sensual, in the very pure meaning of gratifying the senses you use to study a body. Since my body is the one I have most access to, it's the one from which I gain the most gratification; but the everyday study of the bodies around me is equally compelling, and the intimate study is quite a delight.

Of course, the trouble comes in the not-so-nice definition of sensual, the sense of lewdness or unchastity in that gratification. I can't just share my breasts or any of the rest of my body very freely with the world around me, because in our culture there's always that association of nakedness and bodies with lust and fornication. Again, I totally get it; not all of my gratification is as pure of motive as described above. But some of it really is, and I wonder if I lived in a place where nakedness wasn't automatically given that negative association, would I respond to it as much with that kind of unchaste thought.

I'm a pretty big fan of naked. I love clothes, too, as my closet and drawers will attest, but for decoration, not decorum. If I had my druthers, I'd be more clothing-optional at home; I'm prone to wander around comfortably in states of partial dress, and my former roommate can attest to my naked cleaning and exercising. For a while, I was tempted to hang a little sign on my porch door warning visitors to enter at their own risk, accompanied by this famous depiction of naked fun. If I ever get an apartment to myself a while, I'm totally doing it.

Part of this freedom probably comes from spending much of my teenagehood in an all-female environment; when my parents separated it was just my mom and us four girls, and when you had to dash out of the bathroom for something you forgot ... well, we all had the same parts, so who really cared? I've certainly seen that freeness replicated in women's locker rooms, for much the same reason. (Don't get all excited, male readers; nothing exciting happens.)

But would it work in a co-ed environment? I've never experienced a nudist colony or even a nudist beach, so I don't know how it works and how people behave. I wonder if you have to be in that kind of setting, or if you can create that same sense of body freedom without automatic sexual overtones in a home in the regular, non-nudie world. I'd love to be able to raise my kids not to be so uptight and freaked out about bodies, and to learn to appreciate the beauty in what they've got and in what other people may have. Not that we have to wander around without clothes all the time; I just sometimes think we make naked a much bigger deal than it needs to be.

Of course, I'd have to find a spouse who was willing to go with my hippie-commune-at-home vibe ... given that I'm already partner-challenged, I'd better not add in any more obstacles. :-)