Orbach is the author of the widely-read book Fat is a Feminist Issue. I have never read Fat, but it should be coming in a day or two from Amazon.com.

This newer book, Bodies, focuses on the various ways “bodies” are “culturally made” as well as how Western culture with its attention to consumer empowerment encourages us to “aspire” to better bodies. (Orbach does a much better job of breaking this all down.) I’ve posted a lot here about how scary I find the cosmetic surgery industry to be, and Orbach’s book further delves into the almost pathological ways the diet, food, cosmetic surgery, beauty, and fashion industries attack both women and men’s very shaky sense of body security. I found it fascinating. I hope you all will take a read and let me know what you think!

peace,Bridgett

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100404/ap_on_fe_st/us_odd_topless_march;_ylt=ApeW2rc6pkbsmu_dISki7oXtiBIF;_ylu=X3oDMTJsZHM4ajI1BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwNDA0L3VzX29kZF90b3BsZXNzX21hcmNoBGNwb3MDMQRwb3MDMQRzZWMDeW5fdG9wX3N0b3J5BHNsawNlcXVhbHRpbWV3b20-

or you can read the article here:

Equal time: Women hold topless march in Maine

PORTLAND, Maine – About two dozen women drew a crowd of onlookers when they shed their shirts and marched downtown in Maine’s largest city to promote what they call equal-opportunity public toplessness.

Organizer Ty MacDowell said the point of Saturday’s march in Portland was that a topless woman out in public shouldn’t attract any more attention than a man who walks around without a shirt.

The Portland Press Herald reports that by the end of the march, more than 500 people had amassed — a mix of marchers, young men snapping photos, oglers and people just out enjoying a sunny, warm day.

It’s not illegal for a woman to be topless in public in Maine, and police said there were no incidents or arrests.

___

Information from: Portland Press Herald, http://www.pressherald.com

Bare breasts in Boulder: ACLU says topless gardener controversy shouldnt lead to female nipple ban – Denver News – The Latest Word.

Arizona Daily Wildcat – Women bare all at Breast Party.

Owensboro woman faces ‘breast milk’ assault charges – 14 News, The Tri-State’s News and Weather Leader-.

Breast ironing, a painful practice for Cameroon’s girls – washingtonpost.com.

Woman’s life saved by her fake boobs – mirror.co.uk.

Mastectomies Done in Error In Ontario – EON.

Boobs

It is certainly not that I hate boobs, I consider

my reaction to them appropriately male and definitely

within the parameters of normal. I enjoy, like most men,

their usual state of coverage as it feeds my imagination

and consider catching a glimpse of them

through a cracked door, or in a mirror as my wife changes a guilty secret, though she has never been

anything less than gratuitous with them.

But today I don’t know what to think. Today I am

forced to look at her bosoms out of the side of my eyes

and consider, could they really kill her? I am certainly

accustomed to thinking about them, but the extent to which

they hold my attention now is not even rivaled by the days

that followed my first glimpses of them, when they were paired

with such intense kissing and fondling that my jaw was sore, and

my classwork ignored.

These are the same boobs aren’t they. The same ones that

swelled to nearly twice their size to sate my infant son’s thirst.

The same tits that sat through endless feedings and pumping,

sore and cracked to give nourishment, surely these are not the same

breasts that filled out her little shirts perfectly and on many occasions

slid perfectly out from underneath silken lingerie to turn my eyes as light

as the moon.

Three needles, it took three needles to pierce the little devil in her breast,

wrapped tightly in its cocoon of dense bundled tissue. Three needles of increasing

gauge each inserted into the tender skin just south and west of her nipple, before

it would release its internal poison for study, no results yet but I have never known

anything to guard a secret so selfishly unless it truly had something to hide. Four days,

they told us, it would take Pathology four days to unravel the secrets in that cloudy,

blood tinged vial, four days until we can tell you whether or not to rejoice or get your

life in order, they’d call us on Tuesday.