Shopping Online From Planet Fake Boobies

I enjoy shopping online for clothes because I can find saucy pieces that are normally unattainable from within my petite, redneck community, like the mid-century, blue velvet cocktail dress I bought off eBay that I will never actually wear but I will loyally store in my closet until I die.

Shopping online can be a gamble when it comes to finding a good fit, and buying pants and shoes is a particularly high risk venture, like when I purchased European, high-waisted jeans that were supposed to have a 29″ waist. And when they arrived in the mail and I pulled them on, and did the notorious abdominal suck, and then had the chub around my belly button develop its own robust cleavage, as if the waist band of the jeans were a level four push-up bra, I realized that Europeans have a cheeky sense of humour, and when they label something as a 29″ waist, what they really mean is, “LOL! Kidding! Enjoy your 25″ jeans, trans fat face!”

Shopping online is a little more successful when you’re familiar with the sizing of the country the product hails from, or even better, the brand. Not all items of clothing serve our figures justice, and photos of modelled clothing help us differentiate what items will best fit our body types.

I love Pinup Girl Clothing, but the majority of their models are rockin’ DD+ implants. I understand that pin-up culture is all about embracing curves, which can be refreshing among the anorexic, coke fiend image that is typically shoved down our throats, but these exaggerated, surgically carved, female prototypes do nothing to ensure the success of my purchase. How can I form any idea of how their t-shirts will look on my B-cup torso? Especially if I am wearing my European LOL! jeans and want to show off my belly button cleavage? And don’t even think about hiding in the back, Victoria’s Secret. I’m talking to you, too!

It would be mind blowingly rad if more women’s clothing stores (and brands) would actually market to the buying needs of the average woman — you know, their consumer demographic. This is about buying clothes, isn’t it? ISN’T IT?  Because it seems as though some of these retailers have gained more notoriety for their models, who are comprised mostly of genetic freaks-of-beauty and surgically altered, female imitations than their actual product, and they’ve become successful in doing so. Are we, the customers, really that gullible?

Like many others, I can appreciate a pair of nicely sculpted boobie implants, all perky and perfect-like, staring up at the sky like they’re answering to god. However, the commonality of breast implants and the seemingly compounding notion that beautiful breasts are breasts that are fake, is becoming concerning. According to statistics released by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, 296,203 breast enhancement procedures were performed in 2010 and have since risen two percent in popularity, making breast enhancement the top surgical procedure.

It’s unnerving to think that our cultural beauty standards have reached such a level of artificiality that supreme beauty equals plastic surgery. When I think of this increasingly body dysmorphic culture that  young girls are having to navigate as they grow into their skin, I want to give them all a bear hug, and like a true Canadian, tell them that I am sorry.

Whether you’re an advocate for breast implants, or against breasts implants, or even if you’re apathetic about boobie aesthetics in general, lets take a moment of silence to honour what nature gave us, a dying, natural art form of diverse curvature, colour, position, shape, texture, and volume: real breasts.

Moment of silence starts now.

Contact the author here: lojomanifesto@morningquickie.com