May 2005 Archives

Today we start a new column - "Diary of a Girl Watcher".

In this occasional column I will document the inner thoughts of a self confessed girl watcher. I am a little nervous about this column. On the one hand I will be telling the world things I have never spoken about before. More frightening however is that I will be breaking the "code of silence" that we men universally adopt about this activity we spend so much time and energy pursuing. What is amazing is that we don't even talk seriously amongst ourselves about girl watching, let alone talk to women about it.

Gary Brooks, author of The Centerfold Syndrome, put it this way:

“One might think that since girl watching was such an emotionally draining experience, guys would spend considerable time talking about it, questioning its value, speculating about its causes, wondering about alternatives. This was far from true. Although I can remember countless hours spent talking about beautiful female bodies, I can’t remember a single conversation in which any of us seriously questioned the inevitability of girl watching. It would have been nice to have had a forum for open exploration of this and many other aspects of our lives, but asking questions and sharing insecurities was not a big item among my young male friends.”

So to today's entry.

The Triathletes are back

I try to swim in the local heated pool each morning. I've been doing this for the last 25 years with varying degrees of success. Along the way I have accumulated lots of breast stories.

Each year during the the winter months a group of triathletes hire out a couple of lanes several times a week. The last few years they have started just after Easter. This year it's the end of may and only a few of them have made sporadic appearances.

But this morning there was a large group of them in lanes 6 & 7. I had already started swimming in lane 7 before most of them arrived. They didn't have the lane booked so I stayed in the lane even though they were generally swimming faster than me. Just as I was finishing, I spoke to one of them and asked when they were starting in ernest - "Next Monday" someone from behind me replied.

There is some debate about whether The Triathletes are a good or bad thing. Well debate might be a misnomer. In the men's change room after the swim the generally expressed opinion is one of annoyance. The 'athletes take up two lanes and usually another two lanes are hired out to The Squad leaving only four lanes for public use. This makes it a bit crowded in the public lanes.

But I wonder if perhaps the expressed annoyance is instead a cover for some secret girl watching. The thing about Triathletes of course is beautiful toned and fit bodies - both male and female. I must admit that I rather like the appearance of the triathletes. For most of the year, the pool is dominated by men. I think it's quite lovely to see an array of beautiful, fit and toned female bodies in their swimming wear. Of course its nice to see lots of breasts lightly covered, but the whole package is a beautiful sight. I'm sure if I was a woman, I would think some of the toned male bodies were quite a sight.

Regardless it was nice to be standing next to two excellent specimens this morning as I was taking a break between brackets. One, who I have noticed several times before presents herself with elegant grace. It was nice to have a moment's sight of her breasts sitting firmly underneath her bathers before she started off for her swim.

As I got into the shower this morning, still smiling inside from the experience, Mike joked to me "In with the girls again this morning Chris?" This is the type of thing we men say to each other. Rather than being able to admit that it is nice, we joke about it. We're embarassed about how we feel so we cover it with a joke. Or we overplay it with demeaning comments such as another one I've heard in the change rooms - "Hasn't she got great tits?"

One day, I'll have the courage to reply something like "I think she is quite beautiful and it was a privilege to have her presence."

From one of my breast friends:

Guess my first experience was a shocker - was a late developer and a skinny little thing - hot summer day and me running around with all the kids in a pair of shorts, no top and the ice cream van rocked up. This was never a sure thing with Mum so great excitement when allowed to indulge - probably because there was a great group of us and maybe other mums too - can't remember. As this guy served me my cone he said "Aren't you a bit old to be running around like that - you are getting breasts now"....immediate loss of childhood....and as my mum being mum and me never ever thinking breast at all I cannot imagine them being anything other than little buds. How I still resent that man.

Here's a humourous account of one woman's relationship with her breasts.

The start of the story reminds me very much of when I arrived as an 18 year old male at Monash University in 1972. I had never before seen so many un restrained breasts wobbling around under jumpers and t-shirts.

I was studying Physics at the time and a male colleague of mine liked to relate the phenomemon to our studies. As each young woman bounced past he would remark "simple harmonic motion."

Welcome to breaststories.com.au.

Some of you will know that this site is a spin off from chriscurnow.com - my first blog.

I am a 51 year old male who has admired breasts for at least the last 40 years. Over the last few years I have begun a journey to understand my fascination with breasts. This journey has given me a new freedom to discuss the topic with my breasted friends.

It is really quite amazing that I reaached nearly the age of 50 without having a serious conversation with anyone - including and especially my partner of 30 years - about something that has taken up a lot of my thought time over most of my life.

There is no doubt this is true for most of us men. We admire, we joke, we gesture, we judge and we whistle. But we don't talk seriously.

This blog is an opportunity for both men and women to share their stories. For women to tell us what it is like when we ogle them. For us to perhaps try and explain why we do.

Over the next week or so I will be transferring some of the breast stories from chriscurnow.com to here. I will also be telling some new stories that I didn't feel I had the freedom to tell at chriscurnow.com.

I'm not sure how long this journey will take and where it will lead me.

I'd love to hear your stories - both men and women. I'd like to have guest bloggers from time to time.

Let's see what happens.