Jesus, pinktober, would you just fucking end already? No? Alright, then let’s talk about sexualization of cancer. You started this, pinktober, and now I’m going to finish it.
Yes, hetero male world, we know–you love breasts. You just do. I get that. That’s why they’re fucking EVERYWHERE. You’re like fucking zombies only instead of looking for bbbbrrraaaaaiiiiiiinnnssss, you’re looking for BRRREEEEAAAAASSSSSTTTTTTSSSSSS.
But here is the thing about my breast cancer: it’s not in my breast anymore. Because I don’t HAVE that breast anymore. It’s been cut off. Still turned on?
No? Of course not, because making cancer about breasts is FUCKING CREEPY. Seriously, it’s cancer for the love of Christ. It’s not hot.
Except during pinktober. Because pinktober isn’t about people with cancer. It’s about marketing. It’s about selling t-shirts and making your fracking company seem less evil for destroying the planet and making people sick. Because breasts are sexy, and sex sells, and sex also distracts people from the shitty things your company does. Who can think about the carcinogens you’re pumping into our water supply when they’ve got breasts to think about? BRRREEEEAAAAASSSSSTTTTTTSSSSSS.
Ever wonder why there isn’t a month for esophageal cancer awareness? Have you ever SEEN a photo of an esophagus? Was it sexy? No? There you have it.
What really gets me about slogans like “save the boobies” and “cop a feel” and all the other “Hahaha, I am so witty, I made breast cancer into a sexy joke” crap that happens every October is that it doesn’t seem to be about keeping women alive or curing disease. It’s about breasts, and how important they are to heterosexual men, and shouldn’t we do something to save the breasts, because BRRREEEEAAAAASSSSSTTTTTTSSSSSS. Where are the people attached to those breasts in those conversations? Oh right, we’re NOT in those conversations, because women are nothing more than the sum of our parts. Parts that sometimes get cut off as part of our treatment for cancer. And we can’t have that happening, can we? Because BRRREEEEAAAAASSSSSTTTTTTSSSSSS are what’s important, not the people they are attached to.
I have a feeling that’s also why there is such a focus on early detection. It doesn’t ACTUALLY save lives, if you look at the data. But if you find your cancer early, you might get to have a lumpectomy instead of a mastectomy, and then your booby is saved. And what’s more important than saving BRRREEEEAAAAASSSSSTTTTTTSSSSSS? Certainly not research that saves actual lives. Lives are boring–boobs are hot.
Look. I know there are people in the marketing world who aren’t assholes. I know at least some of you must have a fucking conscience. Men of Madison Avenue, please stop living up to your stereotype, and for the love of all that is holy, just stop making my cancer into some creepy sex fetish thing. It’s fucking gross.
In fairness to the majority of us who either know or knew someone with breast cancer, we don’t think of our ‘bosoms’ (as my late mother called them) in a sexual manner when there is a diagnosis. Also, my husband only thought “Save my wife, I could care shitless about her breasts,” a sentiment shared by most people. Granted, we’re some of the lucky ones although our mothers/sisters/cousins/friends were not.
Granted, you’ve opened my eyes to the BIG BAD WOLF of corporate America (I did know about the S K organization and their fat board who ‘rape’ people’s pockets for donations and who sue anyone on the planet who want to walk, run, or crawl for the cure) however the every day person gives freely, hoping that someone will find a cure for this insidious disease, one that claims far too many people. Hell, I’m guilty of wearing my pink ribbon tee shirt or pin (occasionally in Oct.) but I wear it as a badge of honor because I am one of the lucky ones. Isn’t the reason most people wear the pink is in honor or memory of a loved one? Granted, I haven’t worn mine this month, but it’s because I’m afraid of the ‘pink nazi’!!!
I’m also wary of contributing to organizations who use donations for ‘breast cancer awareness’ or ‘education.’ Why? Hello people, who isn’t aware of breast cancer? Create another research facility and hire more scientists!!! Breast cancer is rampant-12.5% of women will contract breast cancer, thus the publicity. But, 15% of the men will contract prostate cancer, while lung is the next on the Am. cancer site (6%) but, when it hits your mother or wife or friend or even husband, as it will in one out of seven people, again, we aren’t thinking of their loss of sexuality–we are thinking of their possible loss of life.
You know, at first, I was really happy about all the marketing because it got people talking about cancer. It demystified it all. Because up until that point, when people ever even mentioned cancer, they *whispered* about it. “Did you hear about Susan? She has (looking around to make sure no one can hear, then lowers voice) cancer.”
Initially it helped so that it wasn’t taboo. But now it’s about the tatas.
I’d like to see the conversations turn to being about the people with the cancer and what we can do to more effectively treat all cancers.
When Katie Couric had a colonoscopy on tv, I think that was a big deal. Again, to break down the walls of taboo. But there’s not a lot about that in conversation. Why didn’t we keep it there? Because colons aren’t sexy, apparently.
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