The chest that I’d never asked for seemed to be a one-way ticket to being objectified by both my peers and adults, which had me simultaneously praying that they wouldn’t get any bigger – and crying with frustration – on a near weekly basis. I began empathising with a fictional character, as even at the age of 12 I understood that despite her PhD, all people saw when they looked at Lara, much like me, was her chest. Somehow her breasts weren’t holding her back from jumping off of cliffs, yet mine seemed to get in the way of simply breathing. Whether it was a snide comment by a classmate made with the intent of slut-shaming me, or a magnet for a man that was three-times my age to gawk at, it seemed like everyone else was busy sexualising my bust – meanwhile I couldn’t imagine feeling less sexy or at home in my body.īoobs also seemed to be everywhere I turned I spent my adolescent years playing Tomb Raider with Lara Croft and her seemingly perfect bosom. I, on the other hand, was left with whatever beige (and they were always beige) bra I managed to find in Debenhams, or had to travel out of town for a specialist shop.Īt the same time, while my underwear drawer couldn’t have looked more boring, it appeared my large bust was somewhat of a novelty elsewhere – and without my consent, it became my identifier.

In the school changing rooms I began to envy the girls that could wear cutesy Me to You Bear patterned bras from the high street stores we all loved, or the unsupportive, but stylish, lace numbers from La Senza. Not (literally) fitting in seemed like my fault, and there was nothing I could do about it. And even though my shirt wasn’t exactly explicit and I now know the teacher's comments were shaming and inappropriate, the embarrassment I felt afterwards had me wearing a jumper in sweltering heat for weeks. Between the ages of thirteen to sixteen, I grew a total of eight cup sizes – and it was hard to keep up. My boobs had gone from battery-sized to Cs in mere months, and they weren’t stopping. I immediately looked down - mortified - to see her looking at my chest.Īlthough every other girl in school wore the same shirt, lately mine had become snug. I worried my essay wasn’t up to scratch or that I’d somehow missed a piece of homework, but instead what she snidely said was: “I think you need a bigger shirt”. As someone that thought using a red-coloured pen was a form of rebellion, I began to panic. I had just turned fourteen when it happened a teacher pulled me aside at the end of class.

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