AUDIOBOOK
Tits Up
What Sex Workers, Milk Bankers, Plastic Surgeons, Bra Designers, and Witches Tell Us about Breasts
Sarah Thornton4.5
(2)
About
An innovative investigation of the five strange worlds that worship women's chests.
After years of biopsies, best-selling author Sarah Thornton made the difficult decision to have a double
mastectomy. But, after her reconstructive surgery, she was perplexed: What had she lost? And gained? An
experienced sleuth, she resolved to venture behind the scenes to uncover the social and cultural significance
of breasts.
Riotous and galvanizing, Tits Up excavates the diverse truths of mammary glands from the strip club to
the operating room, from the nation's oldest human milk bank to the fit rooms of bra designers. Thornton
draws insights from plastic surgeons, lactation consultants, body-positive witches, lingerie models, and "free
the nipple" activists to explore the status of breasts as emblems of femininity. She examines how women's
chests have become a billion-dollar business, as well as a stage for debates about race, class, gender, and
desire. Everywhere she turns, Thornton encounters chauvinist myths about this elemental body part that quietly
justify deficits in women's bodily autonomy and endorse shortfalls in their political status. Blending sociology,
reportage, and personal narrative with refreshing optimism and wit, Thornton has one overriding ambition to
liberate breasts from centuries of patriarchal prejudice.
After years of biopsies, best-selling author Sarah Thornton made the difficult decision to have a double
mastectomy. But, after her reconstructive surgery, she was perplexed: What had she lost? And gained? An
experienced sleuth, she resolved to venture behind the scenes to uncover the social and cultural significance
of breasts.
Riotous and galvanizing, Tits Up excavates the diverse truths of mammary glands from the strip club to
the operating room, from the nation's oldest human milk bank to the fit rooms of bra designers. Thornton
draws insights from plastic surgeons, lactation consultants, body-positive witches, lingerie models, and "free
the nipple" activists to explore the status of breasts as emblems of femininity. She examines how women's
chests have become a billion-dollar business, as well as a stage for debates about race, class, gender, and
desire. Everywhere she turns, Thornton encounters chauvinist myths about this elemental body part that quietly
justify deficits in women's bodily autonomy and endorse shortfalls in their political status. Blending sociology,
reportage, and personal narrative with refreshing optimism and wit, Thornton has one overriding ambition to
liberate breasts from centuries of patriarchal prejudice.