A new book by sociologist and author Sarah Thornton, “Tits Up: What Sex Workers, Milk Bankers, Plastic Surgeons, Bra Designers, and Witches Tell Us about Breasts,” is set to be released May 7, published by W.W. Norton & Company.
A pre-release essay adapted from Tits Up appeared Saturday in The Wall Street Journal titled, “I Used to Judge Women Who Got Boob Jobs. Then I Got One.”
“During training we were told that if women wanted to go flat, it was a sign of poor mental health. It was assumed that she didn’t care about her body,” said [Austin, Tx., plastic surgeon Elizabeth] Potter. “The male faculty at UT Southwestern focused on what they found sexy and appealing. Natural breasts were criticized. Artificially inflated ones were glorified. They commended the surgeon who asked the husband about sizing up the implants while the wife was asleep.”
The Wall Street Journal, essay by sociologist and author Sarah Thornton, whose book Tits Up gets released May 7.
“I used to associate boob jobs with insecurity, vanity and a slavish desire to appeal to men,” Thornton writes. “But after years of stressful biopsies and the continued discovery of potentially cancerous cells, I had a prophylactic double mastectomy in 2018….”
“My experience inspired a multiyear quest to understand the many meanings and uses of breasts. That’s why I’m here, in an operating room, watching [Dr. Carolyn] Chang slice through the crease under the patient’s right breast….”
Elsewhere in that essay, Thornton quotes statistics—like billions in annual breast surgery revenue—and interview excerpts that promise an in-depth and intriguing read.
“During training we were told that if a woman wanted to go flat, it was a sign of poor mental health,” plastic surgeon Elisabeth Potter, MD, who works mostly with breast cancer survivors, tells author Sarah Thornton.
Tits Up is available now for pre-order on Amazon.com and other outlets. It officially releases on May 7.
Available in hardcover and Kindle editions, the 336-page book includes 50 illustrations.
“I hope the book sheds light on breasts in ways that elevate their value, not just because I believe in some happy, shiny body positivity, but because these organs are emblematic of womanhood,” the author says in pre-release statements.
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.
Release Material for “Tits Up: What Sex Workers, Milk Bankers, Plastic Surgeons, Bra Designers, and Witches Tell Us about Breasts,” by Sarah Thornton