The medium overwhelms the message

"Breasts Not Bombs" was in the news earlier this month. Two women were arrested for exposing their breasts as part of an anti-Schwarzenegger protest on the grounds of California's state Capitol. If convicted of committing lewd acts, they may be registered as sex offenders! In my opinion, that would be a ludicrous overreaction.

The leader of the movement, Sherry Glaser, explains that the tactic was inspired by the infamous Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction":

The "Crass and deplorable stunt" that occurred during the half-time show of the Superbowl over took National Headlines. The fact that George Bush Lied to the World and the American People about Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction didn’t even make the paper that day. I guess Janet’s Breasts bounced it right off the front page. Am I also to believe that her breast exposure is more horrifying than the death of another six US soldiers and who knows how many Iraqi children and women? Or more indecent than the fact that people are being detained and tortured without any constitutional rights in Guantanamo Bay?

I understand that The FCC is going to order a probe into the Breast situation. They are going to probe the breast exposure. … Isn’t it more in the best interest of Americans for there to be an investigation into Dick Cheney’s ties to Halliburton and his secret meetings with the energy taskforce? …

What I have to surmise from this obsession with Janet Jackson’s breast is that the Breast is mightier than the sword. It seems as though we women have a secret weapon we knew nothing about. The power of the breast. Like any super hero, underneath our everyday clothing lay our true identities. With the slip of some leather and the revelation of a little bit of flesh we command the front page.

I agree with Ms. Glaser to a point. I think the American reaction to the merest flash of Janet Jackson's breast was bizarre. The degree of outrage suggested a certain sickness in the American psyche. Millions of Canadians watched the same half-time show, and the Canadian equivalent of the FCC received fewer than 100 complaints.

But I think Ms. Glaser is misguided to make breasts a vehicle of political protest, as I will explain.

There are three topless people in the photo at the top of this post. (Of a different protest, not the one at California's state Capitol.) Let's consider each of them in turn.

Beauty is a very subjective concept, but I assume we can all agree that this woman is physically attractive.

Maybe too attractive. The medium (breasts) threatens to overwhelm the message (not bombs). I can't help thinking of the line from the James Bond film, Tomorrow Never Dies:

• Admiral Roebuck: With all due respect, M, I think you don't have the balls for this job. [Note: M is a woman.]

• M: Maybe. But the advantage is, I don't have to think with them all the time.

It's pathetic, but true:  men tend to "think" with their balls. When a man is in the presence of a beautiful, topless woman, all the blood rushes out of his brain and settles in his groin.

I freely confess that if this woman asked me to sign a petition, I would not hesitate. I would sign in hope that she would direct that warm smile at me. Then I would wander aimlessly for the next couple of hours in a happy erotic haze.

But I would be no more of a pacifist than I was before. Throughout our encounter, the medium would have more of my attention than the message.

This photo may offend some folks, but it doesn't have much impact on me one way or another. (source) I understand that some men are convinced they are really women trapped in a man's body. Some such men resort to hormone therapy and radical surgery to become the other. And some, like this fellow, are content to stop half way and be a bit of each.

I've never had a transsexual friend, so I'm sure I'm not as sympathetic as I might otherwise be. But I can't help but wonder about this person's motives. Is s/he here, sans shirt, primarily because s/he believes so deeply in the pacifist cause? Or is the cause primarily a pretext to expose his/her breasts and flaunt his/her transgendered state?

In the final analysis it probably doesn't matter too much. We all suffer from the same syndrome:  even when we do the right thing, we never do it 100% for the right motives.

But I know this much for sure:  the medium is once again overwhelming the message, even more powerfully than in the case of the first woman.


Meet Sherry Glaser, the driving force behind the "Breasts Not Bombs" movement. She says it takes real courage for a woman with a body like hers to disrobe in public:

I must confess, as I did before I disrobed, that this act was terribly frightening. Not just because there were police ready to arrest me and media surrounding me, not to mention registered sex offenders, but because my breasts are huge, I know. I don't have to tell you that.

I do not fit into the acceptable, popular culturally desirable body type. I'm more like every woman. Every woman who has doubts about her body. Every woman who is afraid to undress with the light on for fear that her flaws will overwhelm her beauty. Everywoman who blossoms at middle age into her full power and voluptuous sexuality. Every woman who is afraid some man will judge her as ugly or fat. Every woman who is afraid that she's just not right. So it took a mountain of courage for me to do this act.

I find Ms. Glaser's first-person account very moving. And her fears have been realized:  some men are infuriated because Ms. Glaser isn't young and gorgeous:

I receive e-mails that are downright stunning as to what my body looks like to them. "Beastly" HUGE TITS" "Disgusting" "hideous" — things like that. People calling me a moron, suggesting I should go to a mental hospital. …

My favorite interaction came from a retired Army Sargeant who served in Viet Nam. His e-mail began, "Do you have any "members with a DECENT HUMAN set of tits? All I have seen are OINKERS. Now I know the meaning of pornography. Put your shirts on Mothers." Our correspondence began that way and went on for a couple of weeks with a total of about five messages to each other. We came to realize that we were both angry and it wasn't really about each other.

If Ms. Glaser is willing to put up with such crap, she is obviously deeply committed to the pacifist cause. It's hard to criticize a woman who is willing to pay a deeply personal price for her convictions. But, in the final analysis, I still think she is misguided.

It's clear from the hate mail Ms. Glaser receives that the medium is, once again, overwhelming the message. I think it's appalling that people attack her for not having smaller, perkier breasts. But clearly that's the only impression the protest makes on many observers.

Aside from the tendency men have to think with their balls, there is another reason why such protests are doomed to fail:  there is no natural connection between breasts and pacifism.

Ms. Glaser and her colleagues try to establish a connection in people's minds. They cry out,

Breasts Not Bombs, Titties Not Tanks, Nipples not Napalm, Mammaries not missles. The issue is SOFT TISSUE!

I admire that last phrase, "the issue is soft tissue" — it's very clever. But even if we set the sexual response to one side, the first subject (breasts) does not provide any kind of segue to the other (the carnage in Iraq and elsewhere).

The medium seizes our attention, quite effectively. But then Ms. Glaser and her colleagues struggle in vain to shift our attention to the message. What remains is only the base sexual response, which leads either to arousal or disgust, depending on the beauty of the woman and the maturity of the onlooker.

I have a short follow-up post in mind — no more than a post script, really. But here's my advice to Ms. Glaser and others who stage similar protests involving public nudity. To achieve your goal, you've got to find an intermediary step to shift attention by stages from the medium to the message. I have an example in mind which I'll share tomorrow.

If the women readers have a different perspective, I'd be very interested to hear it. I know I've discussed the issue entirely from the perspective of the male response.