Schrodinger’s Tits, Evolutionary Biology and the perils of being observed.
God I can't believe y'all just are... perceived? In this economy?
Three and a bit billion years ago a tiny little gelatinous twerp got the bright idea of modifying one of the cells of its outer membrane to react to light differently. Y’all have skin (apologies for those of you who don’t) and y’all can feel the warmth of sunshine on it (apologies to those of you who can’t). This is how it started for this little jackass, floating in the literal primordial sea. It decided for some foolish reason to detect a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum of light slightly differently. And from then on things just got worse. Subsequent generations increased the sensitivity on these photosensitive cells. Like how when you are out on a bright day and you close your eyes but you can still tell when you have a hand in front of your face. Basic light and shade became a thing. Contrast. And suddenly these great great great grandchildren of the original twerp were now able to compare some things to other things. Again, another stunning misstep. Then someone in there had the bright idea to evolve these photosensitive cells into sitting in a depression on their outer membrane. A divot, to allow more light to bounce into the sensitive cells, to increase depth and clarity. Pure hubris. Eventually this depression developed its own translucent membrane and gelatinous fluid filled orb and thus an “eye” was formed. We evolved the ability to “perceive” things and as we can all agree it has worked out terribly.
For the vast majority of people, we exist in a state of visibility. Like the spectrum of light bouncing into our own gelatinous orbs, there’s a spectrum of how present we are in the world. Some of us are blessed with the ability to avoid this. How I long for a cave or a basement, hell even a grotto would be a sanctuary from which to hide from both the searing electromagnetic radiation of the sun and the searing gaze of other human beings. For the majority of us there’s a blissful ignorance of never having even considered who you are as it relates to your gender… it blows my mind to think that all y’all exist in that space. Just… being seen? And it not mattering? What a marvel.
And of course with being seen, comes being compared.
Inevitably this body (and others like it) will be compared and contrasted. Questions will be asked: “Is this femme, or is this masc?”, “what is a woman?”, and the inevitable… “are those tits real?” Which in itself is a hell of a thing to ponder. What is a “fake breast”? There’s a huge range of procedures available for individuals wishing to augment their “bouys”? (Dear readers please see previous post “Big-Tit Energy”). Implants of saline, silicone, taking deposits of fat from one place and moving them to another. Nipping, tucking, shifting angles and shapes to tease out the perfect form, the perfect direction, the perfect placement. A laundry list of ways to compare and contrast, to rank and quantify. And what the hell is a “natural breast” anyway? Naturally forming without intervention, I guess? It is another one of those things that we have to tackle because of that bastard of a gelatinous orb that evolved orbs in order to perceive other orbs.
And now people look at my orbs (with their orbs?).
I recently closed a play where I took my kit off. Don’t worry, it was decidedly unsexy. Having someone sobbing and uncontrollably ugly-crying while flashing their yams is a real mood-killer. The whole thing has opened up a door into what people’s opinions of my rack are and thus what it means about who I am? Surely there are plenty of people out there who would view them as “natural”… after all they have had no surgical modification, but it occurs to me that there are plenty of people who would think of them as… “augmented”? As having been a product of medical intervention. Yes, no skin was cut, no objects implanted. They are breasts, flesh and blood and glorious fat… but they didn’t occur naturally. They are the product of chemical intervention with my bodies “natural” processes. They are both “real” and “fake” at the same time depending on who you ask. For me, they are just “me” and that is as far as it goes. But I think about how for the rest of the world, depending on your point of view they are both, they are neither, or at least until someone perceives them and forms an opinion.
Hence…. Schrodinger’s tits.