I'm not quite sure if you're serious or not-serious. I assume serious. Therefore: Not if Cassandra is the viewpoint character. She's not likely to wake up consumed by thoughts of admiration of her own breasts, and she's not going to see her own nipples. And even in third person omniscient where the breasts are relevant, I struggle to think of a plot where that level of obsession would make sense.
I can think of two. 1) Just had a breast enhancement and is still excited over it. 2) A positive self talk self esteem exercise.
I find it fairly creepy that someone's self-esteem would be tied to her breasts to that extent, but, yes, fiction does include creepy things.
I could picture the breasts suddenly turning into sentient beings that attract people, and then eat them. And now i'm (slightly more) terrified of women.
Reminds me of that episode from Mike & Molly, where the editor recommended that Molly change her storyline to where her MC orgasms through time.
Working as a stripper, pole dancer, sex worker Having an affair with a guy obsessed with the size of her breasts about to survive a plane crash and be kept afloat solely by the buoyancy of her enormous... no may be not No I agree that that level of obsession is a bit strange, but there are scenes where it might be appropriate to comment on her 'womanly assets' ... if you think for example of the scene at the beginning of "Pretty woman" where Julia Roberts wakes and then gets ready for a day's work as a hooker ... if you were describing that scene in writing rather than film it would be necessary to mention or at least allude to legs, breasts etc
What POV are you assuming here? IMO it wouldn't make a bit of sense if it were from the woman's point of view. IMO, it only makes sense from another character's point of view (a character that views her primarily as a sexual object) or from a third person omniscient POV in erotic fiction.
well yeah but Pretty Woman is in omniscient third essentially - its pretty rare for a film to be entirely first person
Yes. I'm saying that I can't think of a context where the sample text (even removing the last two lines) would make any sense from the character's POV--unless the character were being depicted as a fairly extreme narcissist.
"I woke up to the sun streaming through my slatted blinds and running its warm caress over my naked chest. I stretched, my breasts lifting with my arms as I greeted the sun. Rolling out of bed I selected a thin shirt knowing my nipples would show prominently through the fabric." Seems fine to me .. so long as the context is that she's meeting a lover, or working in the sex industry or something like that.
MC Corlixia : “Thank you, Sergeant!” Rolling my arm making sure it is still attached internally. Feeling over heated, I remove my BDU top. The cool air feels nice on my flesh. A few of the others using the facility take interest in my removal of the garment. A mash of crude innuendoes calling for me to expose my breasts, to full out stripping to nothing. “Tough break guys, this cherry is mine! Is there going to be any further discussion on the matter?” The Sergeant barks aggressively at the sexual banter, cracking her heavy knuckles loudly. “Alright cherry, I shut ‘em up, though I can’t stop ‘em from watching the show! Hit the bar cherry!” I march over to the bar just above my reach, slinging my top at one end before dangling from it myself. “Give me twenty five cherry, might as well get ‘em hooked before we disappoint ‘em”, her tone lowers as she relays the order. “Yes ma’am.” I fight gravity once more at odds with my will. Pulling my slender chin just a centimeter above the round metal beam. I fight for my second, then my third. This struggle continues for about five minutes, as each pull becomes harder and harder. Like my boots were gradually being weighed down in steady increments. Making my final struggle with the unyielding law, I drop back to the floor and collect my shirt from it as I do. Feeling my flesh cool down faster in the lighter undershirt, now drenched in my condensation. “That’s enough for now cherry, chow time”, Sergeant Nimix belays my torment for now. Glancing over my shoulder, as I haphazardly put my shirt back on. I see the lewd crew of men gawking at me. I see why they had been so entranced by my stripping of the over shirt. My nipples were pressing up against the thinner fabric beneath. I follow my trainer toward the mess hall, buttoning up my shirt along the way.
The first sentence ("sundial") of your own example about a man strikes me as being equivalent to the above. Does that sentence make an equal amount of sense to you, in a story about a man that worked in the sex industry or was headed to meet a woman? Or does it feel, well, weird? Because for a woman to wake up to the almost immediate thought of, essentially, "Breasts! Look, I've still got breasts! Aren't they pretty? I'll look at them and think about them for a while," just feels weird to me. Women? Anyone? Do any of you wake up thinking about your breasts in this way?
The only reason it doesnt make sense for me is that a man would really be pushing it to have his cock sticking out above the duvet - if you're naked in bed and you wake up to the warm sun on your breasts/chest then it makes sense to mention it. Men do frequently get wood in the morning however and if you male MC wakes up with a raging hard on then its fair to mention that too. (you would go for the vastly exageraed dragging it on the floor thing , as even the best endowed of us would struggle unless we had very short legs) In my WIP I've got a scene where the male MC is in the shower thinking about the night before and "he felt his cock grow heavy as he remembered [doing stuff] and contemplated killing it..." Also of course there's a whole genre of erotica where this sort of thing is fair game
Why not mention the sun on your stomach or shoulders? Why your breasts? And would you mention the fact that, hey, when your arms move, your chest moves too? Would you really find that an interesting enough fact to mention? Why not mention that when you roll out of bed your feet move along with your legs, or your head comes with your torso? As I see it, some writers' focus on BREASTS! BREASTS! WHAT ARE THE BREASTS DOING NOW?! is a male-gaze thing, a thing from the point of view of someone who doesn't carry a pair of breasts with them everywhere they go. It's just not something that a woman would be doing.
I meant to add: You see how you put that? He FELT it. He was experiencing it from his point of view. You didn't describe it visually, how it looked or moved to an outside observer, how it visually pleased someone else. It was experienced by him, not by either a male or female outside gaze. The waking stretching woman is being experienced by an outside gaze, and it certainly seems to be a male gaze.
Yeah, I assume the material in the OP was an over-the-top exaggeration, but I agree with ChickenFreak that there's a POV/male gaze issue with it. I don't think I'm any more aware of my breasts than of any other body part, unless there's someone else who's paying attention to them. And even then my focus will likely be mostly on the other person and either being creeped out or pleased that the notice is being given. When I wake up and stretch, I'm probably more aware of my back, or the muscles along my ribs, or, you know, any of the other parts of my body that are actually involved in the stretch. I wonder if there's a lack of parallelism between male and female anatomy, here. Like, if men are equating dicks with boobs, then they probably think women think about their boobs a LOT, because men always seem to be thinking about/adjusting/comparing/protecting/otherwise focusing on their dicks. Little boys run around the house treating their dicks like the world's funnest toy, and grown men sleep with their hands cupped protectively/affectionately over their crotches. But I really don't think most women have the same level of interest in their breasts.
@ChickenFreak & @big soft moose do you have anything published I can read? Had a lack of decent reading material recently?
It doesn't help that where one's willy is located just happens to be at a perfectly comfortable, natural point of reach as regards the average male arm. One neither needs to reach further than the arm will stretch, nor bend the arm into an inconvenient angle. It's located in a goldilocks zone, of sorts. I'm not one to support the idea of intelligent design, but, I mean, had my opinion been asked as to where to attach the schlong...
Okay, I have been a fascinated silent observer but here goes: I have not - ever - to my knowledge woken up aware of my breasts. I have had nice dreams with accompanying body awareness which might have had an effect on my actions after waking up , but focussing on breasts? Just thinking, if a woman/girl has really big ones they might be more of a concern, but (I assume) they might have to be really big and sensitive to make much of an impact on what the person notices on awakening. Of course - if a cat just happens to jump on them...
I'd say that the earliest that I become aware of my breasts, after awakening, is, "Bleep! I'm out of clean bras!"
Of course, a thread titled "DON'T write women this way" is where everyone practices writing this way...
I'm betting there are men who wake up first thing in the morning and have their pecs dance in the mirror. To characterize it you'd say they were egocentric but it wouldn't be flat out unbelievable. But the point is it's seen as something for him, whether it's seen as sexual or not. However if a woman were to make her boobs dance in the mirror by bouncing/shaking, that's still seen as for men. It's seen as for the male gaze because female sexual expression is by default seen as for men and reactive to men. Thus no one believes she could want to do that for herself. It has to be for some man. If no man is present in the scene? Well she must be a man then. A "man with breasts" and not a genuine woman. Only then does it make sense to us.
