Off the Record

My wonderful cousin found me a job at her company, Prous, doing some website checking. I spend my time looking at disease briefings of endocrine disorders, infections, muskuloskeletal and connective tissue disorders and diabetes, among others, making sure the thumbnail image of a breast enlarges when you click on it. I also confirm that the drug Lasofoxifene Tartrate is in Phase III and not Phase II. Do the links to web journals on female sexual dysfunction disorders work? Is Dr. Dellapasqua really the one to cite for this quote on Inflammatory Bowel Disease? What about the unfinished table under the section on Gastric Ulcers? It really never ends, as I flip through the pages and wonder if I, Sarah Truckey, may have hairy cell leukemia or could have formed breast cancer from my high socioeconomic status (it was given as a cause) or developed Angina Pectoris from a genetic predisposition. My cousin warned me against hypochondriatic tendencies before I began, but I brushed them off, thinking she was suffering from Restless Leg Syndrome, Gout, or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

While on the beach surrounded by exposed breasts and large women, I began to wonder what contributes to such a free society. If you were found nude on a beach in Florida, I suppose you’d be arrested or just assumed a whore by your spectators. If you were fat and seen wearing a bikini in Hilton Head, you would most likely be laughed at, ignored or become the victim of a bombing of seashells by small children and teenagers. The men here do not gawk or stare or pelt anyone with objects found in the ocean–they simply go about their business like the rest of the beach-going folk. So, do they not see breasts as sexual organs like American men do? Have they seen the breasts of their mother’s friends so many times that they have become less a form of arousal but more something to appreciate? Friends of 16 years old and of mixed sexes sit next to each other topless, talking about school or smoking or the newest band. “When in Rome,” I said, “When in Rome…” as I took off my suit top. As I sat there, rather comfortable in my nakedness, I could not imagine sitting next to Janelle or Chris or Libby or Buster discussing the negative effects of caffeine or the homosexual undertones of “A Shark Tale.” Is it because boobs are private in the US? Is it because they’re purely seen as sexual organs? Is it because sexuality is bad and its sentiments should be avoided at all costs? Or is it because American society cultivates a notion that we should be embarrassed about our bodies and always want something better? You could not place an American man on any of these beaches without their eyes wandering, they’re mouths hanging wide open and their bodies getting restless. Place a Spanish man on South Padre, would he pack up and leave? America is so puritanical in its ways that it can’t appreciate the human body as a thing of beauty but rather as a thing only of reproduction, tastelessness and prostitution. Maybe what our country needs is an Inquisition to straighten this whole thing out.