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I would like to preface with my perspective, I am a 16 year-old female with double E cups (my back pain is devastating).
America is so incredibly prude. It's a shame that I had to learn to be comfortable in my own skin. I didn't wear a tank top out in public till I was 14 and even on the most scorching summer days I preferred heat stroke over the comfort of a summer t-shirt. I have been conditioned, ever since I developed a little earlier than other girls in my grade, that my bigger-than-average chest was something that needed to be concealed. When I tried to wear a V-neck shirts, a tank top or even tried to go without the punishment of wearing a bra (mind you I was in second grade when my mother first forced me to start wearing bras) I was scolded and it was demanded of me that I go change, immediately. When I got older and developed a more free-style of thinking, I challenged the idea that I needed to dress in ways that made other's feel comfortable, or in ways that don't temp the wild and uncontrollable beasts we call men. I once heard someone say "am I showing off my boobs or do I just have boobs?" and I kid you not I haven't been the same sense. We are conditioned to be embarrassed and ashamed of ourselves in any possible. Society brainwashes us to be insecure because it's easier to influence, or in other words control, people who lack confidence in themselves, which starts out with things as seemingly minuscule as being comfortable in your own skin. Isn't that so strange?
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Archer27
This really resonated with me. I've been recently thinking about what I consider my own personal opinion and how my environment has created that, and reading this made me realize I had completely overlooked my own perceptions of what is beautiful and erotic!
For one thing, I realize the breast hasn't always been this way. There are plenty of cultures in which the female breast, amongst other forms of nudity, is totally mundane. And from a historic standpoint, the difference between the decent and the disgraceful has never been static. Just look at Victorian era swimwear (for women and men!), along with all the older views towards cross-dressing, homosexuality, etc...
I feel it should also be mentioned views towards same-sex nudity. For once the sexes were segregated, nudity has long been accepted. especially among men. For as late as the 1970s, male swim teams have swam nude. In regards to this, I find the present day more conservative, with far more privacy allowed in changing rooms.
You say society brainwashes unconfident people to be insecure, in regards to comfort in their skin, but I must ask: is there anything society doesn't "brainwash" us about? You are certainly right about men's brainwashed temptations towards boobs, but what can be said for the rest of nudity? Can men/American society be blamed for this attraction? Should personal comfort trump societal norms?
Anyways, good post!