When was the last time you really thought about what your breasts feel like? The #WhatNormalFeelsLike campaign, just launched by breast cancer awareness charity CoppaFeel!, wants you to give yourself a good squeeze and describe exactly what you feel. And I’m not just talking about size — why limit ourselves to one parameter? We have a huge wealth of words available to us in so many amazing languages, so go ahead. Cop a feel. What’s it like?
CoppaFeel! focuses on early detection, encouraging women to check their breasts on a regular basis. #WhatNormalFeelsLike builds off of this theme, asking us to really think about what we’re feeling when we perform self-exams. Are they soft? Firm? “Squidgy?” The end goal is twofold: First, to encourage us to get to know our breasts better, which will help us identify changes that might indicate breast cancer; and second, to dream up a new vocabulary to describe breasts beyond simply size — normalizing breasts in the process.
Cosmopolitan, which has a longstanding relationship with CoppaFeel! reports that there was “no booby casting” for the campaign; the organization wanted to use real women to represent the diversity of breasts everywhere, so the seven women who served as boob models “were chosen on a ‘first-come, first-served’ basis.” According to the Telegraph, the images will be displayed on digital billboards at Westfield White City in London, St. Enoch in Glasgow, and the Cavern Quarter in Liverpool for six weeks. They also mark the first time uncensored boobs have appeared on billboards in the U.K. What makes the CoppaFeel! ads different from the numerous fashion ads that the Advertising Standards Agency has banned in the past? They’re not sexualized. At all. And that? Is pretty awesome.
CoppaFeel! was founded by Kirs Hallenga after she was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer when she was just 23. Said Hallenga about the #WhatNormalFeelsLike campaign to the Independent, “Society and the media think of breasts in a sexual way, but by creating this campaign, we want to give boobs back to women and encourage them to think and talk about them in terms beyond size.” She continued, “The more normal it is to talk about boobs, the more likely women are to check themselves regularly and spot any changes early.” Accordingly, the campaign’s accompanying hashtag encourages women to tweet what their breasts feel like to them — hopefully building a whole dictionary of words that describe #WhatNormalFeelsLike.
As Cosmo remarks, it’s probably inevitable that the campaign will catch some flack — those who will claim, “People won’t be able to desexualize the images!” and what have you — but they also note that #WhatNormalFeelsLike is a point well made. “It’s bold, and brave, and it’s already got people talking. Which, ultimately, is the aim, isn’t it?” True that. Check out the full campaign over at CoppaFeel!'s website.
Me? I’m going to go with… squashy. A good sort of squashy. I like squashy things. They’re texturally incredibly satisfying. What does normal feel like for you?
Image: CoppaFeel!
