I started to research this article with one question in mind: how do lesbians feel about breasts? I know – it sounds dumb put like that. Everyone likes breasts! Soft, sexy, inviting… What’s not to like?

But as it turned out, it’s not as simple as that. ‘We live in a society that tends to read “breasts” as a shorthand for “sex”,’ points out Jude, 39. ‘But as a woman, you have your own experience with breasts; you don’t believe, as men do, that they’re a miraculous thing just put there to be played with. They’re not as foreign and removed.’

And yet neither do we see them as familiar, neutral attributes like, for example, knees. Breasts, from AAA to J cups, are bulging vessels of cultural meaning, pleasure and anxiety. As lesbians, our feelings about breasts are more complicated than any straight woman’s (or man’s) could be. Not only do we have our own knockers to deal with – we’ve got other women’s, to boot. That’s a lot of cleavage, and a lot of baggage, too.

For some of us, the role breast development played in the trauma of adolescence (aka ‘Becoming a Woman’) overshadows our feelings about them forever after. ‘I’ve always had a problematic relationship with my breasts, as I think most women do, because of the way our bodies are subjected to such scrutiny,’ says Tamzin, 37. ‘When I started developing lumps and bumps, I was desperate for them, because that was a mark of becoming a grown-up woman, but on the other hand I remember telling my mum that I hoped I got breast cancer when I was older as I wanted to have my tits cut off, and of course my mum was horrified and scolded me. But I didn’t feel ready to carry the responsibility I felt female breasts entailed. I was scared. I don’t know if that was because I didn’t want to be a young woman, or because I really wanted to be a boy. To this day I’m not sure. The only person I’ve ever met who had the same experience and feelings was a trans-man I know. I was shocked that we shared that experience, but it was probably just an extreme manifestation of what a lot of women feel because of this culturally prescribed idea about what femininity is or should consist of.’

Since we pick up the same ugly, coercive messages about our bodies as all women, it isn’t surprising that lots of the lesbians I spoke to owned up to a high level of dissatisfaction with their own breasts – too big, too small, too droopy, too flat – but few subjected their lovers to the same judgemental criteria they applied to themselves. For most of us, breasts are part of the overall package – you love them because they’re part of her, rather than vice versa. ‘I don’t mind what my partners’ boobs are like,’ muses Steph, 28. ‘I like them however they come.’

That doesn’t mean we don’t have our preferences, though – they’re sometimes quite specific: ‘I like small-to-medium, very firm, sit-up-and-beg type tits with largish nipples and well-defined aureoles,’ Jony, 37, told me. And Nancy, 41, who has implants, says, ‘I like natural breasts. Really nicely shaped, quite small. And I have quite a fetish for pale, small nipples with pale aureolae.’

Obviously, how we respond to our partners’ breasts may be affected by their own body image or gender identity. ‘Breasts don’t particularly attract or repel me,’ explains Jude. ‘I think that’s because I’m into butches; it’s about what they feel comfortable or uncomfortable with.’ If your partner’s ambivalent about her own womanly bosom, she won’t necessarily thank you for falling on it with enthusiasm during sex. Sometimes this can be inhibiting: ‘I once went out with someone who didn’t like having her chest touched, which was a bit weird,’ recalls Steph. ‘It wasn’t hard to deal with but it meant I had to think a lot more about what I was doing.’

But for every boy-dyke who’s wishing her wahoobas away, there’s another who couldn’t care less. ‘A lot of butch lesbians don’t like having their tits touched, but I’d go the other way,’ asserts Jony. ‘I’d rather have my tits touched than my undercarriage because that feels completely alien to me, whereas my tits don’t – even men have nipples, and I can rationalise that that’s my chest.’

And it seems you don’t have to identify as butch to feel compromised by your assets. Nancy, a professional dominatrix with personal interests in body modification and gender-play, laments her decision to invest in implants: ‘It’s hard to be fluid about your gender expression with an obvious cleavage. I don’t have much breast-confidence at the moment, so I don’t make a point of flashing them around; with my lovers I feel fairly self-conscious. But I like having them touched and licked and sucked – that’s definitely part of sex for me. Unless I’m on a big, butch number with a strap-on – then I don’t really encourage it.’ Work-wise, however, her headlights are an obvious advantage, contributing to a cartoon-like vision of feminine power. She plans on ditching her bags when leaves the sex industry.

The growing popularity of implants (approximately 10,000 operations are carried out in the UK each year) has yet to have a big impact on the UK lesbian community, but as more younger women opt for augmentation we’re bound to see more implants on the scene. In body-conscious lesbian subcultures like those of Miami and Los Angeles, augmentation is already commonplace. Judging by the majority of my interviewees, though, it’ll be a while before plastic baps become the objects of British lesbian fantasy.

‘I don’t have strong feelings about implants which replace breasts lost to mastectomies, but cosmetically I think surgery moves us towards a place where people don’t feel ok about their bodies being varied or different,’ says Niki, 38. ‘Implants hold no erotic value for me. If I encountered a set I’d just laugh. I’ve felt implants before, but not in someone’s body. They were like jelly.’

Others have considered and dismissed the idea: ‘I’ve thought about surgery during periods of deep depression and feelings of inferiority,’ says Jude, who describes her 34AAA breasts positively as ‘small, perky and perfectly-formed’.
‘I think of it as a mental-health issue. I’m much more interested in saying, “Hello, this is me and I’m beautiful”, than trying to match up to some fake beauty standard which doesn’t have much to do with my life.’ In lesbian culture, she suggests, there’s less obsession with quantity and more interest in sexual response; lesbians seem nervous of sacrificing sensitivity for size.

Quite rightly, too. According to an informal poll conducted on the DIVA website, 59% of participants experienced a direct response in the vaginal/ clitoral region from breast stimulation. An astounding 18% said they’d actually reached orgasm through breast stimulation alone, while 16% enjoyed the sensation of breast play without any vaginal connection.

Who’d want to put that kind of pleasure at risk? Keep licking, nibbling, sucking, biting, stroking, tweaking, flicking, nuzzling, ogling, admiring and loving those breasts, ladies. The world’s a better place for them.