Sarah Thornton had dismissed them as ‘dumb boobs’ until a double mastectomy changed everything. Her new book, Tits Up, explores what our beliefs about breasts mean – from feeding babies to bra design and Baywatch

Throughout her life, Sarah Thornton hadn’t given much thought to her breasts. They were there, of course, and they’d fed two children. But they had also attracted unwanted attention, and latterly they’d become a source of concern – with a history of breast cancer in her family, and after years of vigilance and tests, in 2018 Thornton was about to undergo a preventive double mastectomy. Preparing for the operation, she realised she still hadn’t given them much consideration, nor what it would be like to have “new” breasts in the form of implants. When they turned out to be bigger than expected, she was shocked, “but in the end,” she says, “it wasn’t the aesthetic form as much as the feeling. It was like losing sentience. And it put me on a quest to understand these things that I’d never thought too much about. These things I’d kind of dismissed as dumb boobs.”

Thornton’s new book, Tits Up: What Our Beliefs About Breasts Reveal About Life, Love, Sex and Society, is a deep dive into the bosom of our fixation with boobs. Writing the book, she says, has transformed how she views her own breasts. “I really did go from dismissing them as a kind of shallow accessory, to thinking of them as a really important body part – one we wouldn’t have a human species without,” she says. “Our top halves have been invaded by male supremacy and I did not realise how deeply patriarchal even my own view of breasts was. I was dismissing them as dumb boobs, partly because they’re positioned primarily in culture as erotic playthings and I didn’t want to just be an erotic plaything.”