My mind stumbled onto the breasts/sex objects/push-up bra thread yesterday
while I was out running (if running is the word to use for my 12-minute mile
pace).
        As someone who is starting her eighth month of working out 3x/week--most
weeks ;-) and who has the new muscles to prove it, I say go for it. There's a
certain joy in having a body that moves, that's efficient, that can haul storm
windows up and down the ladder and that can lift a 48-pound five-year-old when
he requests a "picked-up hug." I think that kind of pleasure in a body is
worth stuffing into a bikini. It's not just sex.
        The rigors of caring for small children can leave a woman feeling physically
tired, looking depressed, and slouching like crazy. To get past this, and find
new physical vigor is like discovering that yes! there is life after 40. And
anyone who expects to be doing good works for decades to come would do well to
pay attention to muscle mass and aerobic capacity now. If it takes some bodily
vanity and a bikini as an immediate goal to achieve lifelong physical
vitality--well, why not?
        Besides, the sex objects thing is in the eye of the beholder, right? Just
like breastfeeding in public is the onlooker's problem, not the mother's.
        I'm looking at new bathing suits myself--though not bikinis. They don't suit
my practical persona--nor *my* well-expressed German genes. But I think one
could make a case for showing off stretch marks!

Gwen Gotsch (mom to Kris 11-86; Eliza 12-90 and Kurt 10-92)
LLLI Publications Staff