In the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, there's a scene where Joel (played by Jim Carrey) makes eye contact with Clementine (played by Kate Winslet) in a cafe. She smiles and acknowledges him with a tip of her coffee mug. The ever-reticent Joel does nothing, but after some moments of silence, asks himself in voice-over narration: "Why do I fall in love with every woman I see who shows me the least bit of attention?"
It's a big question, and one that in many ways strikes to the very core of the human condition. I also know that for me, for a certain period of my life, the answer was "boobs."
It's nature's double-sided puberty gag. On the one hand, (if what movies and books lead me to believe is true), girls' bodies start going all freak show on them, which eventually results in an awkward conversation with their mother (who gives them a copy of either Flowers in the Attic or Carrie) and their father (who apparently is supposed to buy them something called a "training bra"). At the same time, and on the other side, (if what my own life leads me to believe is true), some boys start developing an infatuation with the emerging, unruly new parts of their female friends (and perhaps begin to do some "training" of their own sort).
Having spent many of my formative post-pubescent years poring over wet t-shirt photos at the blazing speed of 28 kilobites per second, I found that the suspense has had a profound effect on me in adulthood. It's not that I love boobs less, although it's maybe true that I'm more focused on other girly-bits. It's more that I'm like the dog who, after hours of chasing squirrels, actually catches one. Wait, what am I supposed to do with these things?
The how-to-operate of certain boy-bits is obvious (up/down/repeat), and finding one's way around the more complicated girl-bits isn't much more difficult. But boobs remain an enigma, so subjective and unique that there are only two options: experiment (and risk getting it wrong) or ask (and risk sounding like a 12-year-old boy asking "um.. can... can i suck on your boob?").
In the Eternal Sunshine universe, Clementine complains to Joel that "too many guys think I'm a concept, or I complete them, or I'm gonna make them alive." She's right; Kate Winslet's character in that movie drives me batshit bonkers crazy. I just can't figure out if it's because I'm attracted to the arty, somewhat dysfunctional, free spirit type, or if it's because at precisely the right time and place (aged 14, watching Titanic), I saw her boobs.
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