I am not a pair of breasts

So much of a woman's sex appeal is related to having breasts that Venus went into deep depression when she was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 41 and, after a double mastectomy and lymph node removal under both arms, was left with an arm function disability.

"The breast cancer news hit my husband harder than it did me – so hard that he left me when I needed him most," says Venus, "but I was lucky enough to meet a new man, Lyle, a fellow cancer patient, pretty soon afterwards and he treated me lovingly as a beautiful human being rather than a pair of breasts."

"I was determined to live and beat this thing, and my kids were marvelous, they gave me no trouble at all and were little towers of strength."

"I had both breasts removed and decided against having plastic surgery or wearing falsies," says Venus. "By then I wasn't interested in my body image. I was just glad to be alive."

"Also, my breasts were never my best feature so it was really no big deal in the end to do without them."

“It was only after attending a local cancer support group – meeting people with severe disabilities from cancer treatment that I realized how minor my disability was,” explains Venus, “and it was at one of these groups that I befriended and then fell in love with a man who changed my life.”

"Lyle's prostate cancer treatment had rendered him impotent," explains Venus, "and if losing breasts makes some women feel less than a woman than imagine how he felt - he had lost his manhood!"

"Lyle was so concerned about his loss than he never paid attention to mine," explains Venus. "And this had a wonderful healing effect on me."

"In return - and I genuinely felt this way," adds Venus "it didn't bother me that Lyle was incapable of having sex with me in the traditional manner."

"We discovered that sex could be far more beautiful and lasting and satisfying without the need for breasts and a penis."


"I am not a pair of breasts," asserts Venus. "I am much more than that and I soon discovered just how right I was when I met Lyle.”

"There's definitely life after mastectomy," assures Venus, "and if I had to have my breasts removed in order to meet Lyle and realize how perfect I was - with or without breasts - then it has all been well worth while."

"I don't know whether Lyle and I will eventually get married and stay together," says Venus, "but right now he's the best thing in my life - apart from the kids of course - and I'm going to enjoy our relationship for as long as it lasts."


Read more about Venus:

cancer, separation then love

swim in a sea of love

breast cancer butchery

Rafaela, a single mom of 49, is one of many women who thought she was doing the right thing getting screened for breast cancer when she found a little lump. Now that it's officially accepted that breast cancer over-diagnosis results in unnecessary surgery, chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy for one in three women her gut feeling at the time – that she was bullied, lied to and butchered for a small cancer that could have regressed, remained dormant or grown so slowly that it was not worth worrying about in the first place – has been confirmed.

"When I was diagnosed with a small breast cancer six years ago I was not given the same sort of 'wait and see' approach that men get when they are diagnosed with prostate cancer," says Rafaela. "Instead, I was bullied unmercifully into having treatment I did not want, and in all likelihood did not need, by a whole team of white coats with faces to match."

"I was told I would die without treatment – and not just die, but die horribly in agonizing pain," sighs Rafaela. "Imagine the impact of that sort of blunt statement on a mother of young children. I was devastated, and I felt like slapping the face of the ghoulish doctor who delivered that soul-destroying statement to me, as if it was an undisputable fact and he was an all-knowing god.”

"My doctors must have known about the risks of over-diagnosis, but they doggedly asserted the worst case scenario and gave me no way out," says Rafaela. "In doing so, they blatantly lied to me and bullied me into being butchered – having one of my beautiful breasts surgically removed, as if it were a lump of lard without any purpose or significance."

"I had no history of breast cancer, or any cancer, in my family history," adds Rafaela. "I was not a high risk patient and the speed with which they bullied me into surgery after diagnosis was almost criminal, and why they had to remove my whole breast rather than remove the cancerous lump was probably criminal too.”

"I was given no time to do research, ask for a second opinion or just to reflect on my situation and follow my gut instinct," cries Rafaela. "It was diagnosis, biopsy, scans, tests and hospital within a week, and although they maintained that speed was essential to stop the cancer spreading, I now feel that this speed had more to do with denying me the time and space I needed to assert control over my own body."

"There's a whole breast cancer industry out there that preys on women like me," says Rafaela. "No doubt, most of the participants in this industry believe they are helping us, but at the time I had an awful feeling from the depth of my being that I was being bullied into something I didn't want or need and that they were monsters who either delighted in cutting off women's breasts or just wanted to line their pockets or gain medical research kudos at my expense."

"No doubt, too, many women with breast cancer have been 'saved' by being bullied, lied to and butchered in this fashion – if only for a maximum of five years which, to the industry, is considered a reasonable survival period," adds Rafaela, "but why should one in three women have to suffer unnecessarily from this one-size-fits-all approach to breast cancer?"

"For large tumors or invasive cancers by all means adopt an aggressive treatment regime if that's what the woman wants," cries Rafaela, "but for the rest of us, for pity’s sake, leave us alone, don’t bully and scare us, adopt the wait and see approach and get some sensitivity training."

"I went through the most soul-destroying and terrifying experience imaginable having breast cancer treatment, and to a lesser extent so did my kids and my mother (who moved in to take care of the kids for me, even though she had health problems of her own)," says Rafaela. "It still galls me today that in the 21st century nothing more gentle than butchery, poisoning and burning has been developed to deal with this cancer."

"That the industry masks this awful truth with pink ribbons - and a booklet euphemistically called a 'journey' - is something that really needs to be addressed," says Rafaela. "Nothing defines a woman more than a pair of breasts, and in bullying me into having a mastectomy they murdered my womanhood, destroyed my self-esteem and my sense of control over my own body. Nothing, least of all a silicon implant, can make me feel whole again.”

“OK, I’ve survived six years without a recurrence and I’m supposedly ‘cured’,” says Rafaela, “but there’s no evidence whatsoever to prove that the butchery, poisoning and burning they put me through had anything to do with it.”

“The point I’m making is that had I been given an option to wait and see, that is what I would have done, and I would have signed a legal waiver if being sued was their main worry – which I believe it probably was,” explains Rafaela. “If waiting and monitoring the lump led to the cancer growing then I would have agreed to aggressive treatment willingly and uncomplainingly as an active participant.”

“If anything, when I think of survival I think of surviving the torture they put me through, not the cancer,” sighs Rafaela, “and it makes my blood boil to realize that that my cancer could have regressed, remained dormant or grown so slowly that it was not worth worrying about – and I went through hell and back for no good reason other than the industry was hung up on following to the letter some ‘standard procedure’ devised by some misogynistic sadist.”

“My advice for women with a little lump in their breast is this: keep an eye on it and only seek medical advice if it grows bigger,” says Rafaela. “If you panic at the first sign of a little lump as I did (following scare campaigns by the industry to get it early) you will live to regret it – as I have.”

mammogram misery

Belle is single, 48, and suffers from painful, engorged and lumpy breasts. Apparently, according to her doctor, it's a very common hormonal problem suffered by menopausal women and nothing to worry about, but just to cover all angles she was sent for a breast cancer screening test. The mammogram experience was so awful that she will never subject herself willingly to anything like that again.

"My breasts were already painful and engorged," explains Belle, "so you can imagine the excruciating pain I went through when those X-ray plates squashed down on my breasts."

"The woman who was operating the breast X-ray machine must have been a masochist," sighs Belle. "Every time I cried in agony she would press harder -- and if that was not bad enough one of the X-rays did not 'take' very well which meant that I had to go through all that misery again."

"I came out of the X-ray room in tears," says Belle, "and the other women seated outside waiting their turn to be put through the breast wringer looked very worried when they saw me crying -- and they had good reason to be worried."

"The breast X-ray machine has to be the most abominable contraption ever invented -- and it must have been invented by a misogynist, a man who really hates women."

"I've learned since that there is a new procedure for testing for breast cancer that does not involve torture," says Belle, "but it beats me why they didn't think of something more gentle to start off with."

"I bet there is no ball or penis squashing X-ray machine to check for testicular and penile cancer in men, " laughs Belle. "The male dominated medical profession is very, very gentle when it deals with male problems."

"And the male dominated medical profession is not just gentle but downright secretive when it deals with male problems."

"Whoever heard of testicular, penile and prostate cancer before recent years?" asks Belle.

"Men have been suffering from these forms of cancer for as long as women have suffered from breast cancer," claims Belle, "but it was pictures of menopausal women with their breasts being squashed in the X-ray machine that were plastered over our television screens and in all of the magazines -- not pictures of middle-aged men and their crown jewels in similar compromising situations."

"Men pretended that they never had any problems -- it was all hushed up."

"And because men diagnosed with testicular, penile or prostate cancer suffer side-effects such as incontinence and impotence from treatment," adds Belle, "a lot of male doctors felt that mass screening wouldn't work for men as well as it does for women."

"In fact they agree among themselves that the cure is worse than the illness -- and that men would prefer not to know if they have cancer of their private parts."

"Well, as far as I can see it is virtually the same thing for women but that didn't stop the male dominated medical profession from recommending mass screening for breast cancer, did it?"

"Women are treated as stupid sheep as far as health matters are concerned," sighs Belle, "and unfortunately most of us have been brought up to accept that demeaning role."

"I found out later that my doctor could have sent me for a breast ultrasound rather than an mammogram," says Belle. "Why he chose to put me through that agony rather than go the gentle route worries me."

"Actually, there is something else that happened at the breast screening clinic that I need to tell women about," adds Belle.

"After the mammogram a male doctor did a physical examination and the first thing he said when he walked into the room and saw me sitting there bare-breasted was 'what a lovely pair of breasts you have for a 48 year-old-woman'."

"I hope I'm not sounding like an ingrate -- but that was not the sort of thing I expected to hear from a doctor specializing in breast cancer."

"It was sexist, patronizing and a back handed compliment," says Belle. "I doubt whether a female doctor would have made a similar comment about a male patient's appendages."

"My advice to menopausal women is this: Keep away from doctors!"