Thanks for the Mammaries
Pre-quake Sunday
Boobquake. Did you hear about it? At first I thought it referred to the massive tsunami of GOP blather against Obama’s latest legislation. But no, it meant actual boobs, as in mammaries. And it happened on Monday, April 26.
On the preceding day I was enjoying brunch with a gaggle of friends when somebody mentioned the upcoming Boobquake. Apparently I’d been under a rock and had so far missed the whole boob-ha-ha.
I grabbed my Blackberry and surfed. Sure enough, a Boobquake Facebook page told of a worldwide protest against an Iranian cleric’s suggestion that immodestly dressed women cause earthquakes. He blames the women for causing lascivious thoughts from men, resulting in fornication and adultery, which, in turn, cause earthquakes.
Puleeeze. Joining the brain trust of Pat Robertson (lesbians caused Hurricane Katrina) and Fred Phelps (God Hates Fags) we have Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi causing a Boobquake. Wow, his first name is a mouthful, and everyone knows that more than a mouthful is wasted, but I digress.
Sedighi, Teheran’s Friday prayer leader really pissed off Purdue University student Jen McCreight, who put a Facebook page together urging women worldwide to satirize the cleric on the following Monday by revealing a little cleavage—or ankle, for the modest.
“Sedighi claims that not dressing modestly causes earthquakes,“ said McCreight, “If so, we should be able to test this claim scientifically. Time for a Boobquake.” So she told her Facebook friends that on Monday, April 26th, she would wear her most cleavage-showing shirt and they should too, in order to have some fun with the hateful cleric.
Hmmmm. A scientific call to arms, or breasts as the case may be. Okay, I was locked and loaded. Frankly, I’m afraid we were all a little loaded at brunch, having Mimosa’d our way through this perky conversation. Some of us were amply prepared for a seismic wave of breast activism while others fretted about a lack of ammunition to get the job done. “Who gives a hooter?” we all agreed. We’re in!
Richter Scales and bra sizes aside, the planned boobquake caught my imagination. And I was not alone. Twenty-four hours after it was first announced, 40,000 Facebook people (or 80,000 juggies, give or take) in dozens of countries had signed on for this most civil disobedience; a major magnitude of tectonic titties.
It made the papers, too. I loved the headlines “Vancouver protesters plan to shake beliefs with Boobquake,” “Cleric vs. Cleavage,” or NBC’s “Boobquake lifts and separates political opinion.” The punny headlines went wild. By Sunday at 3 p.m. New York Magazine reported that 120,000 women signed on to show cleavage, dress less modestly and otherwise give the raspberries to the Imam.
Oh, the aftershocks! I tweeted and Facebooked my participation, and heard “Keep us abreast,” “Do man boobs count?” (um…not sure) and my favorite “You work at home, so just the schnauzers will see your cleavage!”
No, I intended to hang out, if you’ll excuse the expression at Walmart, and the liquor store, too, busting out all over town. A gal’s gotta do what a gal’s gotta do to combat these idiotic religious wing nuts trying to blame natural disasters on their idea of unnatural behavior. Did they blame the Icelandic volcano on their plumbers bending over under the sink??? I didn’t think so. No, this is just your every day fundamentalist cleric misogyny.
Monday, a real Boobquake
Got up early to discover hundreds of thousands of women worldwide set to expose their breasts in varying degrees. Jen McCreight was online reminding everyone that this is not about baring all, but baring whatever you feel comfy baring. She will be in a tank top. I donned my CAMP Rehoboth sweat shirt and made sure the zipper was down dangerously low over my bare skin.
Will this seismic boobie wave make the earth move under my feet? Wait a minute. In my world, attractive sights like this can make the earth move. Well, I guess if the earth moves for you in a good way, that’s fine. Death and destruction as described by the Imam, not so much.
Oh no! By 8 a.m. FOX Noise reported an earthquake in Taiwan! Could the politically incorrect Imam be seismically correct? Luckily, Boobquake founder McCreight had previously posted: “I know many earthquakes happen on a daily basis, so we’re looking to see if Boobquake significantly increases the number or magnitude of earthquakes.” NBC reported that once the Boobquake is over, McCreight will be researching earthquake statistics to see if there actually was an uptick in seismic activity.
Well, here it is 4 p.m. on Monday and our planet has not yet been destroyed by this wanton display of womanity. And so far there has been little fall-out—seismic wise. I’ve had no word on any other kind of fall-out, but needless to say, with a globe full of gals in low cut garments, flaunting their assets, somebody somewhere must have had a wardrobe malfunction. Hey, if a breast falls out in the forest and the Imam isn’t there to see it, is he still stupid?
All I know is that on my drive-by at the bank, my promenade through Walmart’s check-out line, or my wicked sashay around the car to pump some gas, no fault lines erupted and Rehoboth didn’t quake into the ocean. Thanks to the cold and damp weather, the only scientific data I can quantify is one pair of boobs making its, er, point to the silly, delusional Imam.
Enough. How long are we going to have to put up with hate-filled boobs like these?
Fay Jacobs is the author of As I Lay Frying—a Rehoboth Beach Memoir and Fried & True—Tales from Rehoboth Beach. Contact her at Fayjacobsrb@aol.com.