‘I had a breast reduction – and fell out of love with my body’

I LOVED MY BOOBS when I was a teenager. In fact, I loved my body. Iflaunted it in itsy-bitsy bikinis on Clifton Beach and at Sea Point Pavilion. And then I really flaunted it all on Sandy Bay, lying in the sun from nine to five with just baby oil as my ‘sunscreen’.

I remember my older brother remarking how he would hate to be the buttons closing the blouse over my chest, that they spent the whole day gripping onto the buttonholes, surely exhausted after a few hours. Oh, how I laughed. My boobs were me! I loved them and, in turn, I loved myself.

One day a pervy photographer asked me to appear in a topless calendar when he was ‘talent-spotting’ on Sandy Bay. My very droll mother said, ‘Well, you go ahead. But I don’t think it’s a goodmight react.’ Not forbidden, I let it go. Had she said absolutely no, I probably would have rebelled.