I’m a bit late with this comment, but I just got around to reading your blog.

You wrote “…Montreal, Connecticut, Boston, Seattle and Kansas City, and I can say that the women of Redmond, Washington are exceptional.”

Just for the record: Connecticut is not a city.

revocable in fact but not with ease.

Which is why fashion will be the preferred transformational medium until we can tune our own dna with a screw driver.

The telling contrast:

cost in money, time, effort, initiative and advice to change the color or fact of a halter top: 3 minutes and 30 dollars.

cost in same to change plastic surgery: many days and 1000s of dollars.

plastic surgery, particulary the nature of which we are talking about here is entirely revocable. see anderson, pamela and the various volumes she has experimented with. it now seems to be an economy in which fluctuation between plus and minus is fairly straightforward… in true body part as commodity fashion.

I see women of that physique and I think of R. Crumb,

http://www.fantagraphics.com/artist/crumb/csketch/crs8_gal/csk4.html

Although his women tended more toward the bodacious heiney.

Eddie Bauer’s origins were in Seattle and in military and expedition equipment–once women started venturing into the Alpine wilderness (in 1967, Outward Bound couldn’t offer mixed sex expeditions, and only had a women’s expedition canoeing in the Boundary Waters; by 1971 they could offer both co-ed and women-only expeditions above treeline in the Sierras), demand increased for clothes that actually fit women.

Women-only expeditions started becoming popular in the early 1970s

Eddie Bauer had a manufacting plant in Bellevue (westwards of Seattle), in the early 1970s. We used to go for seconds when I was associated with the Cascades National Outdoor Leadership School (whose base was in Bellevue).

There’s not as much sales potential in expedition clothes as every-day clothes, so Bauer (after being sold to General Mills) shifted the company’s sales focus to retailing “casual”, using the expeditionary background to position the clothes.

But, back to why bodacious breasts in Redmond? Why are breast augmentation surgeries for teens becoming both accepted and popular?

http://www.ym.com/privatelife/newsypage/jun2204.jsp

What Happened to Gift Certificates?
High school graduation gifts have changed a lot over the years. Back in the day, parents used to reward their kids with money or a car (if you were lucky) for earning a diploma. Nowadays, they’re offering a new pair of boobs instead.

The New York Post reports that more and more teens are getting breast implants as presents. According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, breast augmentation skyrocketed among girls, from 3,872 in 2000 to 11,326 in 2003. Medical experts say the trend is due to all of the images of busty teens like Jessica Simpson and Lindsay Lohan in the media and popular plastic-surgery-promoting shows like Extreme Makeover and The Swan.

More
http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/1861/context/archive

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/0704/11implants.html

http://www.collegeconfidential.com/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?70/73800

Maybe you are just noticing it more in Redmond?

But it was a Redmond preteen, Ella Gunderson, who is the poster child for a return to more modest fashions:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,121608,00.html

“We like to call this new girl Miss Modesty,” said Gigi Solif Schanen, fashion editor at Seventeen magazine. “It’s such a different feeling but still very pretty and feminine and sexy. It’s just a little more covered up.”

last time i checked still no assistants, just several versions of me, each more frazzled than the next. but thanks for projecting them on me nonetheless. since your post, two things occurred to me. one that in your post you equate “exceptional” with large breasts, and then play the ‘male as dog’ card as pre-emptive strike and second, i recalled the playboy interview with bill gates talking about his then newly married status. the excerpt of the transcript speaks for itself. there are too many classic lines to point out. enjoy.

>>

PLAYBOY: You recently got married, an event many of your competitors have fervently wished for. Now, they say, you’ll concentrate less on work.

GATES: They’re just joking. If they really think I’m going to work a lot less just because I’m married, that’s an error.

PLAYBOY: Isn’t there a kernel of truth in any joke?

GATES: Married life is a simpler life. Who I spend my time with is established in advance.

PLAYBOY: You were one of the world’s most eligible bachelors. No doubt there are many women who would love to be in Melinda’s place.

GATES: What? They want to do puzzle contests with me? They want to go golfing with me? How do they know its interesting to be around me? They want to read the books I read?

PLAYBOY: What was it that attracted you to Melinda?

GATES: Oh, I don’t know. That’s probably too personal. Even before I met Melinda, if someone asked me a question like that I’d always say I was interested in people who are smart and independent. And I’m sure I’ll continue to meet lots of interesting, smart, independent people.

PLAYBOY: Something about Melinda must have made you turn the corner. Don’t tell us you’re just getting older and it was time.

GATES: There’s some magic there that’s hard to describe, and I’m pursuing that.

PLAYBOY: Can you describe how she makes you feel?

GATES: Amazingly, she made me feel like getting married. Now that is unusual! It’s against all my past rational thinking on the topic.

Michelle,Thank you very much for your bravery and candor. It does make you wonder what feminism accomplished. We are right back where we started from. Best, Grant