Bare Reality: 100 Women, Their Breasts, Their Stories

by Laura Dodsworth

100 women bravely share un-airbrushed photographs of their breasts alongside honest, courageous, powerful and humorous stories about their breasts and their lives. Women from all walks of life took part, aged from 19 to 101, sized AAA to K, from Buddhist nun to burlesque dancer. Their perspectives and experiences are revealing and profoundly moving. Intimate, visually refreshing, maybe even surprising, Bare Reality will make you reconsider how you think and feel about your own body, and those of the women in your life.

Genres: Nonfiction

465 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 4, 2015

About the author

Laura Dodsworth is an author, journalist, photographer and filmmaker and has been described as a ‘latter-day punchy Cassandra’ and a ‘Slayer of Taboos’. Her books Bare Reality: 100 women, their breasts, their stories, Manhood: The Bare Reality and Womanhood: The Bare Reality have attracted worldwide media coverage and excellent reviews.

Laura and the creation of Womanhood were the subject of a documentary for Channel 4, 100 Vaginas, which received 5 star reviews and has been broadcast around the world.

Her latest book is A State of Fear: how the UK government weaponised fear during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Reviews

[TM Upchurch · Rating 5 out of 5]

A hundred women bare their breasts and provide commentary on how they feel about them, with family and medical background, and views on breastfeeding. This is a personal insight into what real breasts look like on real women, rather than air-brushed images on screens and billboards.
The group included young and old women from a diverse range of backgrounds, some mothers / some not, some breastfeeding, and some post-surgical after lumpectomy, mastectomy, breast reduction, gender reassignment, or implant surgery. It’s a desperately-needed bite of reality in an age of media lies; a vital piece of work that everyone in the west should read. On a more personal level, it made me feel better about my own body — I was able to place my own shape and size within a group of a hundred others, and found myself feeling comfortable.
There are a lot of commonalities, so if you read all the commentaries one after another, as I did, you’ll encounter a lot of recurring themes and so it does feel repetitive, but all the stories have individual voices and there are some wonderful quirks along the way — e.g. the girl who bought her first bra with her father, and the woman who tattooed butterflies onto her breasts. It was interesting to read how some women are happy with their breasts and find them deeply erogenous, whereas others are not and do not (the author implies a link). Likewise we hear of partners who are enthusiastic and generous about their lover’s breasts, and others who are scathing.
In some cases, the pictures and stories were familiar; others were admirable and/or stunningly beautiful, and all were human. Every single story had something to give; en masse, they were deeply moving. It felt like walking into a room full of friends. It was a privilege to read.

[Kielo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was an extremely important read. It felt very fresh and needed reminder of the fact that us as women should be able to be in control of our own bodies rather than let others or the society standards to define them.

I felt sad about how many of us still dislike parts of our bodies and especially about which way many women are talked to by guys since their breasts grow and how they just get used to being belittled and underrated solely based on their looks. On the other hand it was encouraging to read about how many of us have learned to accept and love their bodies as they grow older.

I wish many people read this one whether they want to see diverse and realistic pictures of breasts, learn things about breastfeeding or motherhood (there was a lot of information about that actually), get to know their bodies better or any other reason. Very thought-provoking and beautifully layouted.

[Shelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning and important
Here is my review http://youtu.be/y2vOJdYTGwM

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read Manhood: The Bare Reality and though it was incredibly honest and the men exposed themselves I truly think it has nothing on this book about women and their experiences with their breasts. More than likely this is because I am a woman and can relate to many of the stories.
It is amazing to me as I read the individual stories how so many women each have such individual experiences with their breasts. Some stories are joyous and full of life, others have so much sorrow and despair. It seems the common denominator about breasts were they were either sexual to men or for breastfeeding and many women reported they didn't feel any sensitivity in them at all.
The women discussed the porn industry and how it shapes how men, people, viewed breasts and how they should be and how they should be 'manipulated' and 'owned' by men. Women talked about the teasing they were on the receiving end of when they began to grow or how men would inappropriately comment on them or put themselves in positions to 'accidently' touch them.
Cancer was also an issue that caused many to have lumpectomy's or mastectomy's and how that has changed how they viewed their breasts.
I would recommend this book to all women to gain different perspectives on how women feel about their breasts and the challenges some overcome to get to a place of acceptance of their breasts.
Every story is different but each story is an opening to each woman and their courage to come forward and expose themselves emotionally and physically for the making of this book.

[Rae · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can be very much an empath and this took me ages to read. Not because it's uninteresting or bad, but because nearly every story is full of raw emotion and I found myself relating to much of it. In fact it felt draining in its own way.
In particular it was interesting to see myself challenged by so much conversation about breast-feeding, which is one of the main questions participants are asked.

I'm not a mother. I fully support breast-feeding and a woman's choice to do it or not, and wherever she wants to do it. And if I had children I would do what was best for the baby. Having said that it does turn me off thinking about it, not because I view breasts as sexual, but because of the baby feeding off the mother and the sensations described. Maybe it's the unknown, or maybe the perceived parasitic nature of it, but it was good to be confronted with these raw stories. Many women go in-depth about how they enjoyed it and felt like they appreciated their body more and felt connected with their children. I was surprised at how many mentioned the little support they received in teaching them how to breast-feed, since it's not always easy to figure out.

Everyone was unique, yet what I found so interesting were the similarities that so many women described with their breasts, especially in their relationships with men (which saddened me though there were also lovely stories) and being a mother. I'm looking forward to reading the other books in this series though I'm also nervous because I know there will be difficult stories too.

[Marvin M Washington · Rating 5 out of 5]

All about breast

I was interesting to read how women feel, think, and relate to their breast. The pictures helped show the breasts in proportion with one another and the aftermath of cancer.

[Ellison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Features images and profiles of a collection of women as they share what makes them female, their thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Insightful.