Savage Love Extra - April 2, 2008

Readers
respond to Dan's
column about the husband of a woman who had a double masectomy after
breast-cancer survivor:

A
thought for I Miss Her Boobs (hubby of breast-cancer survivor): Turn off the
light.

Greg

As a woman, I think you went a tad too
easy on IMHB's wife—understandably, though, given what she's been through.
She had my total support UNTIL he mentioned that she will wear prosthetic
breasts to formal functions. If she's doing that at his request, then fine,
that's the best compromise she can make at this time. However, if she's doing
it because she wants to look nice in front of others, then I have to wonder why
she doesn't care more about looking nice in front of (and the associated
emotional response of) her husband than a bunch of comparative strangers.
Obviously, plastic surgery is surgery, so that is a difference. But it still
seems an unfortunate place to stop caring about how one's physical appears
affects others—not wrong, just mis-prioritized.

Just the thoughts of a woman who
(fortunately)…

Hasn't
Been There

IMHB and his wife should give fun and
games with padded bras a try. Leaving an item of clothing or two on is kinda
sexy anyway. And if she'll wear 'em to weddings, surely she'd consider wearing
'em to bed once in a while. It's temporary—she doesn't have to live with
it all the time, or deal with the surgical risks.

There are also fancier falsies available
which, with a bra, might do the job a whole lot better for him. With any luck,
she'll be okay with that on a regular basis. But if we view this as his kink,
then he should consider offering to follow your "one time out of three" rule.

Philly
Reader Illuminates Common Kink

I'm not going to bother pointing out
IMHB's obvious character flaws, nor am I going to berate you for your response.
There will be plenty of that going on without me chiming in.

What I do want to say is that my
sister-in-law went through the same ordeal, only in her case, she opted for the
reconstructive surgery. After more than a year of fighting recurring
infections, she died of a stroke—brought on, I'm sure, as a complication
of all the crap that had been done to her.

My wife and I have talked it over, and
if she ever (dog forbid) has to go through a mastectomy, there is no way I will
support her having reconstructive surgery afterward.

Still
Her Brother-In-Law

Breast
cancer runs in my family, and as a busty chick, I've often wondered whether or
not I'd go for reconstructive surgery if I lost one or both of the girls. There
is a potential compromise, however, that wasn't mentioned. Mastectomy bras and
lingerie have come a long way in recent years, as have external silicone
falsies to put in said lingerie. Sure, it won't provide the skin-on-skin
contact Mr. I Miss Her Boobs is used to, but if he can broach the subject
without making his wife feel like she's undesirable without her breasts, her
wearing implants in something sexy to bed could at least offer something soft
and squeezable.

Counting
Her Blessings

As a breast-cancer survivor who did the
breast reconstruction and now wishes she didn't, I have to speak up for the wife
of IMHB. Implants are painful to get (the expansion process is hell) and need
to be replaced every 10 years or less, are uncomfortable, expensive, and don't
even look so great naked (at least mine don't). Aside from all that, there is
no sexual sensation in the implants for the woman. What is gone is gone, and
for IMHB to resent his wife (and yes, I think he does, a tiny bit) for not
going through a painful and potentially dangerous surgical process for his
visual sexual stimulation is, well, rude. I think you nailed it, Dan, when you
said this about your partner: "How would I feel if his body changed as he aged
and after a few decades together he wasn't the exact same 23-year-old club kid
I picked up in that gay bar?"

IMHB needs to be GGG and either close
his eyes, turn her over, or duh, realize that he loves this woman, and get over
his homophobic fears that no boobs = boy. If IMHB doesn't do that, then there
is always the possibility that one day his wife will find someone who
recognizes her for the strong, courageous woman that she is, finds that a
tremendous turn-on, and leaves him.

With
Implants But Regrets It

I
wonder if IMHB has seen nude mastectomy patients who have gotten breast
implants? Like very flat-chested women who get extremely large implants, the
lack of skin and tissue means the new boobs are very definitely not real
boobs—they don't move or feel like them, and it's pretty evident that
they're fake. They will help your clothes fit as they did on your
pre-mastectomy body, but won't fool a sex partner (at least one who knows what
real and fake boobs look like). And if the woman's nipples were removed, the
doctor has to make new ones, including tattooing the areola. The guy is hoping
his wife's body will look the way it once did—and it never will. I
understand his dismay, but if she can learn to accept it (I guarantee you this
was a bigger crisis for her), so can he.

Emily

With
all due respect, I have to tell you that you made a bad call when it came to I
Miss Her Boobs! My wife had breast cancer, lost a breast, and later died of
this terrible disease. I think that the way for IMHB to "man up" is to realize
that his wife is a human being, and there is a lot more to her than breasts.
After my wife had her mastectomy, I used to kiss her scar like nothing was
different. She reported to me that she still had erotic sensations as a result.
Odds are that you could lose a testicle to cancer, how would you like it if
your lover shunned you as a result? So the answer to this situation is to quit
being so dammed shallow and give your wife the love and support that she must
need at this time.

G.
Cant-Think-Of-A-Clever-Signature Williams

IMHB is full of it. I'm 30 and my young
wife has beat breast cancer, too, after loosing a boob, her hair, and some
dignity, with chemo. But let's be clear—and most survivors I've met would
agree—it is a fucking appendage of skin. There is no way IMHB has let his
love life tank because of 500g of glandular fat. He's either scared shitless of
future malignancy/metastasis, or he had pre-existing doubts about his wife way
before the big C came along and is looking for a way out.

In any case, while he is in denial, some
specific sex advice may help his sorry ass. The only way for him not to feel
weirded out (and thereby decrease the guilty feeling that follows) is to accept
her scars as the new norm. Touch the scars, fondle them often. This is part of
your new, and better, wife. Take some tasteful topless pictures of them. Lick
chocolate off them. Come on them, for fuck's sake. (Trust me, it's
therapeutic!) These scars symbolize your battle—both yours and your
wife's—and every time you see them, try thinking about how lucky you both
are. Your wife already does—and that's probably why she does not want
fake replacements.

I'm
Glad She's Here

Were details of IMHB's backstory edited
out of the letter that appeared? Stuff like, "We have attended post-mastectomy
support groups, and know we are not the only couple who faces this difficulty."
Or "We have seen a highly recommended and experienced couples therapist to try
to work on this." Or "My wife and I spend quality time together, and together,
we have tried to find a way to solve this seemingly insurmountable problem."

My discomfort with the letter is that
this husband apparently thought that writing to you for advice was a better
idea than trying to work this out with his wife with the aid of more
appropriate professional help. Could he be, in a not-very-subtle way, asking
for your permission to fool around on his wife? Again, why ask you?

Here is my experience. My husband, who I
fell in love with and married when he was a man, has, since our marriage,
transitioned to living as a woman. I like men. I like chest hair. I like deep
voices. I like tiny-nippled man-boobs. He grew alarming boobs with the help of
hormones. Adolescent-girl boobs. I am not interested in adolescent-girl boobs.
As I mentioned, I like men. I still miss his man-body. But I love him and I
like living with him. We sought professional help to deal with and resolve my
lowered desire and lust for his new body parts. It has been extremely helpful
in many ways beyond the adjustment to adolescent-girl boobs. (I do not equate
the transition from man to transwoman with surviving breast cancer. But a
partner's discomfort with the other partner's body is the outcome we might have
in common.)

It sounds to me like there is more to
this story, and that the husband has other issues beyond missing his wife's
boobs and dealing with his alleged guilt about not getting over it. It's been
five years. If he wanted to get over it, he would have started working on it
before this. And not by sending a letter to a famous sex-advice columnist.

No
Longer Missing His Old Boobs

I am in a similar situation to I Miss
Her Boobs, in that my wife had breast cancer, has not had reconstructive
surgery, and our sex life has dropped to zero. My question is why your response
to IMHB didn't recommend that he get a little on the side, and otherwise stand
by his wife. This seems to be a fairly standard piece of advice you give for
people who are in sexually unsatisfying relationships, but you didn't go down
that road in this situation.

I take it that you say this when a
partner is voluntarily not meeting the needs of the other one sexually (not
rendered unattractive for a medically life-saving procedure). But still,
abandoning my cancer-stricken wife (and two kids) seems pretty low, asking her
to have surgery for my sexual satisfaction also seems a little much, and living
without sex seems beyond my level of willpower.

I should also mention that while my wife
would be willing to have sex with me, she doesn't seem to have any issues with
our current no-sex arrangement (most likely as she is now often quite
fatigued).

Also
Missing Her Boobs

My
mom had breast cancer twice during my late adolescence and early college years,
and while the first time they performed lumpectomies (where they just remove
the cancer tissue), the second time they decided to do a mastectomy on her left
breast. My mom always had a small rack, and was crushed to lose, as she put it,
"what little" she had. I overheard a conversation between my parents around
that time, where my mom asked my dad if he'd still find her attractive with
only one boob. He answered, "Always." It was very tender and all that shit, and
while of course I have no idea what goes on in my parents' bedroom, I always
thought it was a nice answer.

After
a fairly short period (a couple months?) of self-reflection, my mom elected to
get an implant anyway, and it was a disaster. Even though she went to a highly
accredited plastic surgeon and took good care of herself, she suffered an
infection from the process that nearly killed her—she was in the hospital
for about a month, I had the horrible experience at 18 of seeing my mother
half-conscious and drooling on morphine, and the implant had to be removed
anyway in the end. Her scar tissue is at least double the size it was when she
first had the mastectomy, and she's even more self-conscious about her body
than she was when she went in for the first procedure.

So
I just wanted to amend your advice to IMHB: He and his wife should inform
themselves—TOGETHER—of the risks involved in getting implants.
Chances are, he won't like the odds. I know it sucks to be told that you love
and are fucking someone who looks a lot different than the person you signed up
to love and fuck, but better to be fucking her alive and titless than dead.

Her
Mother's Daughter

IMHB
and his wife are far from the first people to have to deal with this. If
doggy-style works for them, that's great, but if not, there are resources
available to help them.

1.
The American Cancer Society has a lot of information on its website
(cancer.org) on cancer and sexuality. They also have a publication, Couples
Confronting Cancer, which might be helpful. And they have information on local
support groups—IMHB or his wife can call the 24-hour hotline
(1-800-ACS-2345) or send an e-mail through the website. They're really an
excellent resource with tons of info.

2.
The Y-ME National Breast Cancer Organization has a 24-hour hotline staffed by
peer counselors who are cancer survivors. Even better, they have a
partner-match program, so IMHB can talk to someone who's been in his situation.

3.
Marriage counselor/sex therapist. Pretty self-explanatory.

IMHB
obviously cares for his wife very much, but as we've seen time and again in
your column, you can't change what gets you hot just by force of will. If this
were an easy thing for people to deal with, there wouldn't be marriage
counselors or cancer support groups or any of that. This is clearly more than
they can handle on their own, so maybe it's time to ask for assistance.

Hopefully
Helpful

I, too, have survived breast cancer. And
our sex life has suffered because of it. I only had a lumpectomy, not a
mastectomy, and I had reconstruction. I still hate them and find them, and my
entire body, at least as repulsive as IMHB finds his wife's scars. I wish I
could feel as good about my own body as she does about hers. I won't take my
clothes off in front of my husband any more. I know it's me, but I still feel
completely humiliated. I'm afraid it will be years before I get over it, if
ever. (It's been four years since my diagnosis.) I honestly don't know how any
woman can live peacefully with a mastectomy. I envy women who can. I still
think, if I ever faced such a choice, that I would choose death over mastectomy
any day. I don't know for sure, of course. No one does, until actually
confronted with the issue. (And yes, I get therapy and have since I was
diagnosed.) You were certainly correct in stating that his wife misses her
breasts, too, Dan. But I disagree with you when you say that he has a stake in
her body, too, and maybe she should consider reconstruction for his sake.

Breast-reconstruction surgery doesn't
give a woman breasts. BRS can only give a woman lumps on her chest where her
breasts used to be, so that she looks more or less normal in clothing. These
lumps are entirely numb, and should they ever regain any sensation at all, it
will not be erotic sensation, only perception between hot and cold, or some
vague awareness of touch (similar to the way you feel if someone touches your
arm or leg). And they won't have nipples, unless she has even more surgeries.
Those reconstructed "nipples" have no sensation, either. Either IMHB doesn't
know this ( presumably because he never bothered to do any research) or he
knows this and doesn't care. In other words, IMHB wants his wife to undergo the
pain, expense, risk of death, and/or surgical complications of BRS, so that he
can enjoy her body and so that he can touch her "breasts" again. There is
literally nothing in it for her, except not having to bother with prostheses,
which she may or may not use now. He has no right at all to request such a
thing of any woman he loves. Doing it doggy-style won't solve IMHB's problems,
either. Trust me, his wife will know it's because he finds her unattractive.

In other words, the entire issue is with
IMHB, not his wife. He needs therapy yesterday.

Sad
And Strong Survivor, Yearning Because It Truly Can't Happen

I
miss my boobs, too, and so does my husband. I was unable to have reconstructive
surgery for financial reasons, and have since found out that it is not just a
lengthy and painful process, but it can also be very dangerous. I wear fake
boobs daily because I really wanted to at least look girly in my clothes, but I
wear a camisole to bed at night. He was a little sad when the "twins" were
removed, but he was much happier that I wasn't removed. Anyway, your straight
friend was right, this guy just needs to be a man and pony up for his wife. It
isn't all about the boobs.

Boobless
Women Unite!

I'm
sure you got some flak for your admittedly lame advice to IMHB. Here is what
this guy really needs to hear, from someone whose wife also had radical surgery
after breast cancer. Grow the fuck up. Sex is not all about how someone looks.
If you think it is, then just get a picture and jerk off. Sex is about how
someone moves, what they say, how they look in your eyes, how they please you,
how they accept pleasure. The sexiest part of a woman isn't her boobs, it's her
brain. It's about connection, and corny as it sounds, love. You think ugly
people shouldn't or don't have sex? Think again. If you think sex is all about
body parts, then get a blow-up doll or a hooker. Instead, you could think of
this as your big chance to explore what else sex could be besides playing with
boobs. Sure, you need time to grieve for the changes in your partner's body,
but believe me, there is a whole universe of sex out there apart from boobs.

Longtime
Reader