never Miss a beat

I’ve never knowingly flashed my boobs in public. I mean I’ve flashed my boobs on BBC live telly while I was on a stranger’s shoulders during Plug In Baby at Muse’s headlining set, Glastonbury 2010. But it wasn’t done knowingly. I was wearing a strapless top and I was very, VERY excited having taken in a few hours of previous act Scissor Sisters and some other things. So I was on some guy’s shoulders, my hands were in the air, my boobs were somewhere below, my best friend was on some other stranger’s shoulders (her top had straps), we were holding hands, I guess the camera just loved it (my tits). But as I said before, it wasn’t a knowing flash. I didn’t know about the flash until I got back to my work PortaKabin backstage to be greeted by an “OMG! YOU AND YOUR BOOBS WERE ON THE BIG TELLY. WELL DONE!!!!!” (I quickly deflated the situation with a “really, right, I see… but how SHITE were Gorillaz last night” and that didn’t work). My life (One big actively happening accident).*

*(And yes it’s the flashing my boobs unintentionally and not my inability to shake off a Muse obsession that I’m embarrassed about).

In short, I’ve never intentionally flashed my tits in public because so far in my life I’ve never really had an urge to or the balls. I suppose you could say I have the balls to REFUSE to flash my tits because this weekend I realised that that is truly a Thing…

So I was sent to Download Festival. I know. Culturally diverse. In my defence, I heard recently that Lady Gaga is obsessed with metal and that heavy metal – ie, Pat Benatar – influenced all of the Born This Way album. Also, I listened to Andrew Weatherall the whole way there and nothing the whole way back because I was worried one more deep bassline might make my bowels go all Journey To The Center Of The Earth. Above all, I was paid for my sins… Anyway all that aside, I had a tremendous education in the maximum minimum time I spent at Download and mostly I’m impressed that it did away with all my unfair, narrow-minded, stereotypical impressions that most heavy metal is for long-bearded, anachronistic, misogynist biker morons… My days at Download, which included my first ever listen to Metallica’s Black Album (played live by Metallica backwards because the latter half is proper shit) were fun, so much so that I willingly* joined in on a “circle pit” and was voluntarily injured in the neck and bum (*forcibly by a superior colleague). Download was a hoot. BUT. 

This weekend in Donington (aka the Middle of Nowhere) I saw more boobs than I’ve ever seen in my entire life. And I’ve seen the whole of Game Of Thrones: Season One and been to a stripclubso I’m DEFINITELY not a prude.  There are zero – perhaps minus number – boobs in Game Of Thrones in comparison with Download Festival. Hand on chest, such was the boob situation at Download I was actually concerned at one point that most women there had their bras confiscated from them on entrance to the site, or worse still that they didn’t own bras for fear of the judging hands of M&S/John Lewis measuring ladies and that’s why they’ve ended up in a dark abyss of listening to speed hardcore and Slipknot and that maybe I should set up a temporary clinic to advise them on bra purchasing and pass on the torch of knowledge (and an N*Sync CD) to as many poor souls as possible. The situation, however, was beyond my powers of salvation.

There is this “system” at Download whereby any women who finds herself on a pair of shoulders and targeted by a roaming camera filming the crowd during a monstrous rock set by a ROCK BAND (such as Steel Panther, Butcher Babies or MEGARARGHRAGHRAGHDETH) must reveal, squeeze and then jiggle her assets. I’m not going to paint a picture of rapey tragedy - some of the girls were up for it (if you consider Lisbeth Salander in The Girl With A Dragon Tattoo up for it) but many looked hesitant, almost reluctant and caved into flasherdom at the very last second. The peer pressure was mammoth (as in 100,000 people mammoth). As one particular sent-in text featured on the big stage screens so astutely put: “SHOUDLERS EQUALZ BOOBIES. YOU GOTTA PAY THE FERRYMAN, BIATCH!!!” This whole “tradition” made me feel odd and sort of fucking uncomfortable if I’m honest. Especially as male comments ranging from “I have bigger tits than those” to “YARGH I’M GONNA COME ON YOU” were encouraged by everyone around me. And nobody batted an eyelid. Even one lady in front told the “hilarious” tale of the year a girl flashed her tits only to be booed by everyone. “Hahaha what a loser, ” she reminisced. “VIRGIN FO’ LIFE”. 

So… having spent an entire weekend watching women haphazardly flash their nipples to thousands of strangers out of rudimentary force of habit because a camera landed on them, contrary to popular opinion I was ELATED to see Madonna flash one nipple while on tour in Istanbul this week with real purpose.

Although Madonna is 53 (I can’t believe I just wrote that… I mean WTF is wrong with being 53 and having nipples FFS, the fact they’re there and not on her kneecaps should be celebrated), she’s still HAWT. I just came back from seeing this show in Tel Aviv seven months after seeing Rihanna’s S&M-centric show in London and I can say that Rihanna looks lame and plastic next to this. This far into her career the woman is still doing a full striptease to Human Nature. She knows that the times have changed, that her sexual onstage antics, her plays with interracial love, her panting lyrics (“I wanna have your babies”) don’t carry the shock factor they once did. It’s not about shock now. Her whole show is her marking her territory, celebrating the immense, frankly miraculous career she’s shared with the world over the past 30 odd years.

[EXPRESS YOUR TITS… Madonna: “And I’m not strappy”]

But when it came to the nipple flash, many dissenters/ungrateful pillocks attacked her. The affable Piers Morgan, for instance,said the move was the, “Most embarrassing, cringe-worthy, desperate moment in the history of music.” He obviously never heard X Factor loser Marcus Collins’ attempt at Seven Nation Army.

Readers, brace yourselves: Piers Morgan is WRONG. What remains “embarrassing, cringe-worthy… desperate” is certain corners of rock music’s tendency towards an array of on-display “titties” regardless of whether or not the female party is having a good time. The fact that those tits are 30 years younger than Madonna’s is completely irrelevant. Seeing them made me nauseous because I knew that their owners weren’t getting anything out of it (besides the heckling and a marginally better view of a croaky, leather-faced Dave Mustaine). 

Madonna taught us a lesson I have now realised some of us still need by flashing her nipples the right way (if there is a right way): WILLINGLY. She’s once again restored my faith that everything is going to be OK and we’re absolutely not going to regress into the Viking times. This here nipple exposure was a blessing. It had nothing to do with tit currency, it had nothing to do with her nipple and the world’s approval of it, it had to do with her own satisfaction. You can see that on her face. (NB: This satisfaction, however, died by the time the show got to London’s Hyde Park :-( ) She went there because she wanted to (hopefully till she’s 180). If you’re MADONNA and you’re doing that much cardio a day and you can’t flash a boob (and now a bum, FYI – this nipple story is totally old because the whole arse came out yesterday in ROME… *updates dictionary meaning of the phrase “When In Rome”*) then WHO THE HELL CAN? Apart from Madonna, who the hell really wants to.