After the summer of 2014, twenty-three-year-old me watched my C cup breasts disappear into barely A's. I had failed my then dreams and was punishing my first world problem with a first world solution: guilt, specifically guilting myself into not eating. I didn’t think I deserved to eat because I had failed at a nightmare of a job (logic wasn’t my forte at this point).

That fall I checked into mirrors and wondered who that bony girl was looking back at me. I would put on my bra, and my boobs would swim around in all the extra room and look up at me like, “what the hell?" I would look back at my boobs and be like, “hey boobs; we are having a meltdown!" Then I’d look in the mirror, and the bony girl and I would laugh and laugh. I was very lonely at this time.

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The strange part of this time in my life was that I never had so much male attention. Raised very Catholic, the only time anyone had seen my boobs was one time at a pool party when my top was pulled off during a recreational wrestling match. Then there was the time I was an art model in college. (Art modeling is where the elderly and gay gather in an art school basement to paint a nude person for the study of anatomy drawing. It is not sexual at all.)

Illustration by Sally Nixon

You can imagine how surprised I was when this cute boy I was hanging out with was trying to hook up with me. I thought he was just trying to tell me things he would never say to anyone else when we were alone---like all other men had done up until this point. Our make-out session turned into heavy petting and finally, I was ready.

“You can take my bra off, if you want,” I whispered in his ear.

“If I want?” he asked. (Did I mention how nice he was?)

Finally, the bra is off. Boom. I’m out here in these sheets exposed. However, what happened next wasn’t expected. His head wound back, and his mouth swung open into a volcano. But instead of pouring out lava he sucked in air like a vacuum that needed to clean some boobs. I laid there as with great effort and with many breaths, he mouthed all over my breasts.

Kari Assad

If he had hesitated for a moment, I would have apologized that they seemed bigger in the bra. I was too broke to buy a new bra that would fit them. Luckily for my lack of self-esteem, he was pretty occupied with his vacuuming. This activity continued for a while, and a part of my brain would begin to wander and make to-do lists, but then I would remember I was in the middle of a mental break down and was glad anyone was paying attention to me at all. It honestly amazed me that these small organs on my body needed so much inspection.

The vacuum dude soon realized I wasn’t kidding that I was in the middle of a mental break down and bounced pretty quickly. However, he had awakened a sexual need in me. My small boobs and I were going out to clubs looking for new prey. This new hunger caused me to hook up with a German man I met in a Los Angeles club---in my apartment lobby. I could not bring him upstairs because I did not know him and would sooner just get caught topless on the security camera than robbed in my one bedroom I shared with my sister. Herman the German was not a boob guy. He was more like “why aren’t your pants off in this public lobby” kind of guy. This interaction ended up ending early. My boobs were super unsatisfied.

I went on a Tinder date and ended up in that guy’s bed, too. I gotta say the Tinder guy was one to remember. This 6’ dude had a thing for small boobs. He kept lifting my torso by my arms so that I was flying over him in bed exhaling, “look at your body!" And he was also a human boob vacuum, but he would administer his cleaning with haste and desperation. We did not see each other again.

I thought there was no hope for my boobs and I. All dudes that had interacted with them had let them down. I didn’t want my breasts to be living in a world where they were only an item for a vacuum mouth. This was not yet Trump’s America.

Fortunately, I found some sound medical help for my mental break down and finally felt like a functioning human again. I was walking around with a fully operating brain when I met the sweetest Jewish boy.

When we hooked up, he didn’t hurry to my breasts or make me feel weird about any hesitation I had with them. He caressed them gently and treated them like they were attached to a human person. When I asked if it bothered him that they were small, he responded, “I like them because their yours, and I like you."

We are still together today.

Kari Assad with the sweetest boy

Kari Assad runs an every other month comedy and music show, benefiting charity, called Not Your Mom's Charity Show at the Lyric Hyperion Theatre in Silverlake, Los Angeles. This month they are donating to BAJI (Black Alliance for Just Immigration), with a show called BROWN People YAY on Sunday, Feb 18th at 7 pm. She's also premiering a new podcast on Monday, February 19th called Lost It with her co-host Tessa Vonderhaar. They invite semi-famous people to share how they lost their virginity. Find out more by following her on Instagram.