This article originally appeared on VICE Germany

Recently, I was sitting at a bar with a colleague of mine, when he took a long drag from his cigarette, looked pensively out into nothingness and muttered: "Sometimes I wish I was a beautiful woman. They must have so much fun." In one of those transparent fishing-for-compliments-moments, I replied: "Me too." His response? "At least you have big tits." We both continued drinking our beers and neither of us mentioned the subject again.

This wasn't the first time when I felt that a man I knew had a somewhat twisted view of what it means to walk around with several pounds of suggestive fat on your chest. So, in the name of enlightenment, and for the benefit of women everywhere, I'd like to talk to you guys a little about big tits.

Okay, this might sound like a huge generalisation but the fact is, you just can't unsee tits. This rings especially true when they're (still) firm and luscious. Which means that, if you're a girl with a cup size of D or higher, you need to be really fucking careful about what you wear if you're trying to avoid automatically looking totally sexed-up.

A sweet, airy summer dress with a playful floral print? Obscene. A strapless top? Only recommended for women who do not plan on moving their arms. Anything low-cut carries the risk of making you look "inappropriate". Basically, the only way for a woman with big boobs to dress without looking porny is to wear oversized t-shirts, sweatshirts or men's shirts.

At this point, I'd like to say a big fat "fuck you" to the fashion industry for apparently having decided that all high-street chains should only sell high-neck, widely-cut clothing that makes big breasted women look like overweight pyramids. As if shopping wasn't difficult enough already.

Oh, and don't think for a second that the underwear industry is going to allow you to look sexy on purpose. Beyond a certain cup size, you can only find bras in the style of gross. Ever seen a glassy-eyed woman manically wandering around a clothing store? She's probably looking for underwear that doesn't make her look like the star of a wellness channel infomercial.

"You always want what you don't have," is a phrase that £10 stylists love to break out whilst butchering your hair. The saying goes for breasts too. I'm not going to go into too much detail, but a few years ago, I ended up in a house party situation that got a little out of hand. It ended with a group of women sitting in a circle, drinking vodka and showing each other our boobs. After each individual unveiling, everyone would politely clap and then hammer another shot.

The forced enthusiasm behind each compliment only served to remind me that even women who aren't at odds with each other feel competitive when it comes to breasts. All the girls with "first class A cup tits" wanted to go up a few sizes, while girls like me spent the night feeling envious of their ability to dance without exploding out of their tops.

What a lot of people aren't aware of is that if you have big breasts, you're extremely restricted when it comes to physical exercise. Running to catch the bus is terrible enough without having to ask yourself, "Is the bra I'm wearing strong enough or do I need to grab onto my bouncing chest?"

Sporting endeavours that require any amount of up-and-down movement are especially dramatic. Exerting yourself physically is already (depending on capabilities and the size of your audience) demeaning enough – you don't need an accidentally liberated tit billowing through the air.

Pro-tip to all the big-breasted women reading this: Wear a sports bra over another bra that's a little too small for you. It's uncomfortable, but at least you won't have that grinding feeling of your connective tissue coming apart at the seams.

Sometimes I imagine myself, 85 years old, laying on my deathbed. My trembling fingers moving over my décolletage's stretch marks, slowly picking my breasts up off my belly button as tears stream down my wrinkled face."Sayonara boobs," I'll whisper before letting out my death rattle and then fade into eternity.

The reality is that no matter how many times you tell yourself that beauty withers and it's only what's inside that counts, the fear of saggy tits hangs over many women like the sword of Damocles. Whether you're a guy or a girl, your body changes as you get older. It's a sad fact. Nevertheless, "saggy tits" are far more frowned upon than "saggy balls". Which is unfair, but hey, I'm happy to let you guys have that one.

In return, dear men, could you please stop obsessing over big breasts only to turn around and whinge about the way they hang twenty years later? It's extremely annoying.

Men stare at boobs. That's totally fine. Women do it too so lets just assume that it must be some genetically predisposed behavioural thing that we're completely incapable of doing anything about. Where it starts to get difficult is when guys start making our tits the subject of conversation. Boob-related compliments are all good in theory, but they can get real creepy, real fast. When was the last time a girl sat down next to you and said, "I like it when your dick bulges out of your tight jeans?" Oh, never? Ask yourself why.

Maybe it's because, since puberty, I've had to listen to all sorts of crap about my prominent bodily features, but recently I've grown rather weary of being reduced to my breasts. Especially when it seems like they make it impossible to be listened to. I've been in more than a few conversations where someone's face creeps ever closer to me as their gaze becomes more and more focused on my tits.

That's actually the main reason behind me wishing that the law would be amended to make it legal to break the jaw of anyone (man or woman) who touches your chest without permission (it happens more than you'd think). Yes, tits are absolutely fantastic and we can't get enough of them, but the only person who can touch them whenever they want is the person who has to carry them around 24/7. Go get your own!

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