O for the Cure

In my life, I have been described as articulate, verbal, talkative, loquacious even.   My teachers always wrote on my report card that "Ann needs to stop talking and start listening."

It took 54 years, but I have finally been rendered speechless.

About a week ago, I received this in my email:

Pornhub.com needs your clicks to help Save the Boobs!October is finally here, and while some will be bundling them up for the colder weather, and others will be showing them off in the naughtiest of costumes come Halloween, one thing’s for certain, this month marks a time for saving them – that’s right, it’s National Breast Cancer Awareness month.

During October, Pornhub.com, the leading destination for online adult entertainment, will donate 1c for every 30 views of its ‘Small Tits’ and ‘Big Tits’ videos, meaning the more boobs that are viewed, the more money that will be showered upon the Susan G. Komen Foundation. And with the site attracting millions of clicks per month, the amount raised over the next 31 days will be considerable.

It doesn’t matter if you’re into itty-bitty-titties, the perfect handful, jumbo fun-bags or low-swinging flapjacks, what matters most is that your kind and selfless gesture will go a long way towards helping our sisters to find a cure.

This isn’t the first time Pornhub has taken action to combat breast cancer. Six months ago, the website brought their “Save the Boobs” bus to NYC to rescue Manhattan’s mammories by spreading awareness.

So how can you help save the boobs this time around, you bravely ask?Simply visit the landing page on Pornhub's site (link available upon request) and follow the prompts, or head to the ‘categories’ tab on Pornhub.com’s home page and choose either “Small Tits” or “Big Tits” videos, then sit back and let the good times bounce.The Save the Boobs web page will keep track of the total unique visits for the month so be sure to encourage your red-blooded friends and family (yes, tell your fathers too) to become a hero of the headlamps and a champion of the cha-cha’s! While on the page you can also tweet the link to your social circles.Together we can give fundraising our breast shot! 

You can see why I was beyond words.

Dear Mr. Pornographer.  I don't need you to save my sweater puppies, my honeydews, my bazongas or my rib balloons.  While losing one of my "fun bags" was not easy, it was almost the simplest thing I've undergone since diagnosis.  I'm terribly sorry that it made me less attractive to you and your legion of little boys, but most of all, I'm sorry that it didn't work to save my life.

Way to minimize a cancer patient's suffering, though.  In the past three years, I have also been on five chemos (I start my sixth this week).  I have had half my liver removed, among other surgeries.  I have had one of the worst cases of c-diff that my doctors had ever seen.  I have had sepsis.  I have had dozens upon dozens of medical tests and have had over 150 doctor's appointments.  I have been close to death.  I have had to tell my children that I have a terminal illness, and that I won't be around for them.  I've lost my hair twice.

I have been living most people's nightmare for three years.

But, it's all okay, because now the knight in shining armor has arrived.  Guys, just download a porno and know that after 29 other people do so too, after the 30th orgasm, an entire penny will go to "awareness."  Os for the Cure.  Thank you for helping, although somehow, I suspect it isn't for me.  God forbid one more woman lose a breast and a man has to lose his fantasy twin peaks.  Now, thanks to pornography,  he can be a "hero of the headlamps."

But really, I can't blame them.  This is just the end result of the Pink Culture perpetuated by the Susan G. Komen Foundation and Nancy Brinker, the CEO.  Downloading porn with a penny donation after 30 unique views is no different than Campbell's donating $50,000 dollars after a million cans are sold, or Yoplait requesting people sending in a yogurt top with a .45 cent stamp so they can make a dime donation.  It's no different than any other marketing trick that is designed to draw attention to the company and not the disease.

If this money went to anything real, it might be different.  Even I will pink, for a good cause.  But, it doesn't.  Let me say this clearly:  Susan G. Komen, with its focus on early detection and "awareness" has completely missed the mark.

I detected my cancer early.   Nearly every woman with metastatic disease began as an early stage woman.  Cancer spreads anyway, and nobody knows why.  All but about 6% of metastatic women started out early stage.   That is why money needs to go to research, and not detection or awareness.

Awareness?  Who, by now, is not aware of breast cancer?  Every ten year old has an "I heart boobies" bracelet and will tell you that the money (they believe) goes towards breast cancer support.  Everybody is aware.

The incidence of cancer discovery has risen because of this awareness and early detection effort - but that is not a good thing.  Doctors now believe that we are finding cancers called DCIS so early that had they been left alone, they may never have done any harm.  The statistics make it sound like the incidence of breast cancer has risen but in fact, as in men with prostate cancer, many woman who have had treatment may never have needed it, and might have lived their entire lives without their bad, in situ, cells harming them.

Early detection is not the answer; in fact, early detection could be hurting women.

Imagine, Dear Pornographer.  Legions of woman may be losing their Pointer Sisters unnecessarily because of early detection.  And, we don't know which DCIS becomes dangerous and which does not, so it must be treated.  Don't you wish you knew, Mr. Jerkoff,  so you could have more to play with?  Then you would donate to research causes, not awareness causes.  Quietly, without drawing attention to yourself and shaming sick women.

Finding a cure is the answer.  Finding out why it spreads is the answer.  Research is the answer - not awareness. Not early detection.  Not more mammogram machines and not literature about how to do a self-exam.  Doctors in labs studying cancer cells, and what turns them on and off (har har) and makes them travel; THAT is the answer.

This email I got is merely the culmination of the bad taste festival that is Pinktober.  It is the end result of "Save the TaTas" and "I Heart Boobies" campaigns.  It is no longer about illness, it is about marketing, and the best way to market something is breasts.  

My disease - this disease that causes me pain, that is making me live every day exhausted, and spend every Wednesday getting chemo, that is making it impossible to do normal things with my child, that will not allow me to see my grandchildren or grow old with my husband - my disease is a marketing tool for companies to make money.

Although my spirits are up and I have a lot of joy in my life, emails such as the one above make me feel about an inch tall.  This is how they want to represent the very real suffering of their mothers, their wives, their sisters and their daughters?  If 30 people watch a porno, donate a penny?  Is that what we are worth?

I think that Susan G. Koman, Nancy Brinker's sister who died of metastatic cancer, would be rolling in her grave if she saw the plastic-surgerized, self-involved woman who has been running the company her name is attached to. I know if Nancy was my sister, I would be severely disappointed, and we'd probably fight each Thanksgiving, if we spoke at all.  The Koman Organization has gotten way off track.  So, they take money from pornographers whose job it is to use and denigrate women, they take money from bars selling special pink drinks knowing that alcohol is linked to cancer, they take money from casinos that put pink sheets on their beds, not caring that gambing destroys lives, and in October, everybody has pink packaging without even telling you where the money goes.  There is no honor in any of it.

But hey, what the hell.   Let the good times bounce.