THE female breast is one of the great aesthetic pronouncements of nature. It is intended to appeal. It is the primary sexual display-item that women possess. The breast looks good to the observer, feels good both to the owner and the feeler, and even performs its own gallant little display of sexual excitement. And yes, it feeds babies too: but all mammaries do that. The human breast was the only one built for fun.

This is probably why it is also the subject of such powerful taboos. Curiously, the most vigorous activator of sexual taboos about the breast are members of the breast-owning sex. It is, generally speaking, not men who raise petitions against topless beaches or who complain about nudity in magazines. The primary engine for prudery in western life is feminine. Women have the fun bodies and the censorious minds. Odd, isn't it? It gets odder still because, contrary to mythology, men are not the main consumers of breast-worshipping magazines. No: the primary vector of what we may call mammophilia is the woman's magazine. Women love gazing at women's bodies. Yes, they may say it is not sexual, but that's like saying a man who gazes at car engines is not being mechanical. It's a form of passive sapphism. Moreover, women dress for other women and for themselves. They study themselves in the mirror, and their underwear is for the owner to enjoy: in essence, it is a taboo-free auto-erotic. And most emphatically of all, female breast display is primarily both for the owner, and for other women. We poor breast-loving men squeak in third.

There is another side to breast ownership, a terrible, terrible side: it is that the human breast is catastrophically vulnerable to cancer. One in 11 women will get breast cancer. And the very nature of the female breast, both for its owner, and for those who see it, means that women's own egos are intimately identified with their breasts. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why so many women get so angry on the subject. During the scandal of the misdiagnosis of breast cancer scans, one women columnist shrieked: "This would never happen with scans of men! No male scans would ever be allowed to be so wrong!"

Well, of course, because there are no mass-scans of any kind for men. In part, this is because we don't get gender-specific, potentially fatal cancers quite so young whereas breast cancer often attacks otherwise healthy young mothers. Which is why breast cancer is a far more important social issue than prostate cancer, and why I don't think society's explicit sexual discrimination in favour of women is wrong. Put it another way: it's not so much in favour of woman, as in favour of families and of children. Breast-screening is oncological widower-prevention.

One of the reasons why women don't instantly seek medical help when they find a lump in their breast is the fear of mutilation. But mastectomy is only one option. Most women will survive breast cancer, and many are successfully treated without the loss of a breast. But of course that doesn't make the subject any easier to cope with. And pronouncing a woman's fear of breast removal as irrational is in itself irrational. We are not machines, but emotionally vulnerable creatures with our vanities and our prejudices and our fears.

Moreover, there is no male equivalent of the female breast. So, yes, breast cancer is unfair. Acknowledge that, and then move on.

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of meeting scores of women who had breast cancer, many of whom have had a breast removed.

I don't think I've ever met such a raucous, bawdy, fun-loving, and outrageous group of females in my life. For they had faced the hurdle, and they crossed it; and discovered that there was a life after breast removal. There was fun, and happiness, and sex too. I think what really characterised these women, what made them such fantastic company, was that in their battle against cancer they learnt the great secrets that are only known to those for whom if has become is.

Most of these women participated in the now famous Dip in the Nip in Sligo last June. What they didn't know when they said yes to the organiser Maire Garvey was that the temperature that dawn would be about -1C, and the tide was going to be out. So this army of naked women had to amble half-way to Manhattan before they even got their shins wet. And of course, it wasn't easy for some, showing off their scars: but not half as bad as wading to the bloody Azores, with ice clinking against their thighs.

There is now a joyous calendar celebrating the great Dip in the Nip, only €10. Log onto www.cancer.ie for details. Cancer is not the great exception any more. It is a new norm: if is is. Protect yourself by checking regularly: AND DO NOT BE SCARED OF SEEING A DOCTOR. Life awaits you.

kmyers@independent.ie

- Kevin Myers

Irish Independent