Female puberty is like being bundled into a runaway car. Let’s put aside periods, the shock of blood, the tsunami of emotions. Let’s concentrate on a girl of 12 or so, who until now has wandered the world thinking little about her body, suddenly acquiring breasts.
Ownership of these most fetishised organs changes everything. It brings self-doubt: how do I compare with girls in my class? (Or on TikTok or Pornhub.) It attracts a new, wolfish attention: cars slow, boys snigger, adult men stare. It can feel powerful but also terrifying, and those things on your chest, which jiggle during games, prompt smutty jokes, may give you backache or a sense of inadequacy, cannot be escaped.
Of course generations of girls have tried. They wore