Profile for Annie James

In my decade and a half experience negotiating male bodies, I have seen some things. Male genitalia obviously comes in all shapes,  sizes and easterly orientations. Y chromosomes often cause their carrier vessels to have hair in the strangest of places (and shapes).

But what I had never encountered until age 31 was the man boob — until recently. I may be an anomaly. None of my friends were shocked when I told them I chanced upon a man with breasts. There is even a slang for them. The gays apparently call them “moobs.” Of course in that community, they are shunned and sentenced to the David Barton Gym for immediate alteration. Doctors, I have been told, refer to it as gynecomastia. It’s the abnormal development of larger than normal mammary glands in men resulting in the appearance of breasts. The terms literally comes from the Greek, gyne, meaning woman, and mastos, meaning breasts: men with lady breasts. It often happens when men past 30 let themselves go. Meaning it often happens to men past 30.

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