BOOBS!

Do I have your attention?

I should, because that’s the marketing strategy behind Save the Ta-Tas, a non-profit organization that donates fundraising money and 5 percent of its clothing and accessory sales to breast cancer research.

The campaign sells T-shirts and wrist bands with the slogans: “My wife has great ta-tas,” “Caught you lookin’ at my ta-tas,” “Save a life, grope your wife” and “I <3 ( . Y . )“

Breast cancer affects men, but it’s largely a “woman’s disease” – for every 100 cases of breast cancer, less than one is a man, according to the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control. I’m disappointed the best marketing option for a women’s health organization is to sexualize women’s bodies. A “man’s” disease like prostate cancer doesn’t get the same sexual attention – where’s my “Save the Schlongs!” T-shirt?

At least a man’s prostate is necessary for, you know, sex. Women’s breasts, believe it or not, are actually for producing milk to feed infants. (I guess the campaign does acknowledge that fact in one instance: It sells a baby Onesie that reads “Gimme your ta-tas and no one gets hurt.”)

But God forbid a woman’s body has some purpose other than for male sexual attention in our society.

On the Save the Ta-Tas website, the top banner features a rather well-endowed young woman in nothing more than a too-small sports bra. It looks more like a from-the-bowels-of-the-Internet pop-up ad than a poster for a campaign about women’s health. There’s something unsettling about this whole campaign.

At 7 p.m. tonight, a “Bowling for Boobs” event is happening in the Huskie Den to collect donations to go to Save the Ta-Tas. Elina Savoie, chair for the event, said the “ta-tas” rhetoric helps attract supporters for the cause.

“Getting individuals, especially college students, to donate to a cause is a challenge in and of itself; using a catchy title for the event simply helps interest our target audience,” Savoie said in an email. “This is, in my opinion, the same reasoning that the Save the Ta-Tas Foundation has likewise named themselves as such.”

Savoie said the goal of her event and the campaign is to raise awareness about the prevalence of breast cancer, and that goal is being accomplished.

But at what cost?

I understand the intentions of the foundation are good, but good intentions are never enough. This campaign doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it exists in a society, a world, in which women have been subservient to that whole men’s-property-sex-object thing for a long time.

I am for breast cancer research and finding a cure; I’m just not for ends justifying means. The money is going to a good place – I just don’t like how it’s getting there.

How about, “Save women’s bodies because women possess value as human beings”?

I’d sport that T-shirt. But I guess it’s not as catchy.