
Tits Up
What Sex Workers, Milk Bankers, Plastic Surgeons, Bra Designers, and Witches Tell Us About Breasts
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $20.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Sarah Thornton
-
By:
-
Sarah Thornton
About this listen
AN INNOVATIVE INVESTIGATION OF THE FIVE STRANGE WORLDS THAT WORSHIP WOMEN’S CHESTS.
After years of biopsies, best-selling author Sarah Thornton made the difficult decision to have a double mastectomy. But, after her reconstructive surgery, she was perplexed: What had she lost? And gained? An experienced sleuth, she resolved to venture behind the scenes to uncover the social and cultural significance of breasts.
Riotous and galvanizing, Tits Up excavates the diverse truths of mammary glands from the strip club to the operating room, from the nation’s oldest human milk bank to the fit rooms of bra designers. Thornton draws insights from plastic surgeons, lactation consultants, body-positive witches, lingerie models, and “free the nipple” activists to explore the status of breasts as emblems of femininity. She examines how women’s chests have become a billion-dollar business, as well as a stage for debates about race, class, gender, and desire.
Everywhere she turns, Thornton encounters chauvinistic myths about this elemental body part that quietly justify deficits in women’s bodily autonomy and endorse shortfalls in their political status. Blending sociology, reportage, and personal narrative with refreshing optimism and wit, Thornton has one overriding ambition—to liberate breasts from centuries of patriarchal prejudice.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Catalyst
- RNA and the Quest to Unlock Life's Deepest Secrets
- By: Thomas R. Cech
- Narrated by: Joshua Saxon
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A gripping journey of discovery, The Catalyst moves from the early experiments that first hinted at RNA's spectacular powers, to Cech's own paradigm-shifting finding that it can catalyze cellular reactions, to the cutting-edge biotechnologies poised to reshape our health.
-
-
Captivating
- By Auinash Kalsotra on 09-16-24
By: Thomas R. Cech
-
The Invention of Prehistory
- Empire, Violence, and Our Obsession with Human Origins
- By: Stefanos Geroulanos
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 14 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Books about the origins of humanity dominate bestseller lists, while national newspapers present breathless accounts of new archaeological findings and speculate about what those findings tell us about our earliest ancestors. We are obsessed with prehistory—and, in this respect, our current era is no different from any other in the last three hundred years. In this coruscating work, acclaimed historian Stefanos Geroulanos demonstrates how claims about the earliest humans not only shaped Western intellectual culture, but gave rise to our modern world.
-
-
Too much judgement
- By Historic Philosopher on 04-23-24
-
Why War?
- By: Richard Overy
- Narrated by: Dennis Kleinman
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why has war been such a consistent presence throughout the human past? A leading historian explains, drawing on rich examples and keen insight. Richard Overy is not the first scholar to take up the title question. In 1931, at the request of the League of Nations, Albert Einstein asked Sigmund Freud to collaborate on a short work examining whether there was "a way of delivering mankind from the menace of war." Published the next year as a pamphlet entitled Why War?, it conveyed Freud's conclusion that the "death drive" made any deliverance impossible.
-
-
War is Peace
- By Anonymous User on 01-23-25
By: Richard Overy
-
The Invention of Good and Evil
- A World History of Morality
- By: Hanno Sauer
- Narrated by: Callum Coates
- Length: 12 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What makes us moral beings? How do we decide what is good and what is evil? And has it always been that way? Hanno Sauer's sweeping new history of humanity, covering five million years of our universal moral values, comes at a crucial moment of crisis for those values, and helps to explain how they arose—and why we need them. Modern societies are in crisis: a shared universal morality seems to be a thing of the past. Hanno Sauer explains why this appearance is deceptive: in fact, there are universal values that all people share.
-
-
Was good until author got political
- By c0stab on 03-01-25
By: Hanno Sauer
-
The Freaks Came Out to Write
- The Definitive History of the Village Voice, the Radical Paper That Changed American Culture
- By: Tricia Romano
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller, Jo Anna Perrin
- Length: 16 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You either were there or you wanted to be. A defining New York City institution co-founded by Norman Mailer, The Village Voice was the first newspaper to cover hip-hop, the avant-garde art scene, and Off-Broadway with gravitas. It reported on the AIDS crisis with urgency and seriousness when other papers dismissed it as a gay disease. In 1979, the Voice’s Wayne Barrett uncovered Donald Trump as a corrupt con artist before anyone else was paying attention.
-
-
Excellent content and structure, but …
- By richard s. burker on 03-16-24
By: Tricia Romano
-
Gray Matters
- A Biography of Brain Surgery
- By: Theodore H. Schwartz
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We’ve all heard the phrase “it’s not brain surgery.” But what exactly is brain surgery? It’s a profession that is barely a hundred years old and profoundly connects two human beings, but few know how it works, or its history. In this warm, rigorous, and deeply insightful book, Dr. Theodore H. Schwartz explores what it’s like to hold the scalpel, wield the drill, extract a tumor, fix a bullet hole, and remove a blood clot—when every second can mean life or death.
-
-
Gripping storytelling
- By Kathy M. on 12-14-24
-
The Catalyst
- RNA and the Quest to Unlock Life's Deepest Secrets
- By: Thomas R. Cech
- Narrated by: Joshua Saxon
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A gripping journey of discovery, The Catalyst moves from the early experiments that first hinted at RNA's spectacular powers, to Cech's own paradigm-shifting finding that it can catalyze cellular reactions, to the cutting-edge biotechnologies poised to reshape our health.
-
-
Captivating
- By Auinash Kalsotra on 09-16-24
By: Thomas R. Cech
-
The Invention of Prehistory
- Empire, Violence, and Our Obsession with Human Origins
- By: Stefanos Geroulanos
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 14 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Books about the origins of humanity dominate bestseller lists, while national newspapers present breathless accounts of new archaeological findings and speculate about what those findings tell us about our earliest ancestors. We are obsessed with prehistory—and, in this respect, our current era is no different from any other in the last three hundred years. In this coruscating work, acclaimed historian Stefanos Geroulanos demonstrates how claims about the earliest humans not only shaped Western intellectual culture, but gave rise to our modern world.
-
-
Too much judgement
- By Historic Philosopher on 04-23-24
-
Why War?
- By: Richard Overy
- Narrated by: Dennis Kleinman
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why has war been such a consistent presence throughout the human past? A leading historian explains, drawing on rich examples and keen insight. Richard Overy is not the first scholar to take up the title question. In 1931, at the request of the League of Nations, Albert Einstein asked Sigmund Freud to collaborate on a short work examining whether there was "a way of delivering mankind from the menace of war." Published the next year as a pamphlet entitled Why War?, it conveyed Freud's conclusion that the "death drive" made any deliverance impossible.
-
-
War is Peace
- By Anonymous User on 01-23-25
By: Richard Overy
-
The Invention of Good and Evil
- A World History of Morality
- By: Hanno Sauer
- Narrated by: Callum Coates
- Length: 12 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What makes us moral beings? How do we decide what is good and what is evil? And has it always been that way? Hanno Sauer's sweeping new history of humanity, covering five million years of our universal moral values, comes at a crucial moment of crisis for those values, and helps to explain how they arose—and why we need them. Modern societies are in crisis: a shared universal morality seems to be a thing of the past. Hanno Sauer explains why this appearance is deceptive: in fact, there are universal values that all people share.
-
-
Was good until author got political
- By c0stab on 03-01-25
By: Hanno Sauer
-
The Freaks Came Out to Write
- The Definitive History of the Village Voice, the Radical Paper That Changed American Culture
- By: Tricia Romano
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller, Jo Anna Perrin
- Length: 16 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You either were there or you wanted to be. A defining New York City institution co-founded by Norman Mailer, The Village Voice was the first newspaper to cover hip-hop, the avant-garde art scene, and Off-Broadway with gravitas. It reported on the AIDS crisis with urgency and seriousness when other papers dismissed it as a gay disease. In 1979, the Voice’s Wayne Barrett uncovered Donald Trump as a corrupt con artist before anyone else was paying attention.
-
-
Excellent content and structure, but …
- By richard s. burker on 03-16-24
By: Tricia Romano
-
Gray Matters
- A Biography of Brain Surgery
- By: Theodore H. Schwartz
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We’ve all heard the phrase “it’s not brain surgery.” But what exactly is brain surgery? It’s a profession that is barely a hundred years old and profoundly connects two human beings, but few know how it works, or its history. In this warm, rigorous, and deeply insightful book, Dr. Theodore H. Schwartz explores what it’s like to hold the scalpel, wield the drill, extract a tumor, fix a bullet hole, and remove a blood clot—when every second can mean life or death.
-
-
Gripping storytelling
- By Kathy M. on 12-14-24
-
All Things Are Too Small
- Essays in Praise of Excess
- By: Becca Rothfeld
- Narrated by: Ruth Crawford
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
All Things Are Too Small is brilliant cultural and literary critic Becca Rothfeld’s plea for derangement: imbalance, obsession, gluttony, and ravishment in all domains of life, from literature to romance. In a healthy culture, Rothfeld argues, economic security allows for wild aesthetic experimentation and excess, yet in our contemporary world, we’ve got it flipped. The gap between rich and poor yawns hideously wide, while we compensate with misguided attempts to effect equality in love and art, where it does not belong.
-
-
Smart and clever
- By David on 12-04-24
By: Becca Rothfeld
-
Blood
- The Science, Medicine, and Mythology of Menstruation
- By: Dr. Jen Gunter
- Narrated by: Jen Gunter
- Length: 17 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Most women can expect to have hundreds of periods in a lifetime. And yet few are given the tools to understand the science of their own cycle, how it changes over their lifetime, and how it connects to their overall health. In this practical, inclusive guide to menstruation, Dr. Jen Gunter delivers empowerment through knowledge. She explains what's typical, what's concerning, and when to seek care, while also examining the historical and social myths which keep women uninformed and disenfranchised.
-
-
To the point and informative
- By Shannon Wallis on 04-03-25
By: Dr. Jen Gunter
-
Butts
- A Backstory
- By: Heather Radke
- Narrated by: Heather Radke, Emily Tremaine
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Part deep dive reportage, part personal journey, part cabinet of curiosities, Butts is an entertaining, illuminating, and thoughtful examination of why certain silhouettes come in and out of fashion—and how larger ideas about race, control, liberation, and power affect our most private feelings about ourselves and others.
-
-
Woof.
- By Aaron M Groth on 01-21-23
By: Heather Radke
-
The Psychology of Human Sexuality
- By: Justin J. Lehmiller
- Narrated by: Daniel Henning
- Length: 24 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Psychology of Human Sexuality is a comprehensive guide to major theoretical perspectives on human sexuality and the vast diversity of sexual attitudes around the world, with topics including anatomy, gender and sexual orientation, sexual behaviors, sexual difficulties and solutions, sex work, and pornography. Written from a sex-positive perspective with material that is inclusive and respectful of a diverse audience, the text includes cutting edge research on the origins of sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as new treatments for sexually transmitted infections and diseases.
-
-
Exceptionally Comprehensive!
- By Robert Cooper on 08-17-24
-
That Librarian
- The Fight Against Book Banning in America
- By: Amanda Jones
- Narrated by: Amanda Jones
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the things small town librarian Amanda Jones values most about books is how they can affirm a young person’s sense of self. So in 2022, when she heard of a local public hearing that would discuss “book content,” she knew what was at stake. Schools and libraries nationwide have been bombarded by demands for books with LGTBQ+ references, discussions of racism, and more to be purged from the shelves. Amanda would be damned if her community were to ban stories representing minority groups. She spoke out that night at the meeting. Days later, she woke up to a nightmare that still persists.
-
-
Great message everyone should be aware
- By Shelly on 09-30-24
By: Amanda Jones
-
Smothermoss
- By: Alisa Alering
- Narrated by: Susan Bennett
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1980s Appalachia, sisters Sheila and Angie couldn’t be more different. While their mother works long shifts at the nearby asylum, Sheila cares for their home and keeps to herself, even when enduring relentless bullying. Her fearless younger sister, Angie, is more focused on fighting imaginary zombies and creating tarot-like cards that seem to have minds of their own. When the brutal murder of two female hikers on the nearby Appalachian Trail stuns their small community, the sisters find themselves tangled in a dangerous game of cat and mouse.
-
-
Frustration
- By Heather Hakel on 01-11-25
By: Alisa Alering
-
Brighton Rock
- By: Graham Greene
- Narrated by: Richard Brown
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Originally published in 1938, Graham Greene’s chilling exposé of violence and gang warfare is a masterpiece of psychological realism and often considered Graham Greene’s best novel. It is a fascinating study of evil, sin, and the “appalling strangeness of the mercy of God,” a classic of its kind.
-
-
Awful Reader
- By daniel J.conley on 04-13-11
By: Graham Greene
-
The Anthropologists
- By: Aysegül Savas
- Narrated by: Kathryn Aboya
- Length: 4 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Asya and Manu are looking at apartments, envisioning their future in a foreign city. What should their life here look like? What rituals will structure their days? Whom can they consider family? As the young couple dreams about the possibilities of each new listing, Asya, a documentarian, gathers footage from the neighborhood like an anthropologist observing local customs. “Forget about daily life,” chides her grandmother on the phone. “We named you for a whole continent and you’re filming a park.”
-
-
Can't say it's good
- By Moraz on 12-22-24
By: Aysegül Savas
-
Want
- Sexual Fantasies by Anonymous
- By: Gillian Anderson
- Narrated by: Gillian Anderson, Anonymous
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When we talk about sex, we talk about womanhood and motherhood, infidelity and exploitation, consent and respect, fairness and egalitarianism, love and hate, pleasure and pain. And yet for many reasons—some complicated, some not—so many of us don’t talk about it. Our deepest, most intimate fears and fantasies remain locked away inside of us, until someone comes along with the key. Here’s the key. In this generation-defining book, Gillian Anderson collects and introduces the anonymous letters of hundreds of self-identifying women from around the world (along with her own anonymous letter).
-
-
Gillian goes over the top
- By MRD on 10-24-24
By: Gillian Anderson
-
Revolusi
- Indonesia and the Birth of the Modern World
- By: David Van Reybrouck
- Narrated by: Neil Gardner
- Length: 22 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In August 1945, a handful of people raised a homemade cotton flag and announced the birth of a new nation. With the fourth largest population in the world, inhabiting islands that span an eighth of the globe, Indonesia became the first country to rid itself of colonial rule after WWII.
-
-
Solid Historical Survey
- By DavidPrestonokwu on 06-05-24
-
Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here
- The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis
- By: Jonathan Blitzer
- Narrated by: Jonathan Blitzer, André Santana
- Length: 18 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Everyone who makes the journey faces an impossible choice. Hundreds of thousands of people who arrive every year at the US-Mexico border travel far from their homes. For years, the majority came from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, but many more have begun their journey much farther away. Some flee persecution, others crime or hunger. They may have already been deported, but the United States remains their only hope for safety and prosperity. They will take their chances.
-
-
How America Created its Own Border Problem
- By Amazon Customer on 04-19-24
By: Jonathan Blitzer
-
Salt
- A World History
- By: Mark Kurlansky
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 13 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The author of Cod and The Basque History of the World takes an extraordinary look at an ordinary substance — salt, the only rock humans eat — and how it has shaped civilization from the very beginning. Mark Kurlansky has produced a kaleidoscope of history, a multi-layered masterpiece that blends economic, scientific, political, religious, and culinary records into a rich and memorable tale.
-
-
More than SALT
- By Karen on 03-12-03
By: Mark Kurlansky
Critic reviews
“With a sociologist’s eye, a reporter’s nose, and a double-D brain, Sarah Thornton explores the contradictions, power, and fundamental formidability of breasts… Exquisitely written and consistently illuminating.”—Mary Roach, New York Times best-selling author
What listeners say about Tits Up
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- WLC
- 05-15-24
Informative, Insightful and Often Funny
This is an informative, insightful and often witty and funny book that might be subtitled “Everything you wanted to know about the female breast in society but were afraid (or too clueless) to ask.” The author brings a sociologist/ethnographer’s approach to the book and indicates that her curiosity to write the book was stimulated by having a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery. The book has a strong feminist narrative and is largely based on interviews and experiences of the author with frequent reference to published writings and studies.
Chapters focus on: 1) The author’s personal experience as a breast cancer patient and having undergone double mastectomy and adjusting to reconstructive surgery and implants; 2) The author’s research on the role and use of breasts in strip bars, in onstage sexual performance art, by international pornography, by sex workers, and by transgender performers; 3) International societal perceptions and traditions of lactating mothers, allomaternal nursing and the role of lactation and nursing in infant neurologic and emotional development; 4) Fashion trends and practices in breast cosmetic and reconstructive surgery based largely on interviews with and the perspective of female plastic surgeons; 5) Fashion industry and clothes designer ideals in designing and modeling bras and the politics of deciding to free or cover the nipple (the author calls for a campaign to free the nipple and for women to reclaim/liberate the breast and oppose the patriarchy); and finally 6) the symbolism and use of images of bare breasted women in Paleolithic art, Greek mythology, world-wide religions and spiritualism.
The book is narrated by the author who does an excellent job. I ran the book at 1.3X speed for most enjoyable listening.
Note for Would-Be Male Readers:
The book has a heavy-handed feminist narrative that at times takes on the quality of a tiresome rant by end of the book. Passages in the book often seem to be powered by feminist outrage and misandrist hostility orchestrated to smite the patriarchy. This does not detract in my opinion from the value of the author’s observations, insights, and humor. On the other hand, you don’t have to drink the Kool Aid either.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Will
- 05-18-24
diverse perspectives
Not to be confused with erotica, Tits Up is an interesting book about the “meaning” of a certain anatomy. Very informative!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!