The tip of a stay. Right under the tit.

Why is it OK for women to show the space between their boobs at work?

I’m not asking this as a gay man who finds boobs to be distracting only because they’re funny-looking. I’m asking as a man who is expected to keep anything below the top of my sternum hidden under clothing if I want to be taken seriously as a responsible, mature, focused professional. Who doesn’t work in porn.

And I’m not singling out any woman I work with; I’m talking about professional women in general. This morning on the bus I sat next to a woman whose blouse neckline was cut so low I could see both the top and bottom of the front of her bra … and the tops and bottoms of the insides of her boobs. And you know I wasn’t even trying. Other than her porn-o-rama décolletage, this woman was dressed for court: dark power suit, sensible pumps, briefcase, modest makeup, wash ’n’ go hair. But her two-for-one produce display made her look like she was headed to a bachelor party instead of a corporate merger.

Across the aisle sat another rack-and-bra combo exploding out of an unbuttoned sweater-and-tailored-slacks ensemble. Standing in the aisle hung a pair of well-fed prisoners clamoring to escape from the minimum-security prison of a barely buttoned silk blouse. All three displays included full xiphoid process at no extra charge.

I’m not crying double standard here. I seriously couldn’t care less if a woman wants to bring her daughters to work. It’s just that if I showed up for work in a shirt that scooped down to show the hair between my pecs, I’d probably hear about it. And not in a wow-you-sure-have-nice-pec-hair kind of way. And in all my 16 years of seeing boob crack in my professional life, only once has anyone said anything … and only then because the boobkeeper professed to be a fundamentalist Christian and we all found it deliciously ironic that she dressed to ensure a second coming and more than once made reference to the bright pink “baboon butt” on her chest.

I know: My straight male readers (all two of you) are totally jealous that I rode the mammary express to work this morning. But my life isn’t all tits ’n’ jiggles. Since I’m always the first on my bus and I always get a seat, sometimes women in miniskirts end up standing next to me and they have to reach up to hold onto the bars. And that’s a cat out of a totally different bag.