BREASTLESS FASHION
Dutch duo Lobstar designs clothes for women with one breast
By STEPHANIE VAN DEN BERG
Agence France-Presse
THE HAGUE
After art teacher Jeannette van Beveren was told in 2001 that she had to undergo a mastectomy she was sure she did not want a prosthesis or reconstructive surgery. She then started de-signing clothes for women with one breast.
"When I told the hospital cancer counselor that I did not want to wear a prosthesis after the surgery, I was forced to take one home anyway," she said. "The counselor told me I would get tired of all the disapproving looks within three months and turn to the prosthesis."
She stuck with her idea and three years later van Beveren and Paula van der Post, also without one breast, are selling clothes to women like them in a suburb of The Hague through their foundation, Lobstar.
Founded in 2002, Lobstar comes from the zodiac sign cancer, Latin for lobster.
The women hooked up in 2001 when a mutual friend suggested van der Post, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1995, to meet van Beveren who had just had a mastectomy.
For van der Post, who had been wearing prosthesis for five years, meeting van Beveren was the answer to her own discomfort.
"When I saw Jeannette and the way she dressed, I thought, I could do this too," she said. It honestly never occurred to me that I could just take the prosthesis off."
Now van der Post is dressed in a tight black T-shirt with rips in the place of her missing right breast, revealing a hot pink camisole underneath. The shirt designed by her business partner is meant to both distract and draw attention to the missing breast.
"Lobstar's goal is to bring about a change in society," van Beveren said. They want to show that women with one breast can be beautiful too. All sample clothes come in pairs: one for women without a right breast, the other for those who go without a left breast.
The duo has about 60 available designs. T-shirts, made to measure and sewn by van Beveren herself, go for some US$120; bathing suits are US$180. The designs, modeled by the two women themselves, are available in the Lobstar web site (www.lobstar.nl).
In the Netherlands the Lobstar foundation has around 300 members while some 70 women actually wear van Beveren's clothes. The youngest customer is 34 while the oldest is well into her 70s, van der Post said.
For women who like Lobstar's philosophy but cannot come to the atelier in the Netherlands, the pair offered some tips. Look for asymmetrical clothes. Do not try and hide in big clothes but try tight tops. Wear layers, large prints, or tops with frills. Accessorize with brooches, necklaces or arrange shawls to fall over the missing breast.
The women say they hardly face the disapproving reactions the hospital counselor warned about. "People just don't see it and when they do they are positive, especially the men," said van der Post. "You're being straightforward and not kidding anybody when you show your body the way it is."
The End of
All Affairs
Will the discovery of a rodent gene put a stop to philandering?
By RICHARD INGHAM
Agence France-Presse
PARIS
You've just met the man of your dreams.
You're happy, but you're also anxious. You go: "Will he love me forever? Or will he love me and leave me? Darn. If only there were some sort of blood test to find out for sure..."
Well, if one day a "fidelity test" for men does emerge, women may have a humble rodent to thank, according to a study published by the British journal Nature.
In a remarkable experiment in hormone chemistry, behavioral scientists implanted a single gene into promiscuous male rodents, transforming them at a stroke into faithful, attentive and caring partners.
The rodent in question is the meadow vole, Microtus pennsylvanicus-and he is the original love rat.
This playboy of the grasslands thinks nothing about mating with several females at one time and leaving them to rear his offspring while he wanders off in search of his next conquest.
In contrast, the meadow vole's cousin, the prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster) is a model of fidelity. After mating, the male prairie vole sticks close to his partner, protects her jealously and looks after the little ones after they are born.
This is such a rare thing in nature-fewer than five percent of all male mammals are monogamous-that the prairie vole has become quite a celebrity in biology labs.
Previous studies have shown that its brain is studded with receptors for a hormone called vasopressin, which appears to encourage pair-bonding.
Intrigued by this, researchers led by Miranda Lim and Larry Young at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia implanted a gene for the V1a receptor in question in the brains of naughty meadow voles.
They tucked the gene into a harmless virus, which then delivered the V1a gene to the ventral pallidum region of the voles' brains.
What happened next was dramatic.
Once, the voles were Don Juans forever on the cruise. Now, they had a chosen partner, and would only ever mate with her.
Even when temptresses came by and flaunted their voley charms, the genetically modified males only had eyes for that one partner.
The study theorizes that when the modified meadow vole has sex, his brain release vasopressin, which is picked up by the V1a receptors.
They, in turn, unleash serotonin, a "feel-good" chemical, to flood the brain.
Put together, it means the vole associates the feeling of reward when he has sex with this specific mate, and does not want to prejudice that sensation by having sex with others, according to this notion.
In a commentary, also published in Nature, US anthropologist Melvin Konner said the work helps strengthen theories that an "organic subculture"-our genes and the chemicals they produce-lies at the root of the psychology of relationships.
That theory is bitterly contested by sociologists, who say social forces and environmental influences are the primary molds that condition human bonds.
"We are a long way from a commitment pill, but perhaps closer to a neurology of romance," says Konner.
He adds: "We do not yet know if a similar system helps explain male attachment in nonhuman primates, much less humans. But a medicine that might someday be offered to certain men is an interesting prospect."
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