Check your chest breast cancer awareness/charity.

[LostMyPantsAtGatwickAirport]

I keep hearing adverts from a charity (Coppafeel) about checking your chest - not breasts - and it amazes me how happy women are to see off our language and anatomy and allow inclusion to basically write us out of an issue that mainly affects us.

I know men can also get breast cancer, but it’s in breast tissue, so using breast is entirely clear and anatomically correct.

On the same radio station I’ve heard adverts aimed at men to have their prostate checked - not once is this information muddied at all by falling over backwards to be inclusive to a small minority.

I thought we were heading out of this abysmal wasteland, but apparently not.

I have complained, but blah blah blah inclusion, kindness etc.

I was irritated by it initially. But it’s actually quite good, imo.
They say ‘guys, gals and non binary pals’
I’m sure they say something like checking your ‘breasts, chest, and pecs’.
That actually gives quite a good description of the area.

Nice of you to snipe at him, but he followed the instructions he was given, exactly as I expected.

If I need to direct someone to check an area for lumps, bites, scratches or stings, I tell them to check that area by its own name. It works better!

I spend much of my spare time as a volunteer providing peer support to trans people experiencing cancer, please don't shriek at me about not caring enough or presume to tell me I'm not "genuinely interested" enough. Don't put words into my mouth either, I haven't at any point said any of this was about "not being offended" and I don't think that it is. Trans people aren't dying from potentially treatable cancers because they don't want to be "offended", but out of genuine fear and alienation from conventional medical services which historically don't understand them, don't understand their bodies, and treat them poorly or even abusively. But god fucking forbid a charity actually tries to actively include them in its principle messaging and don't even silo them off into their own "targeted" advert which has to share airtime with 3 other "targeted" ads so won't reach as many people and will cost the charity 4 times as much.

I'm not sniping at all, it was a genuine suggestion. He's lucky he has you to instruct him how but some men don't and might need to look on a website, and might appreciate one that doesn't assume they are a woman.

Men are included when you stop suggesting that there is something unmasculine about having breast cancer.

Have we still not established that you don't have to be a woman to get BREAST cancer?

I have never at any point suggested any such thing and nor does this campaign, in fact Coppafeel as a charity are extremely clear and specific that there's nothing unmasculine about breast cancer and that it can affect anyone, and that's precisely why they use language that doesn't assume they are only talking to women.

New male relative has entered the fray. Immediately upon him coming in, I tested him. He touched his sternum when asked to touch his chest. He carefully felt his sternum for lumps upon my request he check his "chest".

And then he checked his breast tissue as a joke, because he thought checking his breast tissue was the opposite of what I meant and doing it was therefore funny.

I must admit I didn't predict this. Good news, no lumps.

How are you not understanding that the entire point of this campaign and Coppafeel's mission in general, and the reason I support it, is precisely BECAUSE it doesn't assume you have to be a woman to get breast cancer.

It is very much a problem when people impose their opinion that breast cancer suggests that a man is not masculine and that men therefore need to be protected from the word 'breast'.

Great, another member of your family who would benefit from the Coppafeel campaign!

(You do seem to have a lot of people in your house)

And they endorse the idea that it is so embarrassing for a man to have breast cancer that he must be protected from the word 'breast'.

You get primary breast cancer in breast tissue, not your 'pecs'.

Good thing no one has said this then.

No, somebody who would benefit from clear medical advice that uses the correct words to describe body parts.

Do you think we should also disguise the fact that cervical cancer can be caused by an STD? That's a bit embarrassing after all. Should we mention HPV or is that too distressing?

Have you so completely run out of ideas you need to start inventing things I haven't said in order to continue disagree with me?

It is exactly what they say when they use the wrong word.

I'm an oppressed minority. Fortunately, our current pets are all female, which equalises the sex ratio.

No. As should be obvious I am making a comparison.

Do you think it's better to avoid clarity to avoid stigma?

And if so how do you get rid of stigma?

God forbid a 'fucking' charity includes people by using clear language.

Fantastic!

Have you asked any of these men to look at the Coppafeel website to see if they immediately understand it's a breast cancer charity?

Of course you fucking haven't.

Oh go and have a cup of tea or something. You're determined to deliberately interpret this campaign as having the opposite message and opposite intention to the one it actually has, and at this point it just feels disingenuous. Fine if you don't like the wording, whatever, we can't all like everything, but you're just plain wrong if you can't see that the entire point of everything Coppafeel is doing and saying here, everything on their website, is to spread the message that anyone can get breast cancer and to target people who might tend to ignore or dismiss traditional breast cancer campaigns as not being relevant to them. I have absolutely no idea how you've even managed to twist yourself into the knot of arguing that this somehow means they're saying that only women get breast cancer, but you need to untwist yourself before you hurt something.

I would be just as upset if the catholic church tried to control the language we use around contraceptive advice.

Medical advice should be fact based, clear and accurate.

Men and women have breast tissue and your breasts are not your chest.

(I have extensive experience of lung cancer too).

Coppafeel aren't trying to control your language. You remain entirely free to use whatever language you choose.

Quite. The irony here is incredible.

There's only one side of the discussion looking to proscribe language they don't like, and it certainly ain't Coppafeel.

If you don't like what they're doing, there's plenty of others you can donate to.

Yeah, I was trying to resist commenting on the irony of that.