Do you mind that your husband looks at breasts all day?

Some people ask outright. Others just think it.

When my son and daughter were in middle school and their friends heard their dad’s cosmetic breast surgery commercial on the local radio station, their first question would be: “Does your mom mind what your dad does?”

I don’t mind. I’m not a jealous type of person in any way, and I know that my husband is professional and appropriate. I know that a doctor can view a body part as just a body part. Countless breast exams and pap tests have proven that to me.

At work, Ted considers breasts like Stedman’s Medical Dictionary does, as “two large hemispheric projections situated in the subcutaneous tela over the pectoralis major muscle on either side of the chest.” At home, they are more like “like two fawns, twins of a gazelle, that graze among the lilies, as King Solomon wrote in Song of Songs.

Okay, so he’s not that poetic, but he does like breasts, and seeing more than 16,000 of them in his lifetime has not ruined it for him, as some people think.

At work, Ted is objective, which my Webster’s dictionary defines as “neutral, detached, uninvolved, and evenhanded.” Strike “evenhanded.” I’m not so fond of that adjective. At work, breasts are measured from side to side and nipple to crease; skin elasticity is judged, size is evaluated.

At home, Ted is subjective, which the dictionary defines as “personal and emotional.” When people ask him if I mind that he looks at breasts all day, he tells them: “No. Because hers are the ones that speak to me, the ones I come home to.”

And when he comes home, he is not judging and measuring. He is simply appreciating. When I demand, “Look at mine objectively. Do you think my breasts are a little droopy?” he says, “They are perfect just the way they are.” I know that’s his subjective opinion. I like to think it is his professional opinion as well.