Tits Up cover art

Tits Up

What Our Beliefs About Breasts Reveal About Life, Love, Sex and Society

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Tits Up

By: Sarah Thornton
Narrated by: Sarah Thornton
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

Read by the author, Sarah Thornton.

Boobs. Knockers. Jugs. Cans. Baps. Melons. Puppies. Fun bags. Bosoms. Hooters.

In the English language there are over 700 expressions for female mammary glands – the majority of which are mostly used by men. In Tits Up, bestselling author, sociologist and journalist Sarah Thornton asks how is it that we look at breasts so much, but reflect on them so little.

It was after Sarah underwent a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery that she found herself considering how we think about breasts, and what that tells us about ourselves. Across five chapters, she encounters strippers, plastic surgeons, bra designers, modern witches, lactation experts and donors to breast milk banks to create the ultimate biography of humanity's most culturally important body part.

Surprising, sharp, tender and true, Tits Up explores how women’s chests shape our ideas of beauty, health, respect, self-esteem and equality. Blending real-life accounts with sociology, history, art and culture, and written with refreshing optimism and wit, Thornton has one overriding ambition to: liberate breasts from centuries of patriarchal prejudice.

 Body Positivity Gender Studies Sexual & Reproductive Health Social Sciences Surgery

Critic reviews

A consciousness-raising romp around feminism via the rack. (Philippa Perry)
An excellent new book. . . Owners and admirers will not look at breasts in the same way again. (The Economist)
Will make any woman reconsider her body, and any man reconsider how he treats the bodies of the women in his life (Sunday Independent)
[Thornton’s] impassioned polemic makes a convincing case that the derogatory way Western culture views tits…helps perpetuate the patriarchy…Tits Up asks readers to reimagine the bosom, no matter its size and shape, as a site of empowerment and even divinity. (New York Times)
Tits Up is avant-garde sociology as well as a witty and important feminist contribution to knowledge. (Angela McRobbie FBA, Prof. Emeritus Goldsmiths University of London)
This witty and informative sociological study of women's breasts in Western societies is sometimes shocking, often hilarious, always revealing. Tits Up is a must read – especially for men (Professor Simon Frith, Edinburgh College of Art)
Sarah Thornton strikes the perfect balance of personal experience, scholarship, and fun. This is an important book. (Professor Sarah Oglivie, University of Oxford)
A foundational ethnography of the most visible emblems of womanhood. (Professor Mandy Merck, Royal Holloway University Of London)
Tits Up is a wonderfully written book which deepens our understandings of the many and complicated lives of breasts, tits, bosoms and baps. Hugely entertaining, amply proportioned and wide-ranging, Sarah Thornton’s field guide to how tits are treated across different spheres of life and culture challenges many existing preconceptions and makes an important contribution to both feminist thought and everyday experience. (Professor Jo Littler, Goldsmiths University of London)
I highly recommend this brilliant, witty, informative and activist book, both to those who have breasts and those who don’t. (Dr Lucy Soutter, University of Westminster.)
No reviews yet