Weird question but in a lot of fictional media (comic books, video games, bad novels) there’s the sexy female assassin who is skilled in the art of espionage but isn’t afraid of getting into a gunfight if things turn badly. She also just happens to have very large breasts as part of her modus operandi for distracting or seducing her male opponents. Characters like Black Widow, Lara Croft, Olga Lawina and others are basically the type of person in mind.
My question is would big breasts be a significant hindrance in a firefight? Would it in practice noticeably alter your profile in any meaningful way to make you easier to hit? Would the breasts or bra provide any sort of protection to the heart from a bullet (since it might have to travel an extra few inches to reach the heart) Would firing from a prone position face down have any extra difficulty?
Or would it just provide only an incredibly minor insignificant disadvantage that it wouldn’t be worth even considering say if you were an evil genius who was in charge of hiring female assassins?
Probably alters the profile less than the huge muscles many male characters have.
Or a big belly say. Probably only a few percent.
Yes probably some extra protection, but a direct shot to the heart is hardly the biggest threat: the shot would need to be very precise to not only be on target for the heart but also avoid any ribs.
Doubt it, unless her bra is very stiff.
The main difference is just weight. If we imagine two extremely lithe, gynmast-style figures, one has AA cup and one (incredibly) has E cups, I would say miss E cups would have a noticeable disadvantage when running, climbing, even just standing up quickly.
Of course this is a deliberately extreme contrast.
Maybe they could burn off one boob, like the Amazons were supposed to have done*, just to ensure a good shot.
Of course, this being the modern age, they’d probably have a radical mastectomy instead.
*I notice that this idea never made it to any of the ancient depictions of Amazons in art. I suspect it’s a case of the Power of Bad Folk Etymology. Imagine how it would have changed the appearance of that Wonder Woman movie.
There’s the old joke about “giving herself two black eyes…”
To be a bit more serious, there is the category sports bras for a reason.
As for gunfights, I don’t usually see stories where the rifles or handguns involved are .22’s; and I would imagine - not a firearms specialist - the stories that involve DD’s also involve guns like magnums or 38’s (the bullets, that is) and so a few inches (several inches) of extra flesh is not going to confer any serious protection or survival options to the recipient of a gunshot.
Being married to a gun-owning woman possessing voluminous breasts, it can affect “length of pull” of a rifle. While I shoot very much across my chest, she has to hold a rifle much more perpendicular to hers, as her breasts get in the way. This affects her stability with the rifle, and it’s balance.
In general, large breasts are a significant hindrance to a women athletically speaking. Simona Halep, the current WTA #2 player in the world, was a virtual nobody until she had breast reduction surgery. It made all the difference in the world for her career. I can’t imagine an athletic female super hero lugging around a large rack. It’s simply incongruous.
I’m sure male authors and artists have nothing to do with this meme…
For 99.999999999999999% of situations I’d say probably not. It’s like asking “are really tall guys at a disadvantage in a firefight, being bigger targets?” For the most part, no. Pretty much never.
Given the velocity and destructive power of a gunpowder-driven bullet… no.
Breasts are squishy. They tend to flatten when a woman is face down. As noted by another poster, sports bras also tend to flatten the bustline when a woman is exercising as well a providing support. I don’t see where this would be a problem.
Overall fitness as well as training in skills like targeting would seem far, far more important that the exact configuration of an assassin’s body.
Even if the bullets were .22’s a couple inches of breast tissue (and that would be an extreme example) isn’t going make a difference. .22’s can go entirely through a human body. For that matter, a .22 could potentially go through several interior walls of your home. A ginormous bustline is never going to substitute for a kevlar vest.
What about using handguns? What about using a sniper rifle with a bipod or other support? I don’t know much about the assassination business but I’m assuming it doesn’t usually involve Hollywood shoot-outs at high noon but is much more likely to involve preparation and opportunities to steady the firearm being used.
Yeah…there’s a more direct, less prurient (and essentially similar) question here: do female track-and-field athletes tend to have smaller busts because large breasts directly hinder performance, or do they tend to have smaller busts than other athletes because large-breasted women gravitate to other, lower-impact endurance sports like, say, swimming? (I imagine this has been asked and answered before, possibly even on TSD).
Of course, this begs the question to a degree: it assumes that elite track-and-field athletes have, on average, smaller busts than elite athletes in lower-impact sports. Anecdotally, this seems likely to me, but all I have are anecdotes. But if someone has shown that large breasts are a direct performance disadvantage in running sports, then it stands to reason that they’d be a disadvantage anytime one had to run.
Jasmine makes an interesting point about Simona Halep. Tennis involves a lot of reaching across the chest, so her pre-reduction bust may well have directly impeded her performance. But a female 10,000 meter runner who had similar surgery might see her performance improve either because her large bust directly hindered her performance somehow or because her large bust caused her such discomfort that she was able to train harder after surgery. The latter wouldn’t matter in a running gunfight, I wouldn’t think (because adrenalin), but the former probably would.
As a non-busty non-woman, I admit I’m a little surprised to learn this. It seems to me that unless one is using a large-capacity detachable magazine, a rifle would be unlikely to interfere with a woman’s bust, even a large one. The butt of the rifle is nestled high on the shoulder, and, aside from part of the stock, there’s not much of a rifle that’s below the collarbone.
Here’s a photo of an elite biathlete shooting from a standing position:
She’s not built like Lara Croft–no human being is–but it looks like neither of her arms would interfere much with even large breasts (note the outward-jutting angle of her right humerus). The only part of the rifle that looks like it could interfere is the stock, and one imagines that an L-shaped stock (like the one linked to below) might get around that problem:
I’m absolutely speculating here*; I have no direct experience with this, and your wife certainly does. May I ask what would interfere with her breasts if she were to shoot the way you do? Would it be the stock? The magazine? One or both of her arms? Something else?
*In case there’s any ambiguity on any of this: I’m aware that a pound of my (male) speculation on these subjects isn’t worth an ounce of a woman’s experience. I really appreciate the contributions women have made to the thread thus far.
Modern pistol shooting has two major stances, with a few variations of each:
Weaver, where the weak side is tilted towards the target, and breasts might alter profile ever so slightly.
Isoceles, where the body faces the target straight on, so profile would be unaltered.
I don’t know what the current stats are, but isoceles is becoming increasingly popular, and theoretically works better with body armor. There are a few niche stances, like center axis relock (see: John Wick), and there are a few alterations one can make, but these are the two dominant ones used.
Well I’d be willing to bet money that a large bust is a disadvantage for running, but I don’t personally like extrapolations from elite athletes to the general case; which is a common thing we seem to see here at the dope.
We would expect athletes at a given sport to have certain different traits from the general population on average, and that those traits give them some competitive edge. However, of those characteristics, some of them may be of negligible importance in real-world situations, because at the elite level every percent of a percent matters.
And in fact, some characteristics might be a slight disadvantage in typical situations, because typical situation =/= formal competition.
But to be clear: I’m not suggesting big boobs would be an advantage (or even neutral) at the amateur level. Just cautioning on that kind of logic.
I got two black eyes in church once. There was a ‘large’ woman in the pew in front of me. When we stood up to sing a hymn, her dress got caught in the crack of her bottom. Being a helpful sort, I pulled it out for her. She turned around and socked me right in my left eye!
Mijin: Oh, I agree that one should acknowledge the sample bias of using elite athletes as a data set. But the reason that’s common, of course, is that data are collected on elite athletes in a way they’re not collected for the general population.
You’re right that any data set will have some inherent bias. You may not like the bias that comes with extrapolating from athletes to the general population, but I think there are some good reasons to do so here. First of all, running in a firefight is an athletic endeavor, and there are precious few bust-size-vs-running-speed studies out there for non-athletes. These are the data we have, and, if we acknowlege their inherent bias, they’re a lot better than no data at all. (You’ll notice I said, “it stands to reason,” not “it proves definitively.”) Secondly, as you pointed out, at the elite level, every fraction of a percent matters. This means that if one is careful, one can use this to tease out very small advantages conferred by certain characteristics.
These aren’t necessarily slam-dunks in terms of data analysis, but they’re a whole lot better than pining for nonexistent data sets and/or throwing one’s hands up and complaining that these things simply aren’t knowable.
That said, we’re talking about a ridiculous scenario here—one that exists primarily in comic books. I’d bet folding money that, in a real running firefight, breast size and even gender would fade into the noise compared to (a) athletic training/fitness and (b) firearms training/practice. I think it’s extremely unlikely that anything else would matter. That’s one reason I pointed out that the question could be reframed as “does a big bust slow you down?”
If, on the other hand, you want a rigorously unserious answer to an unserious question:
Biathlon (skiing and shooting) exists as a sport because it’s a simulation of winter hunting in Scandinavia. Skiing fast while shooting accurately is both notoriously difficult and fairly similar to the demands of a running firefight. One imagines that Lara Croft and Aeon Flux would train extensively at both aerobic exercise and shooting if they weren’t, you know, imaginary. But female biathletes train extensively at both, and they tend to have small busts. So yes, women with large breasts are almost certainly underrepresented among the elite class of extraordinarily fit women who also shoot extraordinarily well.
Ask any elite athlete to strap 15 pounds to their chests and they’ll give you a good long lecture on balance and weight, I’m sure. But if you live and practice with that weight every day, it’s less of an issue.
It’s really more restraining them that’s the problem. Those available bras that will keep them still and under control tend to be tight and mess with full breathing. Given the dents that they leave behind I’m guessing they also interfere with circulation. Hard to tell how much as nobody seems to be studying this.
As for shooting, no effect whatsoever, either on ability to aim and shoot, or on stopping a bullet. Recoil might be a bit more painful, but hopefully your spy has enough experience with firearms to control it. Unless she’s a great-grandmother, the heart is well below the left breast. And while it’s to the left of center, it’s not so far over that it’s under the thickest breast tissue.
Large breasts do make it very hard to find kevlar that fits properly. The vast majority of bullet-proof armor/clothing is designed for men. There are some available with a small tuck for a flattish chest, but nothing I’ve ever seen for the really large-breasted woman. Even those with several points of adjustment only work for large chest if you also have a large waist. They are really more for a big rib cage than for large breasts.
Re. bust size in athletes: athletes tend to have lower %fat than the general population, that includes smaller cups. Less so for some sports than for others, but you know, in general hammer throwers don’t tend to be particularly petite.
If she is shooting a pistol, which most movie gun fights use, the large breasts might even be an advantage. I set up a club’s practical defense meets for many years. Shooting prone was sometimes in the mix of positions. Since you are nearly always shooting at a threat that is close by, their center of mass is quite a bit higher then you are. You always have to prop yourself up on your elbows to get a good sight alignment. Big boobies might help you do this.
I’m willing to offer my time to assess the situation. I’ll even provide the guns.
It’s not that I’m pining for perfect data, I was just warning against the “stands to reason” logical inference.
We’ve had people on the Dope suggest that weightlifting is not a good way to get a muscular physique, because pro weightlifters often look stocky or even chubby.
Or that an amateur chess player in their 40s is unlikely to get any better at the game because pro players usually peak well before that.
Those are two obviously bad inferences but on top of that I think there have been many threads where an inference based on elite sportsmen seems plausible enough but may yet be wrong because the logic often doesn’t necessarily follow.
Anyway, sorry for the hijack, it might be interesting thread topic in itself.
