Biology classes have apparently failed many of us across the world, because a picture of the female muscle system has gone viral and the pattern of the milk ducts is triggering people’s trypophobia.
I have to admit, I’ve never seen this kind of skin-free depiction of the female form. I imagine all the school textbooks I came across must have either decided to omit milk ducts when describing anatomy, or just focused solely on the makeup of male bodies.
Admittedly, it probably shouldn’t have taken me 20-plus years to think about exactly how women produced milk, but I suppose it was just one of those things I accepted without question.
The point is, this diagram is new to me, and I’m not alone.
A Twitter user shared a picture of the body online, where it was shared over 22,000 times, and received a lot of comments by confused, surprised, and horrified users.
The caption read:
I just realized I never saw a photo of a female muscle system. This is NOT what I imagined milk ducts to look like.
As some people pointed out, at first glance it looks as though two upside-down flowers have been placed over the boobs, as though the person who created the diagram was attempting to conceal the nipples even when there’s no skin involved.
In reality, there were no flowers. The ducts simply form that pattern themselves – much to the dismay of people with trypophobia, which is the aversion to the sight of irregular patterns or clusters of small holes.
One disturbed person responded:
This is triggering my trypophobia for some reason
While another added:
Woah my trypophobia just popped off please stop
Many people were shocked at the revelation about what lies inside women’s boobs, complaining that they could have lived a long and happy life without ever learning about what milk ducts look like.
One person simply wrote:
I’m creeped out wtf
While another responded:
No I really didn’t need to see this, hmmm the trauma!
However, others were much more positive about learning the new fact, with one writing:
why is everyone saying it’s gross, we have literal flowers on our titties that’s so cool
Another Twitter user commented:
anyone else lowkey pissed that we’d never seen this like in textbooks and stuff ?? this is gorgeous artwork
While it might be an unusual sight, I think it’s about time we learned about what’s going on under our skin – though trypophobes should probably stick with a written description.
You learn something new every day!
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Emily Brown first began delivering important news stories aged just 13, when she launched her career with a paper round. She graduated with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University, and went on to become a freelance writer and blogger. Emily contributed to The Sunday Times Travel Magazine and Student Problems before becoming a journalist at UNILAD, where she works on breaking news as well as longer form features.