Some scenes or stories in movies/tv are particularly hard to figure out. They require a whip-smart visionary team of directors, costume designers, cinematographers, casting directors, producers, actors, and stunt coordinators who have a deep understanding of how to achieve the right feel and look of the piece to make it come alive. Here, we explore the making of eight of the most legendary scenes in film/tv history. Enjoy!
Warning: Spoilers ahead!
In "Death Becomes Her", Meryl Streep's character, Madeline, learns of an immortality treatment, and jumps at the chance to outdo her long-time rival.
In the transformation scene, they wanted to show a sense of youth appearing on Madeline's body. If anyone knows anything about gravity, it is that gravity + time = sagging. So, what better way to show this than to have Madeline's breasts perk up as though she were a 20-something youngin' who needn't even bother with bras.
At first, the props department tried to create an inflatable bra mechanism, but that failed to do the trick. Instead, they came up with this clever idea to pull it off.

Meryl Streep's assistant but his hands into her shirt, which was strategically very flowing, so as to conceal his hands. Then, at the right moment, he pushed them up, so as to create the illusion of perkier breasts.
That there, folks, may be the luckiest assistant in the entire world.
In Mission Impossible III, there is a particular scene around the 1.5 hour mark, in which Bronway (Eddie Marsan), injects a capsule into Ethan (Tom Cruise)'s head.
The scene is extremely aggressive (it is, after all, a torture scene), so Tom Cruise's head is not dealt with in the gentlest of fashions. His head is jerked back by his hair and a gun is shoved into his nostril, ready to inject the capsule.

Only, there was one problem: in order to make it look like a legitimately aggressive torture scene, the gun was pressed into Tom's nose in an aggressive fashion. It hurt. A lot. So much so, that Tom had to talk to the director about it.
So J.J. Abrams came up with an idea.
They would angle the camera so the person holding the gun's arm was out of the shot. Then, he gave the gun to Tom, and used makeup to paint Tom's hand to the skin tone of Eddie Marsan. Then, Tom pressed the gun against his own nose. This way, it was a lot easier to gauge how hard he could push without causing himself pain.
The same goes later when Musgrave puts the phone to Ethan's ear, then Ethan bites Musgrave's hand. The hand that Cruise bit was not Billy Crudup's, but again was his own hand.
What's that? You want another fun hand fact? How about this...
At around twenty-seven minutes) The doctor's hands extracting the capsule from Agent Farris' head at the IMF headquarters belong to J.J. Abrams.
In the episode titled "Lesbian Request Denied", in Orange is the New Black, we learn a little of the backstory of one of the most loved characters on the show Sophia Burset.
In this episode, we learn about what Sophia's life was like before, during, and after her transition from male to female. The actor who plays Sophia, Laverne Cox, is also a transwoman. In the episode, we see Sophia before her surgery, when she was New York City fireman Marcus Burset.
The casting director and series creator were tasked with finding an actor to portray "Marcus", which is difficult, considering how much he would have to look like Sophia, as a man.

Jenji Kohan, series creator, approached Laverne to tell her that they were looking to hire someone. In an interview, Laverne said that Jenji said to her, "I don't want to traumatize you, by having you play a man again." You know, because I tried to play one for many years in my real life, and unsuccessfully.
But, I'm an actor. I can play this … I got this. I can do it.
"So … we talked about it, we did a hair and makeup test to get Sophia's looks throughout her transition together. One of those looks was her as [Marcus], as the firefighter, but Jodie didn't think I looked masculine enough to play [him]," Cox continued. "And so it was decided that someone would be hired. I did my best to butch it up, and it wasn't butch enough, apparently."
Despite Laverne's stellar acting skills, it wasn't working.
That's when the casting director discovered a fact that changed everything:
Laverne has a twin brother. M.Lamar auditioned, and despite not being an actor, was an obvious choice for the role. He did a great job, and looked the part, perfectly.
Steven Spielberg's Jaws contains one of the most unforgettable opening scenes in the history of film. The scene, Chrissie Watkins (Susan Backlinie) leaves a beach party to take a quick dip in the water. Treading through the water alone, she feels a tug. Then another. Then, audiences watch in horror as Chrissie is violently dragged through the water before disappearing under the surface forever.

In this scene, audiences don't see the shark a choice Spielberg explained in Making Of Jaws:
I thought that what could really be scary was not seeing the shark and just seeing the water; because we all are familiar with the water---very few of us have been in the water with a shark, but weve all gone swimming. And the idea of this girl going swimming and the audience going swimming with her wouldve been too extraordinary if, like a leviathan, the shark had come out of the water with its jaws agape and had come down on her…it wouldve been a spectacular opening for the film. But there wouldve been nothing primal about it—it would just have been a monster moment that weve all seen.
There needed to be a way that audiences would clue into the fact that Chrissie was being attacked by a vicious monster that was lurking under the surface of the water. At the point when Jaws was being developed, CGI was very new. Spielberg didn't want to use it, because he thought it would ruin the movie (the technology didn't have the capabilities to make things look realistic).
So, the crew was posed with an interesting dilemma how do we get it to realistically look like Chrissie Watkins is being attacked from below by a shark?
To achieve this, they attached a harness to Backlinie. For the initial tug under water, they attached a cable to her that dropped down from the stomach-area of her harness, and fed that cable down to an anchor that was laying at the bottom of the ocean, and back up to where Spielberg was sitting.

According to Backlinie, "The first jerk-down Steven [Spielberg] did.... he just sat and when he wanted that pulled he just would pull."
For the side-to-side thrashing from the shark, more cables were attached to Backlinie's harness, then threaded through two pilings on either side of her, and stretched out to the beach. There, a group of men on each line would pull the two ends of the cable and run back and forth along the sand, to pull her to and fro.

To ensure Backlinies safety, she was outfitted with a special string that she could pull to release herself from the cables if it got too intense.
It was very cold," Backlinie said, of the experience. "I was in for two to three hours at a time."
Another interesting detail of this scene is how they created the gurgling, drowning sounds that you hear during Chrissie's attack. For that, they asked Backlinie to stand in front of a microphone, turn her head up, and they poured water down her throat.
Her dedication to that one scene is astounding. After Jaws, Susan Backlinie quit acting and went into accounting are you surprised?
The shower scene in Psycho is perhaps one of the most famous scenes in all of film history certainly the most famous shower scene. Though it is less than 3 minutes, the scene was so precisely measured that it took over 7 days to film and includes 70 different camera setups.
Psycho was released in June, 1960, and shocked audiences for its incredibly disturbing murder scene of a woman in the shower.
However, the film's creator, Alfred Hitchcock, was faced with a huge dilemma whilst creating the moment movies had very high censorship at that time the scene could not contain a shot of any genitalia or breasts, and couldn't actually show the stabbing or any knife wounds.
Hitchcock and his team of wizards used considerable artistry to accomplish the murder scene within these confines...
1. Hitchcock decided to use a 50mm lens, which gave the scene a slightly less glossy feel Hitchcock wanted audiences to feel like they were seeing the events firsthand.
2. Because of this, Hitchcock decided that the shower scene would be too disturbing in full color, so opted for black and white film. Also, black and white film is far less expensive, so that could have been a factor, though it's not confirmed.
3. In order to create the illusion that audiences were witnessing a far more graphic scene than was actually shown, he took an impressionist approach. Several small cuts were strung together in quick succession. These rapid cuts created a fast paced tone that paralleled the adrenaline rush and confusion that the protagonist was experiencing at the time of her murder. It also capitalized on a natural human tendency to "fill in the gaps" with our own imaginations. If you show us a knife, a woman screaming, and some blood in the bath water, we will naturally fill in the gaps.
4. Another major hurdle in creating this scene was properly lighting the shower water, so that it felt very visceral, and protecting the camera from the water. The props department created a special shower head that, when the camera was tilted at a specific angle, the camera could look straight up at the shower and not get wet.
5. To show audiences that the woman was being stabbed without actually showing the stabbing, the camera focused on the blood that was trickling through the bathtub and down the drain. Though matching color wasn't important, (because it was in black and white), Hitchcock was very concerned that the blood be the right viscosity. After testing movie blood and ketchup, he settled on chocolate syrup.
6. To create a realistic stabbing sound, the special effects crew stabbed watermelons with large knives.
In Saving Private Ryan, the "storming of Omaha beach scene" has been hailed by historians, and by the men who survived the event, as the most accurate depiction of war in film.
The actual event, known as D-Day, went like this:
On June 6, 1944, 156,000 American, British, and Canadian soldiers landed on the a 50 mile stretch of France's Normandy 50 coast, which was fortified by German soldiers.
It was among the largest military assault in world war history. This event was the beginning of the end of WWII.
Spielberg didn't want to rely on massive special effects to create the grandeur of war, which would ultimately make it look glossy and fantastical. Instead, he wanted to create a portrayal that was visceral and real, so viewers could have a real sense of what the horrors of war were like. It was a massive undertaking.
So... how did they do it?
Trying to find a location that could accurately pass as Omaha Beach was difficult. The actual Normandy Coast is protected as a historical landmark, so filming there was out of the question. Yet, they wanted a place that was an exact replica of the location, including sand and a bluff similar to the one where German forces were stationed. Production designer, Tom Sanders, found Ballinesker Beach, Curracloe Strand in Wexford, Ireland. Perfect.

Whilst in Ireland, they hired 1500 actual Irish Army Reservists to portray the role of soldiers in the film. These men all had the look and experience to fit the part.
Next came the costumes. Designer Joanna Johnston started the project under the impression that she would be able to find a bunch of old WWII uniforms and alter them to fit the actors. Wrong! It turns out that barely any of these uniforms have survived past their time, so that was a near-impossible feat.
But, they wanted authenticity. So, Johnston and her team recreated 3000 authentic uniforms. She then found the company who made the original troops' boots, and ordered 2000 pairs. That's a whole lot of war-wear!
To bring a sense of authenticity to the organizational and military tactics of the crew, they hired former U.S. Marine Core Captain, Dale Dye, to direct the thousands of extras on set.
In pre-production, they put the core actors through a miserable bootcamp that bonded them as a unit, in the same way that soldiers under extreme duress would be bonded. It also prepared them for the very realistically harsh conditions on set.
Spielberg through away his standard method of creating a storyboard for the film a visual aid that would guide the look of each shot. Instead, he wanted to create the camera crew to have spontaneous reactions to the scene as it unfolded. It allowed for viewers to feel the chaotic and unpredictable energy of war in a realistic way.
Spielberg wanted the look of the film to be desaturated and low-tech (again, no glamour).
To achieve this, cinematographer Janusz Kaminski actually removed the protective coating from his camera lens to give the picture a softer, diffused look, and put the negative through an additional process to extract more of the color. He also shot in such a way that all movement blur was removed from the shot adding an extremely crisp, jarring look to the explosions. It feels a lot realer when you can see individual drops of water and bits of dirt.

Now this is where it really gets into Spielberg's near-obsessive attention to detail...
Spielberg's special effects team created a technology that would allow actors to die from gun wound with perfect timing. They put a sensor on the squib packs (packs of blood that explode) of every actor being shot, that would detect when another actor was firing their gun, take distance and speed of bullet into account, and explode at precisely the correct time.
A major choice that set this scene apart from other wartime scenes in movies is the sound. While most movies that feature a battle scene have a sweeping, epic score underneath, Spielberg decided to use nothing. There wasn't music playing during the real WWII, so it wasn't going to play here either. At certain moments during the battle, the sound of bullets whizzing and bodies falling cuts out altogether, to mimic the shellshocked state of Tom Hanks' character, Captain Miller. The sounds are replaced by a slow, haunting sound, like the sound of pressing your ear to a seashell. To simulate this, sound designer Gary Rydstrom recorded the sounds of the beach, played them over a speaker, and recorded them through in a microphone through a long tube. When asked about the sound, Rydstrom said, "It's like a psychological tea whistle."
In order to create the horrors of actual war, the casting department hired dozens of real-life amputees that would more convincingly portray the injuries acquired throughout the battle. The props department made 1000 meticulously detailed dummies that littered the beach illustrating the massive amounts of bodies along the shore in the real battle. They washed these bodies in hundreds of gallons of fake blood.

Saving Private Ryan won 5 Oscars that year, including best director for Steven Spielberg.
Most people remember the dragon attack in Game of Thrones, Season 7, Episode 4. When Daenerys finally unleashed Drogon on Westoros against the Lannister forces, they swung low and blasted a breath of fire onto unlucky soldiers below resulting a whole lot of crispy bodies. If you were impressed by the scene itself, just wait until you read what went into making it.
In a behind-the-scenes feature from HBO, the shows creators and crew discussed the extreme dedication it took to make this scene a reality. There were hundreds of soldiers and 27 wagons bathed in fire, a process that required fancy camerawork from numerous cameras, including a camera with the ability to fly through the air at 70 miles per hour, another attached to a drone, and one on an off-road pickup truck.

But the really wild thing, was how they executed the fire blast on the actors. Twenty stuntmen were hired to run away from the approaching dragon. As they did, they ran over explosive charges, which set off the fiery explosions, made to look like they were from the dragon's mouth. The stuntmen were ACTUALLY set on fire, (wearing fire protective gear underneath their costumes), and writhed around on the ground for twelve seconds before someone put them out with a fire extinguisher.

This episode set a world record for the most stuntmen simultaneously set on fire.
In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, there is a scene in which the protagonists are inside an old memory of Joel (Jim Carrey) and Joel is the size of a child. This wasn't done using CGI.

Instead, the set department and camera crew worked together to make it look that way with real-life illusions.
The set department built a room, called an Ames Room. The room looked like it had a straight back wall, but in reality, the wall was on an angle.
Rooms like these are the reason that these two friends look disproportionate to one another.

This is how it works:

Voila! There you have it.
Thank you for reading!
Short of having a shopping addiction, no one actually likes spending money on stuff.
Why would you ever willingly give it away? It's your money!
Which might be why it feels so bad when you have to spend money of something that should be free from the beginning. People/ corporations are going to chase that cheddar, though, so there's little you can do besides complain, which frankly might be the best thing the internet is for.
Reddit user, woodside37, wanted to know what we should never have to pay for again when they asked:
"What should be free?"
Let's get these out of the way first...No, let's get this first one out of the way first.
Hidden fees are the worst.
Hidden. F***ing. Fees.
"Transaction/processing fees when you order a digital product online. Such as a concert ticket, where you pay 6 euro extra while you pay online, and have to print the ticket yourself."
rickmitchel
"Or processing fees to pay bills that you need. Duke energy charges a $7 processing fee for you to pay your energy bill. Like wtf."
CrispyCrunchyPoptart
Pay To Pee
"Public bathrooms! The amount of human piles of poop around because the homeless have no where to relieve themselves!"
AuntyMarcy
"Live in a very tourist-y part of the U.K., all public toilets charge and most cafes/pubs/libraries won’t let people use their toilets. As someone who lives here year round it’s really frustrating and doesn’t seem to make sense."
JonesNewport83
Want A Better Society? Educate Them.
"College. Or at the very least, college APPLICATIONS. If you're gonna require it for most careers, atleast make it accessible for people. And I just think it's stupid that people have to pay to get rejected."
callmeventibcimavent
"Oh god I hate that so much. Same with applying to apartments it’s such a waste of money if you don’t get approved. It racks up quickly too."
Kydra96
It does feel grimy when "official documentation" that is "mandatory" has to be bought and paid for not by the people requiring it, but by the people needing it.
Forcing Us To Pay For Something We're Forced To Have
"ID cards issued by the government. Especially since you need them for almost every aspect of daily living."
waqasnaseem07
"I. Exist."
"Birth certificates"
alexchico3
"I'm not the biggest fan of free stuf but having to pay for a piece of paper that says "I exist" is ridiculous."
Spaghetti-Evan1991
It'll never not feel bad having to pay for something we expect to be free, but it feels ten times worse when it's something you need to get by in life. As in, need to live.
Let's All Agree To Take Care Of Each Other
"All base needs up to a level. I mean stuff we need to survive, eg. power, water,... and things we are required to use to be relevant in daily life internet,..."
"Seeing how now power companies are fuel companies are having THE biggest profit in years while more and more families are pushed into bigger and bigger deths just to get by."
"Same goes for internet tbh, poor kids are just not getting by in school becasue they lack the basic stuff every other kid has to get further in life. I am not saying they need the fastest possible internet with unlimited dl, but give them so they can work for school so the vicious cycle can be broken."
Amelsander
We Need It More Than Anyone
"All mental health services. If you don’t have benefits or a VERY good paying job, they are unaffordable for how often most people really need them. At $120-160/ session even once a week is not affordable for most people these days"
pennylayne77
A Fine Line Between Need And Want
"Water"
selfishnerd77
"Drinking water, sure. But water is an expendable resource and it should honestly be more restricted when we think about cases like people watering their lawns."
I_Am_Become_Dream
Paying To Live
"Insulin. People are dying because of greedy pharmaceutical companies."
Astronimus123
"But We're 'Pro-Life'" - Jerks
"Birth control of all kinds."
"For anyone who b*tches about spending taxpayer money, I'd ask whether it costs more to provide condoms or to house prisoners."
AlexReynard
"Giving birth (In the us)"
z0k0n
"As a female US citizen the more I learn about the whole giving birth sh*t the less I want kids. My friend just had a baby, there were some complications. She is now paying off a 14k hospital bill! The lowest I have hears is 8k. 8k just to have a f-cking kid! For a country that is gung-ho about forcing women to have kids they have missed the mark completely."
Main-Yogurtcloset-82
Everyone is looking for their payout, and unfortunately sometimes we're the ones who have to give it to them, whether it makes sense or not.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again.
The worst part of having breasts is Florida.
I didn't even say large breasts. Just breasts, any breasts. Florida and breasts are mortal enemies sworn to battle one another into oblivion until the end of days.
In other states, you and your ladies can live a more peaceful life. Here in Florida, it's A Song of Sweat And Fire Ants.
Ever get tiny little jellyfish stuck under your side-boob? Happens here all the time.
Bikinis should come with a "Sand Lice, Your Titty Crease, And You" informational pamphlet.
Wanna jog? Hope you accounted for the fact that the air is soup and will chafe and cauterize your nipples.
Know what limits your field of vision, making you more likely to accidentally step on a snake and/or gator? Boobs.
Know what slows you down as you try to escape the angry reptile from the above paragraph? Also boobs.
Reddit user Saibotnl1 asked:
"What's the most negative thing about having boobs?"
Now take all this stuff they said sucked, and then put it inside of a steam oven filled with mosquitos. That's Florida.
And Florida is incompatibile with breasts.
Cardio Is Hardio
"I love them but running can be a nuisance even in a good sports bra."
- [Reddit]
"When I go to work, there is a woman that usually runs on the shoulder of the road. I gasp at how much her boobs bounce. Isn't that doing damage to tissue? Painful?"
- notanotherbreach
"Yes! I literally always hold mine when going up/down stairs so they dont bounce. Running is uncomfortable even with a good bra :/ "
- k_g94
"If it's a sports bra that holds you, it's so tight that it's impossible to get into or out of without a whole team of people like a pit crew."
"If you can comfortably get into it, it won't hold the girls for long."
"Cardio is just not worth all this."
-[Reddit]
"As a kid I wasn't fit enough for jump rope, but now that I'm older and have the big boobies it feels even more impossible to ever indulge in."
- PoiLethe
Literally In The Way
"They get in the way!!"
"Lately I've been getting frustrated with exercise. My personal trainer will say to hold something a certain way and I'll try but it's so uncomfortable because my boobs are completely in the way."
"She has small boobs so she doesn't account for them being in that space right in front of your chest."
- J09Lynn
"My English teacher in 10th grade was drinking water one day when a few drops landed on his shirt. He then complained about getting older and how he never stuck out far enough to get his shirt wet."
"I just sighed."
"4th grade. 4th grade is when I stuck out too much to avoid drips."
- wheredMyArmourGo
"So very much this."
"I refuse to do mountain climbers when my trainer suggests it, she started to get mad saying it's a great exercise. My retort was that I'd really rather not knee myself in the breasts as part of my workout."
"The lady has small boobs and replied that she had never thought of that!"
- Pauliester
Growing Pains
"Probably growing them."
"It hurts, and if you get big boobs young and quickly, it’s both physical and social agony."
"It hurts to grow them, first of all, your chest aches and bumping them against anything really hurts - and since they’re a sudden, large addition to your body, you’re ALWAYS bumping them on stuff."
"But the social aspect is worse."
"Your female family members comment on them slyly and smirk at your response."
"Your male friends look at you weird and you have to realize they see you as more sexual than girls with smaller chests, even though you literally cannot control this."
"Other girls can be nasty and jealous."
"Eventually I learned to manage all this and I like having breasts now; but from like 11-16 I was so frustrated and upset that I had developed them at all."
- Individual_Ad_7523
Two Volcanos
"The sweat and itch!"
"Also that they're like two volcanos, which isn't especially practical during summers or when you're a constantly hot temperatured person anyway."
- Queen-of-meme
"No matter what I try, the skin under my boobs never cools down!"
- Local_Masterpiece_
"Boob sweat is the bane of my existence when it's even a little bit hot outside - and sometimes even when it's not lol..."
- PleasuredMeatStick
"I hate the feeling of sweat on my boobs. I just put tissue between and underneath my boobs to hopefully absorb the sweat so it won’t start to itch and drip."
- LuckyBugHarley
Technological Advancements
"I STILL am not able to remove them after a long day. Why?!"
"Why can't I just set em aside for the night, all done. Why hasn't technology advanced to this possibility yet??"
- IAmNotLookingatYou
"Absolutely they would. The relief we would get ... oh my god it sounds divine."
"Maybe I wouldn’t be so b*tchy."
- Object_Prize
"I’d honestly probably only wear them for ren faire, and leave them at home the rest of the year."
- AbbyNormalKnits
Double Trouble
"The double standard of girls with small chests and big chests."
"If you have a big chest no matter what you wear or do it's sexual. But for girls with smaller chests they can get away with crop tops or v necks or even swim suits."
- BigBunsLittleBunbun
"Lol the bigger girls who spent their entire grade school years getting sent to the principal's office for breaking dress code will agree with you."
"Loose shirts will tent and billow up in the wind as you walk-- dress coded."
"Tight shirts that don't tent but cling to your chest-- dress coded."
"And don't even think about anything but a crew neckline, or you'll be dress coded again."
- cryptic-coyote
"Exactly!"
"I always got in trouble for wearing dresses in school, but skinny Minnie wearing something even worse gets by no problem just because she doesn't fill it out the way I do."
- APD2269
Expensive
"They're expensive."
"Bras are expensive and you need regular bras, sports bras, probably something special like a strapless or low back if you have a special occasion or something."
"And don't even get me started on women's healthcare ..."
- SailorSpoon11
"Stage 4 breast cancer patient here, and it costs me about an extra $5000/yr to stay alive if everything goes well."
- insertcaffeine
"I just stopped breastfeeding and none of my bras fit anymore."
"I’ve just been wearing sports bras every day because I don’t even know what cup size I am anymore and I don’t want to spend a fortune replacing all of my bras."
- kaytay3000
"Plus if you choose not to wear bras for any number of reasons, you’re treated as deviant or an acceptable target of inappropriate attentions."
- letsjumpintheocean
Getting Comfortable
"Laying on your stomach can be tricky."
- ChadweenaThundervag
"Laying on your back can be tricky as well."
"And on your side."
"Just laying in general with big boobs is a hassle."
- Skkaj225
"Am guy."
"However women in my life have found it difficult to get a decent back massage because of this. I've seen plenty of massage tables with head holes, but none with boob support..."
- DeluxeWafer
"Semi-suffocating yourself on the beach while trying to get some sun on your back is fun."
- Miikami
Either Or
"The fact that I look like a walking refrigerator if I wear a loose fitting top, as it billows shapelessly around my body in an odd fabric rectangle."
"But if I wear something form fitting, I look like a lady of the night and am treated as such."
- batchofbetterbutter
"OMG this !!"
"I feel like all my girlfriends around me have such a fashion sense and can wear things with such grace but I always look as you’ve described. Like either I look like a couch pillow or Jessica Rabbit."
"Sometimes I just want to cut them off honestly."
- octokisu
"Yeah I’ve been wanting a reduction since a was a teen because of the back pain and catcalling, and many people I know with a bigger chest feel the same way."
- didithedragon
"I had no idea women hated their boobs so much! It honestly is shining a light on an idea I have never thought of."
- Peter_the_pear
Attempted Murder
"They might try to kill me."
"Breast cancer runs in my family and I have to have my first mammogram this year at 36."
"My mom was negative for both BRCA genes but there are 6 others they’ve discovered since she had cancer that we haven’t been tested for."
"Insurance won’t cover me to test unless she tests positive for one."
- Outrageous-Proof4630
"Fun fun fun."
"My mom died from breast cancer at 46. I started getting mammograms at 34."
"Luckily, I took the BRCA test and was negative."
- lil_ho_on_da_prairie
It's Constant
"Constantly being sexualized."
"I’m the least sexual person but people assume I’m super sexual because of my body. And I hate it"
- Plus_Bison_7091
"Yup, I'm ace and I honestly just want them chopped off to be rid of the constant sexualization of my body."
"It makes me really uncomfortable."
- zapsquad
"My friend in elementary school had a condition where she went into puberty super early and had large breasts by 3rd grade."
"We would walk together to elementary school every morning and get cat called a lot, but we were too afraid to tell our parents because we thought they wouldn't let us walk together anymore."
"She would have teachers make comments about them."
"When we were older she talked about how insanely awful and alienating it made her feel growing up. Her younger sister had the same condition, but went on puberty blockers for it."
- gentlybeepingheart
Destroyed
"These pendulous bags of hell have destroyed my back."
"Even a decade after a reduction surgery, I remain in daily pain. And now as an added bonus they get to be misshapen, scarred horribly, and completely useless for raising a baby."
- Originalluff
"I didn’t realize how heavy they are until I got together with girl with big boobs and woooooow they are heavy!"
- I_love_pillows
"I got C cups in fifth grade and those f*ckers went all the way to G by senior year."
"My posture was/is awful and I've felt like an old woman since I was a teenager. I don't even want babies, so they're never actually gonna be useful either."
- Rozeline
See what I mean?
They're kind of awful once they hit a certain size, and that size is pretty much ANY size if you're in Florida.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.
There are humane ways to tell someone to go home after a... liaison.
How can one be so rude after being so intimate?
I'm not saying you have to snuggle and profess love, but damn, a quick... "thanks, I hope life is kind to you" goes a long way.
Redditor sumyungdood wanted to hear the tea about the times they had to tell a lover to take a hike. They asked:
"What is the worst way someones asked you to leave after sex?"
Tell me your worst. Mine our stories where I had find my clothes in the dark and sneak out naked.
Don't ask...
A Late Run
"Asked if he could drive my car to the gas station to buy cigarettes and when he came back he told me he left my keys in the car and it was running."
TopOcelot13
Beefed
"An old friend invited me over for her famous beef stew. I got there, we fool around, had sex, then right after she handed me a tupperware of the stew and said 'you got sex and stew, now please leave.' Still not sure if that's the worst way I was kicked out or the best."
TheRockMan31
"Most of the people here didn’t get stew. You did okay!"
livesarah
'is it that obvious'
"Went home with a girl from the bar. After we had sex, she said something like 'soooo... think you can get an Uber now? If not, I GUESS you can sleep on the couch for a few hours.' Here I was, sitting on some random girl's couch trying to find an Uber at 4 AM. Mercifully I did find one and when the guy picked me up he said 'so, your hookup kick you out?' I said 'is it that obvious' and he replied 'you weren't the first one I drove back to their car tonight and you probably won't be the last.'"
apocalypticradish
Yummy
"Go grab some Taco Bell. You can eat it on your way home. Honestly it was better than the sex. And I don't even like Taco Bell that much."
Nobody_Wins_13
I hate Taco Bell. And since reading this... I hate people.
Mrs. Robinson?
"She lit a cigarette, then looked at me for like 20 seconds, and said 'Well, bye.' I just got dressed and left. Never saw her again."
Rhalellan
And you are?
"While dozing off, he gently tapped my shoulder, and said: 'Maribel, you can’t stay here.'"
"My name is not Maribel."
tikkichik21
"See this is what happens when you don’t let people talk about Bruno."
Brendanlendan
Go
"He got off me and started looking at pictures of other women on Instagram, and commenting on how much more attractive they were than me and told me 'oh yeah you can go now.' We were best friends for like two years up until that moment."
Caramel_Cappucino
"I’m open minded but this is exactly why I often don’t trust male friendships. You could even be a lesbian and one moment of vulnerability they may take advantage of that. I know it’s unrelated but your experience made me upset and I’m sorry you had to go through that."
L8NiGHTFLiGHT
second time...
"He rolled over, grabbed his phone, and without even looking at me said 'find your clothes, you know where the door is' and just laid there on his phone ignoring me while I gathered my clothes and left. He tried texting me a few days later because he was drunk and horny so I told him 'you know where your hand is' and blocked him."
olivinemultichrome
Gross
"We were good friends for a few years before hooking up after a night of drinking."
"Halfway through sex he told me he can't actually do this because he wanted to get back with his ex and can't mess it up because she's the hottest girl he'll ever be with. He lived in the middle of nowhere and I couldn't leave until the morning so he made me sleep on the couch."
barontayto
Wow. Some people are truly disgusting. How do you treat other humans this way?
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.
Most couples are inseparable and enjoy doing everything together, thanks in part to shared mutual interests.
But on occasion, some people in relationships go off in pursuit of one-sided pleasures in secret for various reasons.
These can range from going out to a vegan restaurant when the other person is a carnivore to seeing a Netflix show that is too violent for a squeamish significant other.
Because not every significant other may not share the same passion, Redditors TheTinRam asked:
"What’s a guilty pleasure you hide from your significant other?"

These Redditors needed some "me time."
Dad Time
"Everytime I go on a late night grocery run (once or twice a month) because I work nights, and my wife forgot to grab whatever, I add a $0.70 Mexican soda to the cart. It is just for me. It is something my dad used to get me on especially long days when I was a kid 'helping' him on jobsites. It is my tiny reminder of him."
– thecountnotthesaint
Story For No One
"I write stories for years now, some of the times she thinks I'm working on the computer but I'm actually writing a story. There is nothing to hide but I just keep it to myself, none of my family members know I write stories. Till today I have written 56 stories (most of them are short)."
– SuvenPan
In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning
"Staying up late for peace and quiet."
– Blue_OG_46
Chatting For One
"I talk to myself all the time, I was actually wondering last night if it was a really weird thing to do lol"
– hottytoddy_sko
Naked And Sacred
"I will cruise the house butt naked and just do whatever the hell I want. About once a month. I won’t be able to this summer because the kids will be back in school, but come August, I’ll be naked and free again!"
– batchofbetterbutter
Some people need to get out of the house.
Self Therapy
"Sometimes I take the long way home and talk to myself in the car about my 'problems' - like Self Therapy. I put one earbud in so ppl think I could be on the phone."
"I get quite animated. It helps to get a stressful day out of my system before I get home and switch gears."
– Humble-Plankton2217
Solo Slice
"My husband has gluten sensitivity. If he eats regular pizza, his stomach hurts for a couple of days after."
"Well, I don't, so sometimes I say I'm going for a run, and I do run.... to the pizza store, eat a slice, and run back."
– sohumsahm
Catching Up With The Boys
"Covid has messed it up for a bit now. But every 3 or so months the boys and I all get up like we are going to work at our respective jobs but instead all call in sick and meet for breakfast, then go back to our one buddies place for the day to hangout. Around 4 or 5 one by one we all head home for our normal arrival time."
"It's literally the only way for us all to get together reliably. Most of us have known each other for the better part of 30 years now, going way back to junior kindergarten for some."
"Twice I have let her know my plan for the day and twice I have gotten phone calls to come home early for what ever not some emergency. So now we do it secretly."
– foh242
Some of the things people do behind their SO's backs is for endearing reasons.
Smooch Ploy
"I don’t know if this is a guilty pleasure necessarily but I pretend to be asleep when he comes home from work because he always kisses me on the forehead."
– str8outofabook
Catching Zzzs
"I love when she snores."
"She complains (only lightly) about my snoring all the time, and I always feel awful that I make it tricky for her to get a good night's sleep. When she's snoring, I know she's actually going to rest well, and it makes me happy."
– ricdesi
Scent Of A Man
"Smelling his clothes. Not creepily, like his boxers. But when he lets me borrow a shirt or a sweater I’ll put it on and just revel in the smell of him on his clothes. If I recall correctly, it definitely wasn’t like this when we first started dating. It’s been over two years now and I only remember doing this around the 7 month mark. He smells really, really good."
– he-whoeatsbugs
The Forever Admirer
"I have a whole album of 'unflattering' pictures of her. Not really something I hide, but they make me happy. She’s so silly yet so beautiful."
– Dewahll
They say that a couple that plays together, stays together.
That's all well and good. However, a significant other having some alone time should never be stigmatized.
My husband and I usually watch every TV show together, but I watch Netflix's Ozark by myself because I enjoy intense dramas, immensely.
It's not a secret. And he's glad I watch the shows that I want to watch on my own time–just like I encourage him to watch all those UFO documentaries that he's obsessed with, by himself.
No really, watch them without me.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.