BRYONY GORDON: Nothing sorts the men from the boys like a power cleavage

All hail Lauren Sanchez, the high priestess of the power cleavage.

There she was, centre stage at Donald Trump’s inauguration, when some of the world’s most influential men turned to dribbling wrecks at the sight of an inch of bosom peeking out from her Alexander McQueen suit.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, ogled Jeff Bezos’s fiancée like a boozed-up freshman on spring break.

Ivanka Trump’s husband Jared Kushner, who we must assume has seen some things given he was once charged with brokering peace in the Middle East, stared like a man whose father-in-law wasn’t about to be sworn in as President.

And Jeff Bezos? Well, he looked exactly like the kind of guy who is said to have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds having a bare-breasted goddess immortalised in polished wood on the prow of his 416 ft yacht.

As the three of them stood there gawping at Sanchez’s chest – fully aware that the eyes of the globe would be on them – I wondered: could there be a more damning indictment of the people heading up the Free World in the year 2025?

At a time when, thanks to the broligarchy (the tech bros Trump seems intent on making our overlords), you’re never more than one click away from a nipple, a bare bottom, or a Bonnie Blue figure trying to break the record for how many people they can have sex with, it seemed rather strange that they should be getting so het up over the merest glimpse of brassiere underneath Sanchez’s suit.

“The attention should NOT be on Lauren Sanchez’s breasts,” said one furious YouTuber, duly directing the attention of her millions of followers to Lauren Sanchez’s breasts.

But maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised.

Because as someone in possession of my own power cleavage, I know only too well the mesmerising effects these lumps of flesh on your chest can have on grown men who really should know better.

Unlike Sanchez’s, my J cups sprung forth from my chest unbidden, coming to define my early adulthood in a way I wasn’t entirely grateful for.

While female friends expressed envy at my large bosom, I found their effects on people – the male population in particular – mortifying.

Even wearing a modestly cut top, men would talk to my chest instead of my face, seemingly oblivious to how rude they were being.

Indeed, it was me who was made to feel shame for having big boobs in the first place, as if I was at fault for simply getting dressed in the morning, rather than binding my breasts down and putting on a hijab.

In sixth form, a teacher gave me detention because I’d had the temerity to wear a top that wasn’t a polo neck.

“Maybe you should think about a breast reduction?” she said, as if butchering my body was the logical response to having a larger-than-average pair of mammary glands.

In my 20s, my boobs left me self-conscious, embarrassed, and feeling over-sexualised.

I remember walking down a street with a male friend, who was genuinely shocked by the way other men stared at me. ‘How do you put up with it?” he asked, as if being a woman in the Noughties wasn’t one long exercise in shrugging off unwanted behaviour of the opposite sex.

By my late 20s, when I was so used to men staring at my boobs I barely noticed it any more, I learned my nickname at work was “Breasts”.

I laughed it off, because what else was I supposed to do? But in doing so I felt almost complicit in the derogatory moniker people had given me behind my ( aching) back.

As I got older, and my figure became more Vicar of Dibley than Vargas pin-up girl, I noticed that women, too, had things to say about my chest.

They offered unsolicited advice about buying a better-fitting bra, as if a woman bearing a tape measure in an M&S changing room would be able to tame my J cups into submission, turning me back into a buxom sex bomb.

It’s as if the comedic proportions of my boobs give people the right to pass comment.

Every time a smaller-breasted woman sends me a patronising message on Instagram suggesting I buy a “more supportive” sports bra (often from a brand that doesn’t actually go up to my size) I want to scream “Get a life – and stop staring at my boobs!”

I can’t help the bounciness of my breasts when I’m running, any more than I can the gait of my feet, or the habit I have of flailing my arms around in the air like a Tyrannosaurus rex on a treadmill.

At the same time, I like to think I’ve grown into my power cleavage.

I still don’t love it, but it’s become a handy way of separating out the men from the boys.

Because by displaying even the merest hint of cleavage, you can tell quite easily who you need to watch out for in the world: people like Mark Zuckerberg, who immediately turn into the puerile, adolescent nerds they are at heart – the ones who may as well be sitting there in the Capitol chanting “Boobs!” over and over again while making a “Honk! Honk!” gesture with their hands.

So, strange as it may seem, I’m grateful for Lauren Sanchez and her power cleavage.

Without saying a single word, she’s shown the world the pathetic reality of Donald Trump’s new broligarchy.