Ship ahoy, or, Female guitarists of the world, unite!

Are all dreadnoughts equal? I spent a happy hour at Guitar Works in Evanston today, sizing guitars, and concluded that folk-sized is easy for me to play (not much bigger than my 3/4, but a longer neck scale), grand concert is manageable, and dreadnought is a little big. Then I came home, put my new guitar on, and said whoa. It just seems enormous. I'm terrible with eyeballing these things.

That being said, the crucial point with this dreadnought is that I can't yet seem to manage to look over the edge of it to see the face while I'm playing. The corollary is that my right arm feels like it's being twisted out of its socket. I suppose I'll adjust, but it raises yet another question: where does the guitar body sit? Over the breasts or under the breasts? Because when I'm sitting down, I would need to grow a few inches to get it under, but obviously if it's over, it sticks out further -- and I don't have an Audrey Hepburn swan neck to help me see.

I facebook-messaged my only female guitarist friend to ask. Her reply:

We female guitarists have to stick together. My sense is to put the guitar over the breasts. It may depend on the shape of the guitar and where it hits the chest, but I think I've always had my chest and body behind the guitars I've had. Maybe because it's a new guitar you have to get used to it and adjust your grips somewhat? I just looked at the new photo of the guitar on your blog--very nice! Yeah, I think when I've played guitars like that (my current Applause acoustic has a rounded back) I've always had my breasts behind the guitar.

This was decidedly not the answer I was expecting; a male friend's reply was that he slings his guitar very low, and that would be his solution. Which would mean I should just always play standing up.

Now, this could all very well be beginner growing pains, but it does also seem like a basic question of positioning, and one that, as I replied to my friend, "is kind of crucial, and something a man (i.e. 99% of guitar salespeople and luthiers) doesn't think about!"

ETA: I was trying to think of female rockers I've seen playing... mostly standing up, of course, and I think slinging under. But sitting down? The only thing I could think of is that scene in Forrest Gump, not my favorite sentimental waltz through American history, in which Jenny is playing guitar nude in a strip bar. It covered everything.