Dear Bra(s),
Which one of you am I addressing? Frankly
it’s hard to say.
The whole lingering slew of you Training Bras?
Just throw yourselves away already. You haunt from an awkward past, the “training
stage” of a pre-teen’s life. By the way,
training for what? Certainly not the marathon of sexual encounters I wasn’t
having at a whopping 14 years old. Training my breasts to develop into a
perfect commercialized shape? More likely. Training me to tolerate a lifetime
of comfortless restriction? Seems right.
Lacey Lu, you’re sexy and black, but also
itchy and bitchy. You unflatter me with your too-tight torturous clips which
gnaw at my chubby ribs.
But you, Mom Bra, you are the worst. At the opposite
end of the feminine spectrum, you don’t even attempt to flatter cleavage. Strictly
utilitarian, slightly discolored to a sweat-tinted off-white, and duct taped underwire
to maintain impossible structural integrity - just sad. Grow a bow, will you?
Did I once think that your $40 superfluous
selves were a modern woman’s necessity? Yes. The second drawer down in my wardrobe contains
the evidence.
So I have to excuse myself when occasionally
rising to the social expectation. It must have been a lack of blood flow to my brain.
You actually confound men, who subconsciously – if not consciously – appreciate your general purpose, even
when they are crippled by your kung fu grip at the most inopportune times.
Maybe someday I’ll stumble upon a clothing
item that necessitates you, like a wife beater, or another bra that’s too big
which requires a second bra underneath. That could be applicable to next year’s
Halloween costume. Yes, Halloween may be the next time I even take you out of
my drawer to make my Workout Barbie costume more authentic.
Since freshman year when I nixed the daily
ceremonious strapping of my breasts, quit buying new makeup, wrapped a small
braided piece of my hair with colored embroidery floss and tarnished my lower
lip with a tattoo simply stating “BURGER” in Helvetica font, my mother has
urged me to stop “acting out” and to just “get over this phase already”.
But I’ve realized that not all (real) boobies
are perfectly round, frontal orbs. Hello—100 percent of the world has nipples.
Not to mention that other percentage that has 3+ nipples, including Marky Mark,
man-babe extraordinaire. And I don’t think he even owned a shirt during the
‘90s.
To clarify, I’m not a bra burner, at least in
the old feminist sense. I’ve never been concerned with function-over-fashion. I
just don’t know that this should be every woman’s bleak respective future,
engrained practically since birth.
What do I have to cover, to contain, or even
to reveal?
A 15 year-long study in France found that no
woman actually benefits from wearing bras. Quite the contrary. Women who
functioned on a daily basis without had increased circulation and stronger
muscles which directly correlated to perky breasts.
Conducted on ladies between the ages of 18
and 35, the ladies feeling the full effect of gravity even admitted to running
being a comfortable activity.
It stated that if you’ve been wearing a bra for
“too long” – which was of ambiguous length or age – it might be too late to
save twins. I assume this meant that they may droop a bit lower than before. But
it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s too late to claim the comfort, posture or breathability
of being braless.
Nobody is at a loss for a good full breath of
air.
Needless to say, nothing has given me a
legitimate reason in the past years to wear one consistently. Not even my mother
can convince me, who is very persuasive, which I’m convinced is due to the fact
that we share 23 chromosomes.
And up until recently, the same bra.
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