![\"A](\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.badreputation.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/wonderbra-hello-boys1-300x194.jpg?resize=300%2C194\")
<\/a>Bras. I hate them. Where to begin my hatred? A little history,
perhaps. I do like a little historical context to flavour a problem. Makes
me feel like a proper academic. Except one who uses wikpedia entries a lot
– like this
one here.<\/a><\/p>\n
To summarise: basically there was nothing for quite a while (when literally people didn’t wear much at all), then there were togas (or for the ladies, stolas<\/a>) and people didn’t really care, then all of a sudden there were all kinds of things dedicated to “dealing with breasts”. There were bits of cloth in various arrangements with and without padding, corsets, bodices, and finally something that resembled the modern bra.<\/p>\n
Which was never burned, incidently<\/a>, except possibly in awful household fires. And we had the Madonna cone bra<\/a>, of course.<\/p>\n
Then came the Wonderbra with its rallying cry of Hello Boys<\/em><\/a>, and to be honest I was never 100% clear on
whether she was advertising her mammaries
to<\/em> boys, or addressing them
as<\/em> boys, and it all got all a bit confusing so I tried not to
think about it. Plus it arrived when I was 14, which is a Bad Time
for bosom-related upset.<\/p>\n
Skip forward a bit further and we get Shakira declaring<\/a>
in 2002 that it’s:<\/p>\n
Lucky that my breasts are small and humble
… which I’m still not really sure about, because,
again, we’re getting all obsessed over size. Small or big?
Which is better? (And why do we have to have better bodies
anyway?) <\/p>\n
My own ‘humble’ beginnings: for me, the bra was a
graduation from the pre-teen crop top and the childish vest into
the world of being a Real Woman. Periods were also involved in
this uncomfortable phase (and they are also rubbish and make
your breasts sore, but you do not have to go to the shop and pay
money for them). This was not a good start for the bra and I,
and it didn’t get any better.<\/p>\n
The portion of my adult life that I’ve spent around bras
has always involved the fickle inconsistency of measurements. As
an experiment, on my shopping trip I got measured in three
different shops and tried on more bloody bras than I have done
in my entire life. I am, for the record a 34, 36 or 32 A, B or
C. So that’s not really a good start. Furthermore, none of
these bras, in any of those official sizes,
actually<\/em> fit my chest. Some do better than others, but
there is no general indicator of agreed size.<\/p>\n
Let’s talk about what they look
like.\u00a0They’re mostly quite ‘girly’,
except where they’re meant to be ‘sexy’.
Ah, that old problem again. I can have a virgin bra or a
whore bra. Great. They contain a lot of extraneous stuff
like lace and bows and other frou-frou items that my bosom
really doesn’t need, so I spend a lot of time snipping
things off bras whilst hoping that the sheer volume of stuff
I’m lopping off isn’t in some way structurally
vital.<\/p>\n
And what about underwire, while we’re at it? No item
of clothing aimed at men, designed to sit on sensitive, soft
flesh, would include metal wire within a flimsy silk and
lace contraption, frequently destined to poke out and
puncture your poor, unsuspecting skin. Underwire, together
with its evil cousin Padding, is the great illusionist of
the bra world. This is not a world in which the bra is only
there to clothe, support or protect you. No, it is not a
knight in shining armour: the bra is a churl and a pimp. It
exists to
make your tits look nice<\/em>. And by “nice”
I mean bigger and with cleavage. As opposed to, say, the
way they actually look.<\/p>\n
Being realistic, since my breasts are not large: I
don’t
have<\/em> a cleavage without serious amounts of
bra-mirage work, without which any
“revealing” top tends to reveal a lot
of… sternum. It’s nice sternum, but
it’s not the look I’m
“supposed” to have.\u00a0 And even when
I’m wearing the damn thing, it doesn’t
fit. The cups leave gaps where my breasts are not. The
straps are too tight or too loose, leaving red marks
in my ribs and creating weird bumps of flesh around
the sides or under my arms that an anxious person
might negatively label “fat”. In the panic
room of the changing cubicle, it’s easy to get
worried. Especially when one’s chest appears to
be both “fat” and “small” at
the same time.<\/p>\n
Simply put, bras aren’t designed for my body
shape. The fact that the bra is a quintessentially
“feminine” object makes me feel
unfeminine. Sometimes I’m okay with that.
Sometimes I’m not. And all of this creates the
sneaking suspicion that my own breasts are not
socially adequate by themselves. It isn’t nice
to feel like your body is inadequate. And for the
most part nowadays, I don’t. But I used to. A
lot. Especially as an unhappy teenager. Various
problems with food ensued. It was not a good time,
and it is a not good time that many women (and men)
go through.<\/p>\n
But bras are not solely the enemy of
“small” women. Curvy ladies also loathe
bras, and perhaps with even more reason. For them,
the bra is often essential. The larger the bra
required, the more expensive it is. Also – so
I’m told – the more complicated the
re-arranging of weight around the body, creating
more lines of soreness across the shoulders and an
additional aesthetic difficulty of ‘too
much’ cleavage at inappropriate times.<\/p>\n
Seriously, fuck bras.<\/p>\n
But what to do about it all?<\/strong><\/p>\n
So I’ve bought
loads. <\/p>\n
And they’re
great.<\/p>\n
\nSo you
don’t confuse them with mountains\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\n