Monday, July 24th, 2006

Bras

A few of the kids in my neighborhood are hitting puberty, and it’s interesting to watch the all the parents come face to face with the ancient, awkward questions of sexuality and societal gender roles.

And these questions are not easy to answer. There just may not be any answers at all. Heck, most of them are so ingrained through habit that we don’t realize they are questions at all. And now we get to deal with all these questions from our daughters. I’ll be thinking about some of the questions over the next few posts.

1) When can I start wearing a bra?

The answer to this one seems pretty obvious. I have never met a woman who enjoys wearing bras; even those whose breasts are large enough to cause them discomfort consider the bra the lesser of two evils. So it’s easy to tell our girls "get away without wearing a bra as long and as often as you can" or "don’t wear a bra until you have to."

Until you have to? When is that, exactly? Why do women "have to" wear bras? I’ve been at a loss to explain this to my daughter ever since she asked me why, if I’m always complaining about them, I continue to strap the damn double-barreled slingshots over my breasts day after day after day, bitching and moaning the whole time. All I can say is "Because I’m supposed to".

Why is that? Because some people hundreds of years ago decided that sex is evil, and thinking about sex is evil, and since women’s bodies "make" men think about sex, women’s bodies are evil? And because of this, women have to hide their breasts so they are not "indecent" or "obscene"? How is that my problem? And why on earth should I teach my daughter that her body is evil, indecent, or obscene?

Because males will leer at me if I don’t wear a bra? Again, how is that my problem? Won’t males who are leering-inclined just find some other reason to leer? How is it fair to make me responsible for someone else’s behavior, someone I’ve never met and over whom I have absolutely no control? It’s ridiculous, legally, morally, and ethically. (Then there’s the whole "what’s wrong with leering" issue, but that’s a different discussion.)

I’m afraid people will be bothered if I don’t? Who are these people? Certainly not my family, friends, or neighbors–they have all gotten used to me going braless by now. My boss, my co-workers? I don’t know, maybe. But wouldn’t them obsessing about my breasts kind of fall under the sexual harassment umbrella?

People will tease me? I was teased throughout grade school and high school for all sorts of reasons. Honestly, I would have preferred to be teased for not wearing a bra. In the same way leering-inclined males will always find a reason to leer, teasing-inclined kids will always find a reason tease. You have to learn to tell them to fuck off and leave you alone.

Because my breasts will "hang down to my knees" if I don’t? Have you ever seen a woman with breasts down to her knees, I mean, outside of the media’s comic portrays of old, unattractive women? Or is it that we are just trained to fear our own aging so much that the natural settling of women’s breasts is terrifying to us? Is that the reason that the "push-up" bra is so popular–not that they make your breasts look bigger, but that they move your breasts up your chest, back to the height they started out at when you were a teenager? And besides, from everything I’ve read, weightlifting and strengthening you pectoral muscles will do much more to keep you breasts above the waist than any bra.

So what’s the answer then? How do you know when you "have to" wear a bra? So far, my husband’s response to the question is probably the best: wear a bra when your breasts are uncomfortable without one.

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