Bras

so in part the need for bras is because of clothes being so thinly woven and body-hugging. You wouldn't have felt you needed a bra to stop your nipples rubbing or poking through if you were wearing a linen shift and a lined woolen bodice.

I was wearing a bra at 36c or my boobs were killing me going up and down stairs after having my LO, I am now a 36 D (yes i have actually gotten bigger round the boobs and a lot less belly since having him!)

I think i wore a bra prior to pregnancy 34A just because it was the normal thing young women do, and of course the nipple thing and being very conscious of having absolutely nothing there!

I'm a 34A. I wear a bra for warmth, to prevent nipples rubbing on my clothes and for a bit of padding when wearing tight fitting clothes - otherwise I have the shape of an ironing board.

It's nice to go bra free on hot summer days though.

Also in the 'smaller than a D cup but wears bras' (small C before I was pregnant) camp, because as others have said, it would be uncomfortable otherwise. It's fine if you're just sitting around in the house etc but anything active and I want them held in place. I don't care what said bras look like, tbh I prefer any that don't show through my clothes so no big patterns, frilly bits etc.

Birdsofshoreandsea - if bras are intended to make every bosom look like Barbie's, then they have failed massively. I don't see hundreds of Barbie-busts around me whenever I go out - and my boobs have never looked like Barbie's.

As far as I am concerned, the bra is a practical garment to support boobs that need it. It can be sturdy and plain or sporty or pretty, practical or frivolous, but the bottom line is that a lot of women need something to support their boobs. It also seems to me that bras are designed firstly with women in mind - our needs and preferences and desires, and they are certainly not all designed to produce one, uniform shape of boob for the sake of men - I just don't see how anyone can look at the wide variety of boobs, bustlines and bras out there, and argue that.

quite Thistledew.

A corset CAN be a tool of oppression, very much so, if it is uncomfortable and restrictive and forces your body into an artificial shape.... as can a bra.

I would prefer to wear a bra as I find it more comfortable when doing my day to day stuff to me the bra is noy a synbol of repression rather one which allowsd women toi comfortable do what they need to do be that paid work or household work

Cogito - it is wrong to present corsets as tools of oppression that prevented women from doing anything other than embroidery. They were worn by all classes of women, including working women.

They don't stop you breathing, but encourage deeper diaphragm breathing rather than shallow chest breathing.

They were also probably a godsend for women who had to do hard physical labour such as laundry, scrubbing floors, and carrying heavy buckets of water up flights of stairs for bathing etc. Corsets probably saved thousands of women from backache.

I know several women who do historical reconstructions, who say that at the end of a day when they have been wearing their properly constructed, made to measure corset, they are far more comfortable than the days they don't wear it.

As to bras - I would not like to give mine up, as it means I can run for a bus or up stairs etc without my breasts being painful. Even walking briskly is only comfortable with a bra on. I am a D cup though.

I spent ooh, the best part of a decade not wearing one. Now I wear one. I have rather large breasts (and interestingly, the decade of not wearing one didn't particularly drag them down. Pregnancy, breastfeeding and age, now, those did the job very effectively).

I wear quite low-cut necklines as well.

but the only alternative to the bra is not hardcore 19th c corsetry.
The bra is not progressive in itself. The shift from that particular style of corset to the bra may have been progress but that is because what came directly before was relatively bad.

I find it more comfortable than not wearing a bra.

B-cup here.

Do I take it that the OP has mahoosive breasts and thinks that anything below a D-cup is tiny?

The bra should be treated by feminists as a progressive article. Pre-bras we were squeezed into vicious corsetry and masses of fabrics which rendered us useless for anything other than sitting quietly, doing embroidery and trying to breathe. Strait-jackets with a waist. It's no coincidence, I don't think, that women's rights finally started to take off once we abandoned the fussier fashions of the late 19thC and went for shorter, lighter, less restrictive clothing.... including mobility-enhancing bras!!

I'm a 34AA and never wore bras regularly until my 30s when my breasts started to sag really badly. Even when I was BF, I just wore one for the first few weeks to keep the breast pads in place. As soon as my supply settled down and I stopped spurting everywhere I ditched them again.

I still hate them and never wear one at home unless we have guests. I wear one when out to look 'normal' and so as not to embarrass my teenagers. If enough other women let things hang free, I would too - it's pure cowardice.

Running is definitely comfier with some support though.

ClothesofSand

Yes, that's true about going running, but I guess I mean running in a less organised sense, running around playing with DS, running for a bus, walking very briskly (as I tend to wherever I go).

I suppose it could be that if we never, ever wore bras our muscles would develop differently and these things may not be uncomfortable, I genuinely don't know. (similar to how our muscles in our feet are not the same as if we never wore shoes)

I'm only (normally) a C cup, but a fairly soft bra which just holds everything in place (not a push up/thickly padded bra) makes everything feel much more comfortable.

Otherwise there's a lot of uncomfy jiggling going on when I walk/run/cycle and I have really obvious nipples through even a few layers of clothes. I do prefer not to wear them when at home, but then I'm less worried about people seeing me and can lounge around in oversized hoodies and other comfy clothes.

Fork, people generally run in sports bras though don't they, which are more like a strechy crop top and don't look much like a normal bra at all. If it were all about comfort I'd wear a sports bra or crop top. In fact I've been wearing a balconette bra for the last 8 years.

I have big boobs, and so I have to wear a bra. I did go through a period of not wearing one when I was at university, in my late 20s, but I did get saggier during that time. Now I need to wear a bra because otherwise my norks would be brushing my knees (slight exaggeration), and also because it gives me a better shape in my clothing (and I am already sufficiently unhappy about my appearance, and don't want to be more unhappy because my bustline is round my waist).

So I wear a bra for my own comfort - and I choose pretty ones (when I can find them in my size) for my own pleasure. The fact that dh likes the pretty bras is an added benefit, in my book - it's not why I do it.

I just wish that more companies realised that women with big boobs and broad backs like pretty bras too - yes, we need more scaffolding, but it doesn't have to be ugly, does it? I once complained to M&S because the only bra they stocked in my size was nothing less than armour plating, beginning somewhere up underneath the chin, and going down well towards the waist. I was told there was 'No demand' for bigger bras!!

(Oh, and padded bras in early pregnancy are a godsend IMO, stop sore nipples from rubbing off of everything!)

Its about finding something which provides comfort prevents chaffing etc it also opens up a wider debate about form and function of clothing

I have bras that I wear for aesthetic reasons but the main reason (despite being a B/C cup) is that I find it uncomfortable without one. It's uncomfortable to run, jump etc. because they flop about and get a bit sore.

Surely an item of clothing that allows us to run more comfortably is a positive thing? (Although I accept that there is a focus on "lifting" "pushing up" etc. which is nothing to do with comfort and everything to do with cultural expectations of women's bodies).

I was forced to get a bra by my mother when I was 12 - loathed it at first, but have just got used to it over the years and would feel odd without it. I suppose it is about keeping the dangerous breasts under control rather than letting them jump freely. Good metaphor for women's sexuality.

It is amazingly hard to find plain cotton underwired bras, which are much the most functional - all the shops seem to be full of horrid lacy, synthetic, padded numbers

There isn't any evidence that wearing a bra stops your breasts from sagging. Bra companies are not allowed to advertise bras as stopping sagging because of this.

I didn't wear a bra until I started breastfeeding, and breastfed for a long time. I am nearly 40 so my breasts have just started to sag a little bit, but my nipples still face forward. I think the whole thing is probably luck/genetics.