been musing, about breasts and underwear.

[NeverKnowinglyUnderstood]

why do we wear bra's?
is there genuine personal benefit for a woman's welbeing to have them strapped in?
I was thinking about the lesser clothes peoples of the world and they seem to be totally at ease with breastshape and shape change over the life of a woman.]

Now, I have huge boobs, I strap them down so I don't knock out passing motorists when walkign down the street. Hwoever it is more comfortable for me to not be strapped in. It is only for other people that I wear one.

Looking young and pert would be great if I was young and pert but wouldn't that just genuinely look wierd on an 80 year old?

don't really know where I am going with this, just musing if anyone wants to chip in.

I find it uncomfortable not wearing a bra, as my rather saggy ones rub on my chest and get sweaty underneath and I end up with sore skin.

I put deoderant under my boobs!

i always thought it was support for larger breasts to prevent back pain/hunching over?

i'm very small breasted and unless wearing just a t-shirt no-one can tell if i'm bra'd or not. i feel more comfortable without a bra on but tbh i haven't been measured in 4 years (before i had ds2) so i'm probably wearing the wrong size.

I'm an average sort of size but I feel more comfortable with a bra, though I don't use underwired ones.

Breast tissue has no muscle in it and to me it is not a feminist issue to prefer to keep my boobs at chest level as I get older rather than down to my waist - the likely effect of going braless unless you have small breasts

But Grimbletart - ask yourself why you would prefer them to be up rather than down. I believe it is because we are a culture that values youth over experience and women, in particular, are not supposed to age and should always be sexually attractive.

If you want your boobs pert it is because you think that looks better and you think it looks better because that is what you've been conditioned to think (as have we all), so really, it is a feminist issue.

I did read on here a while back about a study that found when women stopped wearing a bra for a month they actually had reduced back pain, and a large precent went on to continue bralessness.
I suppose it's got something to do with the fact that we are designed to be able to support them without assistance and bras distribute the weight differently.
I personally have worn a bra since I first developed breasts and would feel uncomfortable not wearing one, especially as I am breastfeeding DD and my breasts are much heavier and lower than they have been before pregnancy.
I do think there's a strong argument that the social pressure to wear bras is anti feminist, especially as it's telling us it's unnaceptable for our breasts to be allowed to sit naturally, but in real life, I think it would take a lot of guts to go braless and while there's still women being routinely maimed, raped and degraded focusing on western underwear conventions seems a little pointless. When I see an end to all sexual violence against women I might start an anti bra campaign!

I would say that humans are designed to go braless-but I would also say that most humans today are full hormones from the food they eat and also quite a lot heavier Than we are designed to be and so have larger breast that we weren't designed to support.

I think this is a feminist issue. Of course as others have said we are fed the message that breasts should be pert or at least non droopy and bras mimic this affect when we are tool old or our breasts are too big, to have this naturally.

And although rare, there are women with big breasts in the west who don't wear bras and walk around with very droopy breasts. Yes most of us wouldn't have the courage to do that, but some do.

Lifeisweet: where did I mention the word "pert"? I merely said I preferred them at chest level where they started off. I am simply not keen at having to tuck my boobs in my waistband because I have reached 60 or 70 etc. A lot of things are better not left to nature - whether it's letting our teeth rot as we get old or suffering when we can take painkillers. Now't to do with conditioning. It's taking advantage of the aids now available to us.

I do go braless sometimes actually although I don't find it as comfortable and that's because I don't give a damn what society thinks about bras or where my boobs should be. When I was a young girl in the 1950s society deemed that pretty much the only jobs suitable for me as a female were basically secretarial, teaching and nursing and I chose a job where I was surrounded by men because I didn't give a damn what society said.

Yes, we are all conditioned to a degree but just because a particular choice happens to coincide with what the spirit of the age is does not mean that it was a conditioned choice.

As a footnote: it was the "thing" in true 1960s when Twiggy and stick thin was fashionable if you recall to go braless. I still wore a bra then.

No you didn't mention pert, but the OP did.
Also the fashion with Twiggy was to be stick thin and not really have breasts - hence no bra.

I do think though tbh droopy breasts and avoiding them is cosmetic. Avoiding bad teeth is a medical issue

And nobody is saying that you can't be feminist in lots of practical ways, but still do things that are about societal pressures rather tahn feminism.

OK Eats I understand societal pressures. I got married for example. Perhaps that was a societal pressure as people hardly ever lived together in the 60s. I like to think it was because DH and I loved each other - must have as we are still putting up with each other 46 years later - but maybe we were "conditioned".

However, in general I have made it my life's work to stick two fingers up to conditioning. Examples: I refused to say 'obey' at a time when nobody, but nobody, said the new version; I went and worked in war zones when it was vanishingly rare for women to do that; I went into pubs alone when it was 'shocking'. I drank pints at a time when 'ladies' were supposed to sit prettily and sup Babycham or, if very daring, a vodka and lime. Shock horror, I went 'dutch' with my boyfriend and bought male friends drinks (unheard of then). I told my bank in 1965 to stick their mortgage where the sun doesn't shine because they wanted a male guarantor and trawled round every flipping bank in town to ask if they wanted my (quite large) account but they could only have it without a male guarantor for my mortgage (and got it); I worked full time when I had children when it was almost unthought of (no maternity leave then). When forms came in with 'head of household' on them I scratched it out and wrote bollox across them (bit childish that). My first blow for feminism was in 1948 at the age of 5 when I argued with the silly (female) teacher who said "will the boys please move the benches" as if girls were helpless weeds; any boyfriend who tried to boss me about or treated me as less than equal found his arse kicked two the kerb (metaphorically). Oh God, I could bore for England on this and that was just a start

However I wear a bra (shock horror) because a) I find it comfortable and b) I prefer my boobs tethered to my chest and not free floating round my waist.

And it has fuck all to do with conditioning because, as I said, I have spent my life putting two fingers up to it.

You know sometimes women do what do because they actually want to. If everything really is down to conditioning then we all might as well bring out the tin foil hats.

And breathe........

"two the kerb?" "to" idiot me!

I understand what you are saying, but tbh I think everyone is so conditioned - men and women - that it is very hard to work out what we actually want to do and what is socialisation or conditioning.

I find it hurts my back less (I have chronic upper back pain) plus going braless feels hugely uncomfortable when going up and down stairs!

My boobs would be most uncomfortable without a bra, particularly in the ten days before a period. Also I don't want them catching in my buckle when I fasten my jeans belt! I also want to run for the bus without getting two black eyes.

I would feel rather "exposed" without a bra on tbh. And I work in a school and I think the parents may object....

Also, it's not often I run for a bus these days but you never know when the situation may arise....

It's just the stairs for me. I end up running up and down them a lot, and always end up grasping the boobs firmly as I find it uncomfortable having them bouncing about. Otherwise, I don't care. It's the bouncing I can't be doing with, and I'm fairly active. It's either a bra, a bind, or chop them off.

I wear a bra all the time - 24 hours a day. It's a sensory issue for me; I have large breasts and have little-to-no sensation in the lower part of them, so the feeling of them resting on my ribcage/stomach makes me feel really uncomfortable. Seriously - I can pinch and draw blood and not feel a thing, it's weird.

I've no idea if this is common/normal. It doesn't really bother me as long as I have bra on.

interesting responses, most of them things that have rumbled through my mind.

I will continue to tether my breasts for the foreseeable future, but I totally agree that having your teeth maintained (not whitened nor straightened etc) is a medical benefit.

I do wonder if I would feel free'er (how do you spell that!!) to go without a bra if I was an a or b cup instead of a g?

The only thing to consider in the 'naturally we wouldn't wear bras' line is that naturally we wouldn't be wearing clothes either.

I've got very small breasts (AA cup) and never wear a 'proper bra', but I often (say 50% of the time) wear a stretchy crop top under my clothes just because it is softer & pleasanter against the skin.

Funnily enough I was having this discussion with a non-underwear wearing friend a couple of days ago and she reckons your nipples toughen up if you never wear a bra, but I don't feel inspired to experiment.

On the same note, and thinking of my non-knicker-wearing friends, why do we not find knickers a Bad Thing? Loose skirts and no knicks is definitely better from the pov of thrush, cystitis etc etc. (Though personally I prefer stout trousers for work at least, again from a comfort/safety viewpoint.)

OK one final point. Other posters after me have spoken about the discomfort of large breasts untethered.

So, if you wear a bra because your breasts are uncomfortable and the less tethered and lower they hang the more uncomfortable they are (and let's face it, if they are really big then the weight of them is quite likely to give you backache) are those who talk of societal pressures, conditioning and cosmetic results really not willing to see that the bra has health benefits just in the way that maintaining your teeth has? Bad teeth or over heavy dangling boobs are both causes of discomfort and possible ill health.

I am a right-on feminist when it comes to all sorts of things such as rape, abortion, bodily autonomy, equal pay, equal rights blah, blah but sometimes we can concentrate so much on seeing conditioning, patriarchy, societal pressures in every little thing that we totally overlook that there are things we do simply because they are right for us not because we want to look younger, perter or prettier.

Sometimes things are what they are. Let's not forget Occam's razor folks.

It is hard to extricate the issues here from the modern issue that huge numbers of women are pretty fat these days in a way they never were.

True that many women feel more comfortable with a bra on. But then, many women don't. Could wearing a bra be optional, without any negative things being said about the non-wearers? Because in the patriarchy-ruled world people are apt to be unpleasant if a woman has visibly unconstrained breasts.