“I was the first woman to burn my bra . . . it took the fire department four days to put it out.” ~ Dolly Parton~

Like most women in civilized cultures, I began with a training bra.  Now, there are training pants and training wheels , which train you to go on with your life without them.  There are training camps, which train you to pitch faster, kick harder, or twist an arm in a hammerlock.  But a training bra doesn’t make you more independent or stronger.  Instead it trains you to endure the ever increasing discomfort that will burden your future.  A training bra is somewhat akin to those graduated plugs those ladies in National Geographic insert to stretch huge holes in their earlobes.  A training bra is reminiscent of Chinese foot binding, only less humane.

Perhaps a gentleman reading this essay is conjuring images of lacy bras with straps as fine as fishing line.  Or perhaps a Victoria Secret style that is designed to expose more flesh than cover it.  Maybe he’s envisioning the nifty turquoise sports bra Jillian Michaels wore in a recent episode of The Biggest Loser.  He is quite certainly imagining a garment designed to achieve a cunning décolletage, and he is quite certainly not envisioning Mamie Eisenhower’s lingerie.  Or Aunt Bea’s. Or mine.

In that large part of the male cerebrum devoted to tatas and associated images, synapses do not fire away conjuring fantasies about bras like the ones I wear, which can only be called brassieres.  Brassieres are, in fact, the antidote for lust, invoking memories of Sunday school teachers with mustaches.  A brassiere is not a laid-back, let’s-be-friends collaboration with gravity.  No, its design is an earnest challenge to Newton’s laws.

There is no training bra on the market that could prepare a girl to strap herself into a brassiere, a serious construction of plain cotton, shoulder pads, thick bands of spandex, and about as much metal as in my toaster oven.  The size of my bra corresponds to a number that a typical child doesn’t learn until second grade.  When I was thirteen, proud and horrified by my swelling breast buds, I never dreamed that someday I would comb the Macy’s racks for a brassiere designed to “minimize my silhouette” or provide “eighteen hours” of comfort to suspend pendulous breasts up and free of the waistline.  Or that my daughter, who was fitted with a sweet little bralette at McAlpins in fourth grade, would consult with Oprah’s Bra Whisperer in Manhattan two decades later in pursuit of a comfortable brassiere.

I am not sure when I began to detest my chest.  All females in our culture realize quite early in life that a bust can inspire lust.  In high school I had youthfully buoyant breasts that were easily supported by simple cotton numbers I bought at Woolworth’s in Brentwood Plaza. I loved those sweet bras and how they coaxed my breasts into a pointy shelf.  I studied my reflection in store windows and made believe I was Patty Duke.  I filled out my poor boy sweaters quite nicely, thank you very much, and I quite fancied my breasts then.

So did Al, a nerdy college virgin with red hair; Hank, a construction worker with an orange Corvette; Rick, my now-husband, who could pen a biography of my boobs.  My breasts and I missed movies and steamed up windshields in the back row of drive in theaters.  I used my chest to my advantage when auditioning for parts in plays, getting a date for prom, and improving my grade in algebra.

Imagine this: It is 1969. I am wearing this vest over a black see-through blouse and a black push-up bra. Rick said I can never, ever throw this vest away.

In college, I was developing a rack, but the rack was closer to the roof than the trunk then.  I was wearing low slung bell bottoms at that time, topped off with blouses that were low or tight or transparent.  Back then my husband loved the black see-through number I wore over a black push-up bra.  The fringed suede vest completed the ensemble.  I knew guys noticed my chest, though I pretended I was oblivious to their attention.  At that point in my life, I  liked being objectified and that my brains were quite beside the point.  I sent a Polaroid picture of my torso dressed up in a fetching black undergarment to my fiance at Ft. Dix, and I didn’t mind at all that he shared it with his fellow privates who were trying not to think about Vietnam.

When I nursed my babies, I wore practical bras with flaps, and I was sad when it was time to give them up. I was awed by a different power of my breasts when I nursed babies.  I was amazed that my swollen body could do this vital thing, that my body was empowered to nourish another human being.  How strange that I hid the whole lactation operation under smocked blouses and blankets, my “hooter hiders.”

After my babies were done with my breasts, I was left with these great sacks of empty flesh, which looked very much like the Playtex Nurser which collapses as the baby sucks on the bottle.  It wasn’t long before I was shopping for underwire bras. Who thought it was a good idea to put metal in undergarments?  Most women de-bra the minute they come home for the day, expelling sighs of relief at a level you usually associate with generals in situation rooms averting nuclear attacks.  Curious that you don’t see metal wires in jock straps to lift sagging boy bits.

For your edification, I will pause now in my discourse to share the history of the underwire bra.  It was invented early in the twentieth century, but Rosie the Riveter had to do without when all metal was needed to be used for the war effort.  After the war, production of the underwire bra flourished.  So, we were freed by the Fuhrer only to be caged by our underwear.

Today my bosoms are heavy and they sweat and they challenge the wherewithal of my bra (s)traps.  Only my yearly mammogram can give me the same measure of lift I enjoyed when I was 16.  If I go without a bra for a few hours, the booby flesh rubs up against the tummy flesh, and a yeast infection flares up.

I have to dress my bosoms with stretch fabric because they strain against buttons, and I cover them with ponchos and capes.  In pictures it’s what you see first. There is nothing sexual about them, no more sexy than a wart on your finger or a mole on your chin.  There is nothing useful about them.  They can’t tune up a car or take out the garbage.  They’re just appendages to lift, conceal, and contain, and for this I am grateful for foundation garments.

One day, leading with my breasts, I got stuck momentarily in a revolving door.  Two other buxom women, probably librarians or nuns, heavy with empathy, petted and fawned over me.  Then I noticed a clutch of young women tittering and pointing. Those  bullies should have  paused to express silent gratitude for their 34 Bs instead of making fun of me.   Nothing will prevent them from growing up to be archers or tightrope walkers or Riverdance cloggers.  Best of all, they can probably live all their lives without bra (s)traps.

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