Just saw yet another ad for a bra that is designed to Minimize and Support. It has sleek smoothing side panels and industrial underwiring, with just a hint of rebar, and the model looks quite adequately contained in it, but I’m looking for something with flying buttresses and a block-and-tackle, here. Sleek and smooth is all well and good but I just want to get everything back in the barn and the door rolled shut.
It’s not that I’m huge. But I’m not small. Containment has always been an issue, but now that my basic personal infrastructure has begun to break down, we have a situation. The pudding no longer sets up. The soufflé has lost its loft and the batter is overflowing in the pan.
To complicate matters, the leftmost contents of my bra are considerably more voluminous than the rightmost. I’m not sure why I’m not walking in circles all the time. It’s not even subtle, and the only reason no one notices is no one expects it. Most people’s brains edit out the discrepancy. (Any of you now moved to go back through all the photographs of me on this blog and examine more closely, have yourself a good ole time, and maybe drop a little something in the bucket for the orphans on your way out.) At any rate, a standard bra has never been able to resolve the disparity. There’s always going to be either sinkholes or spillage.
Basically, I wear a bra in order to keep everything from lighting out for the territories, especially on the left. On the right I just need a little slap and a “Hey now, Bessie, hey now,” and on the left it’s full-on border collies and Hee-yaw and git in the corral.
I used to be perky. That was sometime in about 1965, late autumn, I think. It’s an odd thing to watch this stuff happening on you. I distinctly recall that at first there was the intimation of a sturdy little disc. A lens of promise, as it were, and you could feel the edges on it like it was an actual implant. Then things rounded out. I do remember being perky because it coincided with the last time my dad barged into my bedroom without knocking. What an awful thing to happen in a family in which private stuff is never said out loud and one is furthermore convinced she’s disappointing the folks by growing up. Maybe it wasn’t so, but I was pretty invested in my role as the sunny last child that Kept Them Young, and adolescence takes a pretty hard kick at that. At the sunniness, too.
You hardly ever see anybody perky anymore. I don’t know what happened to today’s young women, but they’re busty as the dickens. I used to be considered on the substantial side, but I’d be dead-average these days. I’ve heard this has happened because the kids are raised on dairy products from cows that have been artificially hormone-boosted, which has to suck for the cow, who has a hard enough job shoveling in pasture and throwing up in her mouth all day long without having to deal with stretch marks and irritability.
Anyway, inasmuch as I have two sizes of Secondary Sexual Characteristics to compare, I do know which I’d prefer. When I was younger, I’d have preferred to match the bigger one for the Yoo-hoo, I’m Over Here factor. Now I’d match the smaller one, which has the good grace to not get wedged in my armpit. As it is, when I roll over in bed, things just keep rolling over. It’s not restful.
If my underwear is going to support me, I hope it’s planning to send money.
All illustrations from Trousering Your Weasel, available at a sidebar very near you.
I have found that going to an actual lingerie shop (not the lingerie department of Macy's), being measured, and -yes- paying a bit more for a good bra makes a big difference. Not only in how I look in my clothes, but in my posture as well.
I, too, have a "size discrepancy" — everyone does, to a greater or lesser degree. I think that the usual remedy is to buy for the larger breast and if there is a visible difference in the other bra cup (i.e. — it wrinkles up) to insert a "cutlet" into that cup. It would be nice if it were like shoes — you could buy two pair and use the ones that fit. Of course with bras, that would entail deconstructing and sewing, which makes my eyes glaze over; the mere sight of a needle and thread inspires ennui.
"A cutlet!"
That's what they call it. But don't try using an actual chicken cutlet, especially if you are around dogs.
Where??? I find it hard to get a proper fit bra for myself!
I've been using no-underwire Bali jobs for a few years now. I wouldn't call it a proper fit necessarily but at least I never want to set it on fire.
Nothing like a laugh in them morning to get ones day started out right. It is so funny because it is so true. Bahhahahahaahaha
My pleasure.
As a casual observer of such things I can say that I actually know some men who could benefit from such engineering, but can't relate in a knowing way. All I can say is that I support your support and if anyone needs a hand or two with such support I am more than willing to be supportive. And thanks for the insight!
Why, Mistah Jono, I do declare.
Well having been flat as a pankcake growing up and now a little more endowed but saggy…I missed the whole boat on perky thing.
Basically, they're a ridiculous accoutrement all around.
I always thought cows gave milk because, well, they're cows. That's what they do. Turns out, no, they have to give birth all the time to keep the milk production going.
My friend's cow, Charlotte, was visited by the artificial inseminator man. He put on a long glove, reached his entire arm into her along with a rubber tube connected to a vial, and delivered the goods. She never even turned her head to see what was going on.
I just saw a video of rhinoceroses going at it. He had plenty to deliver and a lot to deliver it with, and she just kept strolling forward eating grass.
Such a timely post. I too am in the same boat. My perfect perky moment was a summer night in 1976 at the Marc Anthony in Ashland. I digress… I decided to go cheap and find some simple cotton sports bras at BiMart but to fence in so to speak. But the biggest was not big enough. To settle for corrals instead of definition because you are a tad more portly than you once were is ok for now… and they were on sale… which lets my mind wander to underwear that really fits instead of being a little tight is wonderful. Of course the plan is to tackle the reason for the tightness…………… and so the story goes…..
Or to block and tackle the reason. Right?
Have you ever submitted cartoons to the New Yorker?
Nope. I've sure as hell submitted essays though, to Shouts and Murmurs, but they have failed to be impressed thus far.
Shame on them, your essays would sell a heck of a lot more papers.
Ha! Thanks! New Yorker is doing just fine without me.
I used to love my girls. Never really perky, but not in my way. Forward to menopause when they decided to bulk up a bit. Had to buy a bra. Then the post menopausal mammaries set in. I never questioned Angelina’s decision to lop.
I'm not going for major surgery unless it's medically advisable, but then it's Off They Go.
I love that second illustration! The little girl's eyes say it all! (Is that little girl you?)
Let me just say that although I love gravity for keeping me on the earth, I hate it for other reasons 🙂
Yeah, they're both me!
Hey, I win the discrepancy contest. My favorite slightly larger one tried to kill me and so I 86'd it. Talk about lop-sided… but the reminder is small enough that the abscence isn't too noticable after all these years.
You cheated. Here's to your health, though.
As near as I can make out, the problems with today's bras are 1. elastic straps and sides that stretch thus enabling the untoward movement of contents in sideways or downwards directions and 2. no REAL under bust support. underwire is just not enough, the bottom half of the cups need some sort of reinforcement to contain what's in them properly. A modern form of the whalebone corset seems like a good idea. As things stand now, gravity does its work and by the end of the day, or even after an hour, things are drooping OVER the underwire, pulling on the straps which then stretch further and everything heads south. I've taken off my bra every evening and wondered at the underwire markings on ribcage a good two inches lower than when I put it on in the morning.
When I first began wearing a bra, straps and sides were good sturdy cotton, everything stayed in place and didn't seem to cause sweatiness like todays stretchy rubbish.
Most women wear the wrong size bra, usually too large a band and too small a cup. I know I did, before I knew how to measure for one. The BAND is actually what supports the breasts. One gets the correct size by measuring just under the breasts (where the band would actually sit.) Then to get the cup size, you measure across the fullest section of your breasts (if one is more voluptuous, one may have to bend over for this one!) If the difference between the two measurements is 1 inch, it's an A cup, 2 inches is a B, 3 a C, and so on. After wearing a 34A, after properly measuring myself, I found that I was a 32D. (That's not as large as it sounds. The cup is not a uniform size; D cups on 32s are much smaller than D cups on 38s.) A properly fitted bra should be comfortable, not ride up, and neither dig into the shoulders nor fall over them. It's not a unicorn; it does exist. One just has to put in a LOT of dressing room time to find the right one once you have the right size.
The gal who has the Cake Wrecks blog also has a personal (self-described "geeky") blog where she's posted a wonderful article about this very thing: https://www.epbot.com/2013/04/everything-you-never-knew-you-needed-to.html
Okay, okay, it's time to re-run the blog post that resulted in that first illustration when I included it in Trousering Your Weasel: Torture, And The Rack.
I knew all that and have been properly fitted, but bras these days are made of stretchy fabric and by the end of the day the cups are drooping over the underwire because the straps have stretched with the gravity pulling the breasts downward all day. I may look for something with shorter shoulder straps in a firm cotton rather that elastic.
I loved that Epbot bra adventure. Now I have bras from Europe…that still don't fit.
The European cup sizes have all those annoying accents on them.
I once grew my hair well past my shoulders and gained some empathy with the problems of washing and combing long hair.
However, I haven't had a chance to share this experience. It's just not my alma mater.
Thanks for the insights. 🙂
But you do have the balls to say so.
There should be something amusing that I could write, but really…the mind boggles.
"Boggling" is a good verb for a lot of what happens.
A post that really speaks to me as I have been struggling with trying to find a proper fitting AND comfortable bra (does it really exist??). I find one that will give me plenty of lift and support–til I bend over and then the ladies try to run off!!! Embarrassing trying to maneuver them back inside when standing back up! I just bought one of those advertised sports bras and supposed to fit a size 40C but I could barely get over my neck!!! Lord, he us!!!
You could try The Pencil Test on Alberta Street. They specialize in this!
It's all so true, everything you've said. 🙂 Remember those bra straps that would come loose and have to be sewn back on, at least a few times a week? My mother saw I'd sewn one back with red thread, since that's what was in my needle at the time. She was worried about what they'd think at the hospital when I was in the ER after an accident.
No, I do not remember having to sew straps back on! That's inhumane!
Growing up in the age of Marilyn Monroe, I had every reason to despair of my tiny titties. But I thought at the time, at least when I'm an old lady, I won't have sagging breasts. Well, guess what? I'm 81 now and…yep, tiny titty sagging boobs.
Even tiny titties sag.
Aww, man.