Undies Designed by Misogynists

My idea of comfort

I expect to pass through this world but once.  Any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to my fellow-creatures, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.            Stephen Grellet

I had the unhappy experience recently of having to buy new bras. Never a fun proposition especially as you are fitted in a room the size of a small closet by a young woman who wears a size 0. Those days are long gone from me to say nothing to the fact that I was never a size 0 and flatter myself to think I was curvy instead. I'm still curvy but sadly it's because some of the curves come from drooping flesh on my back. Those three way mirrors hide nothing. So I submitted to the measuring due to the fact I had read in a popular magazine that 70% of women are wearing the wrong size bra.

With my instructions, "I don't want any bras that are going to be uncomfortable and I hate under wire," the saleswoman brought in half a dozen of the lovely lacy undergarments. The first one fit fine and I thought, "Wow maybe I have been wearing the wrong size and this is going to work!" So daringly I said, "what the heck, throw an under wire into the mix, I"ll give it a try." I left the store with a mission accomplished grin and drove home.

The next day I decided to wear that first bra I tried on, it had good support was lovely and no under wire. It was my new size which had a smaller band and bigger cup size. Frankly, I noticed not one iota of difference from my old bra as I pulled on my turtle neck top. "Who cares, I'm now wearing the right size bra," I thought to myself feeling smug in my new purchase.

We had to travel quite a distance to get back home and so I was wearing the bra for the entire day, or so I thought. When we arrived home, one of my friends asked me to come to her house for a Scrabble game and I drove over for a rousing game. By this time I'd had the bra on for 10 hours and I sincerely felt like I was having a heart attack, my breathing was labored and my chest was tight. Hmm, tight? What the...! I undid that sucker, finished the game and went home.

When I got home I said to Mr. G "your underwear shouldn't hurt and try to strangle you!" This is so not OK. Then I got to thinking, who designed the first bra? And ladies, the answer is ---Howard Hughes, who had OCD and was a certified nut case. He wanted the breasts to have the shape of  torpedoes. Doesn't this strike you as cruel?

The ouch factor

Years ago Steve Martin wrote a humorous book entitled "Cruel Shoes" and from the number of women who I see parading down the street with 5" heels he underestimated the degree of pain women are willing to endure for fashion. My own Grandma Gert used to say, "beauty knows no pain," and we'd laugh. The joke is on us now and in every department store women are encouraged to cope with discomfort for the sake of style.

I'm wearing one of my old bras today, one that is supposedly the wrong size and guess what, I'm not in pain.

In deference to the saleswoman perhaps I need to lose five pounds and then the bras wouldn't be so uncomfortable, it could be my fault. Once I said this to my Mom, "I'm thinking about losing five or ten pounds" and she said, "don't bother it will just hang." I thought that was unkind but now I realize the truth in that statement. The new curvy for the over sixty crowd appears to be droopy. That is just sad.

I have no fabulous conclusion to this article. I have to wear a bra and I always notice when women aren't wearing one, it does screw up the look of your clothing unless you are incredibly flat chested. So I am returning two of the three bras that I bought, I'll keep the one and hope that either it or I get better with age. Not likely in either case but what the ...I'm nothing if not optimistic.

susansmagicfeather 2012 copyright Susan R. Grout all rights reserved