Bondage of he Bra

[undergroundpanther]

As a little kid ,a girl kid, I was different.
For years during summer I went shirtless, all I wore was some shorts. I had no breasts.My hair was short.Most of the time I hated shoes so I was barefoot.My feet became tough and I became very good at avoiding bees. It was surprising I rarely got stung I remember maybe 3 bee stings in my life.
I was very athletic agile and I practically lived up in the trees.I was at peace with my body. I had not learned to think there was anything wrong with it yet.
But I grew big Tall and robust. Like an Amazon. I had biceps that were impressive. I was stronger than some of the boys I played with.

As I got older I got much taller and I got "breast buds". I noticed these so called "breast buds" were not any bigger than the boys chests were,and THEY were allowed to play shirtless. WHy? Why! It was the cause of many arguments in my house.Everytime I walked out the door I was told to put on a shirt,and I hated it.It chafed my skin,it was hot. I could barely stand it. But I endured it because I was a girl I was taught I had no choice,girls wear shirts, or they don't go outside.I resented the HELL out of this unfairness. Wearing a shirt was better than being humiliated and yelled at.So I got used to it.But I never liked it.
What I really hated were the girly shirts. Girl shirts were frilly lacy annoyances with tight sleeves always too small,that were puffy, they were made with horrid scratchy polyester or nylon. or that starched cotton that felt like crap..I wanted only simple cotton t shirts with nifty artwork on it usually anything with big cats was a favorite. But those shirts came only with a struggle or a 'scene' at the shopping center. And I wore my t shirts until they fell apart. the girly shirts were not touched.Some were even ripped up and tossed out in the trash my mom had no clue.


You see,my mom had a gender hang up,like so many parents have apparently (thinking of that sick ass"purity ball") Mom always wanted me to shop in the girls department. But I was always was looking in the boys department because that was where the clothes I could stand wearing were kept..I felt like my mom wanted me to be some sort of ornament. I just wanted to climb trees play outside and not chafe sweat and be uncomfortable all day or feel like a pastel clown in lace.
The shirt was a problem,but eventually I got used to it.

And just when I got used to that..I got older the those" breast buds" became boobs and much to my horror they got bigger. So I was forced into wearing a bra. More like coerced,than forced. By my mom and my aunt did it.One day after school they took me to a department store to get a bra.They said After we get your bra we will go out and"celebrate" ..I was not enthused.
They tried to convince me it was a happy event like a "rite of passage" to "womanhood",But I didn't buy it.I remembered the "loss of freedom" that came with the shirt. A freedom BOYS never had to lose because they did not grow shameful bulbous useless appendages in the middle of their chests..

I remember feeling a sick kind of terror walking in the womans isles. I saw the women's department was somewhere I had NO desire to go.I distracted myself from the ugly clothes,perfume squirter's and giggling teen girls any way I could as my aunt and my mom picked out one ugly scratchy elasticized monstrosity out after another.I went to the dressing room and I was so confused about how to put the damn thing on.I struggled for what seemed like an eternity . A called mom, My mom had to show me how put on the damn thing.. My first bra felt like a corset it felt like an ace bandage crushing my lungs.I felt like tearing it off I felt like screaming and running away,I felt panic.. They asked me to come out,I walked out,I felt horrid like I was wearing a harness like my dog had.. They adjusted straps ,they stuck their manicured talons under the strap to see how tight it was and they clawed me around and around,they told me how "sexy"I looked. I didn't understand. I thought sexy meant "pretty" and I was repulsed. I wanted to go home.They said it fit. I was horrified. I tried on maybe 20 bras that day. And I hated ALL of them because they were BRAS..I picked the one that was not barf beige or nursey white,or lacy stupid,or with rosebuds or silly bows.The one I could stand was pale blue,(crap color) it had bones. I liked it because it had NO lace,no bows,no rosebuds or 'delicate pattern'. It clipped in the front.I just hated it. As I stood in line with them they were so happy I just wanted to cry. I told them I didn't want to go out.When I got it home I wanted to burn and bury it.

I felt so imprisoned.Everyday my mom asked me if I was wearing it,I felt doomed. She knew and if I wasn't wearing it she'd make me put it on.Everyday It rubbed me raw.I showed her, she put Mercurochrome on it and said my skin needed to"toughen up" the bones dug my skin until I bled.I put band aids on my skin to stop the rubbing but the band aids rubbed off and it made it worse. I hated it. It dawned on me the bones could be taken out.I made small cuts in the bra fabric and took the cruel metal bones out and I went into my father's shop and cut them into little pieces on the band saw and than buried them, over the septic tank where during heavy rains it smelt like sewer.Already I was really pissed off at the female body I was going to be stuck in for the rest of my life.

But this bra thing was a new sort of torture..It got so bad at one point I was holding the bra one day as I decided what T shirt to wear to school and I felt like killing myself.I was not sure I could endure the wearing of bras _for the _rest_of_my_life_..I began to HATE my body and pound my boobs with my fists.I hated the fabrics I hated the way the bra pushed my boobs into my face,I hated how bras squished my boobs together which made it hot and sweaty and I had my first case of ringworm from the fungal growth caused by the bra. It was embarrassing.I hated the raw seeping sores and the incessant itch.I wished my boobs would fall off,that I would get breast cancer,anything to make them GO AWAY. No,no such luck, they got BIGGER.As they got bigger,I found out there was no way out of this trap called gender..

If I didn't wear the damn thing everyday I would be ridiculed, humiliated at school and looked at by boys in a way that made me feel awful.It made playing softball too painful and distracting to let me focus on the game. The hook dug in my back itching and it made me miss the ball..Without the bra softball was a humiliating experience. I quit playing. In fact I began to DESPISE Gym.I am not physically active at all now .Wonder why?? (sarcasm)


Around the time my mother gave me the evil line...

" one has to suffer to be beautiful" .

Mom showed me how to suffer for"beauty" too. In a billion ways that bit by bit crushed my soul to the point my body became a albatross. She showed me "beauty" skills like how to apply make up. When she had painted me up,She said how beautiful I looked,like a model. But I felt like a clown. I told her I want to do it my way. I washed my face off and she watched me apply eye shadow and eyeliner,nodding with approval than I painted on tiger stripes. She didn't like that.I refused to wash it off until the next morning.
She never bothered me about make up again.

The next weekend my mom and my aunt pinned me down on the couch to pluck my eyebrows. I fought them but they had succeeded in plucking my brows into delicate arches. In defiance I shaved them off in the middle of the night.They didn't try that again.

At 6th grade 6 months after "the bra" my mom began telling me I was fat. Fat fat fat.She really messed with my head. On one side she'd tell me to eat less food in the most humiliating ways on the other,she'd say, lets get ice cream.I didn't care about weight it until she humiliated me into caring about it.When I was fifteen I didn't eat for a WHOLE MONTH because I felt like such a pig..because I could not be skinny and petite like my sister.
I have got some hang ups with food to this day. And I still hear her shaming me every time I eat anything.Sometimes to soothe the shame I "go get ice cream". I hear the taunting of the other kids about my size, my boobs. All I know is I never asked for this shit, I never wanted this game and the garments and face paint and role. It is tragic that being born without a penis means you are forced by your own mother to become a caricature of some grotesque thing society invented to please men.

I am not like that.I never was, I am genderless.. A complex person an androgyny.I HATE gender and it's trappings.
But sad truth is when you are a kid your body is not your own,nor is your mind or your spirit yours.You are not free to be who you are,because your parents want you to be something you are not to PLEASE THEMSELVES and to appease the culture THEY created to please men , so that as a child -to-be- adult will'inherit'thier baggage .I guess the only way my mom could feel like a man was by dominating me.


Anyways,I wonder do any other people here remember the horrors of a little kid being MADE to be a "woman".
How did you all cope? It nearly drove me crazy.

[ThomCat]

1. Wow.

That is very educational for a guy to read.
K&R

Edit: Damn. We can't recommend threads from this forum. I did not know that.

[Warpy]

2. I could have written that

but I was lucky to have come of age just in time for the whole hippie thing. I was stuck in a harness through high school (really silly since there was little to harness), but was able to shed it as soon as I broke free. It wasn't until 15 years of Prednisone plus turning 50 did their evil work that I had to wear one of the damn things again, and this time it is more comfortable than just going without.

The main thing I flatly refused (pun intended) was any shoe with more than a half inch rise at the heel. I used to joke that I married a short guy just to escape the torture of high heeled shoes. I live in sandals an running shoes and that's as ladylike as it's ever gonna get.

As for the "ladies" end of the department store, I've been known to growl "If you try to spray me, I will hurt you" at the spray ladies. I avoid the lingerie section completely, since I buy my undies at the cheapest place I can find them to fit, usually the dollar store. I live in jeans, hospital scrubs, and t-shirts, and I often buy men's t-shirts because they're plain, non stretch cotton with no wit on them.

Oh, and the only day my mother ever successfully got me into a dress that made me look like a whorehouse lampshade was Easter. Once the embarrassing picture was taken, I was outta that thing.

You are not alone. There are a lot of us out here, I think.

[noamnety]

3. for me, it was overalls

In an effort to teach us about budgets, our parents gave us a clothing budget for the year, and we were responsible for buying our own clothes, had to figure in winter coats, shoes, all that.

At one point I bought denim overalls, which - along with a red checked shirt - became my favorite outfit. It's 30 years later, and I still remember exactly where my mom and I were standing when I made my appearance in them, because I was so shocked that she looked SO disapprovingly at them.

The funny thing is, my mom's fairly progressive, and has had to fight sexism herself in some outrageous ways. But I'm in my 40's, and we STILL have these fights. If we go clothes shopping when I'm visiting, she'll be trying to talk me into pants that are too form fitting for me, she'll tell me I'd look "sexier" if I didn't always wear loose clothes, no matter how many times I say "I teach in a high school, wtf do I want to look "sexy" for in a classroom?"

[bloom]

4. I guess I was lucky

My mother didn't ever force that sort of stuff on me. She had been rather a tomboy, herself. And so even though she did some of the stuff like put on lipstick when she went out - she never forced me to - or even suggest it - that I remember. I also remember back in the 60's when she used to wear a girdle and I knew that was one of the most ridiculous things - that a person would wear such a thing as that.

I used to have a lot of fun wearing makeup on Halloween. I always thought how funny that was - because I rarely wore it otherwise.

My daughter sounds more like you. Genderless. She probably wore a bra one day in her life. Hates 'em. She might have shaved once in her life. She's not interested. I expect she feels like she doesn't fit with anyone. And she's not going to do a bunch of nonsense to try.


I had hope back in the 70's that it was it was getting better - as girdles were out and flats were in. But it seems to be getting worse than ever, now.

[geniph]

5. I was REALLY gender confused as a kid

I'm the youngest of 13, and all the siblings near me in age are boys. I thought I was a boy until I was about 9; I was really puzzled that I wasn't growing a penis. I remember being very humiliated when I had to start wearing shirts in summer, and most particularly by girl's swimsuits, horrid things that they were. When I was 8, one of my sisters got married and wanted me to be a flower girl. There's still a priceless picture of little me, with my butch haircut, standing there in the yellow satin gown my sister made for me to wear, looking down at the ground, humiliated beyond belief and right at the edge of tears. You have to understand, I really thought I was a boy, and being forced to wear that dress just about destroyed me. I mean, think about an 8-year-old boy, and making him wear a fancy formal dress in public.

The odd thing is that my mother was a lesbian, living with another woman at the time. But, despite some non-conformance (they wore their hair short, took part in sports, were successful businesswomen, etc.), the gender role thing was just too deeply engrained in my mother. There were certain things that girls - even tomboy girls reared by lesbians - didn't do. I was never allowed to wear jeans, for example. I swiped a pair of one of my brothers' hand-me-down jeans from the Goodwill box and hid them in my locker and school and used to change into them (this was in high school - when I was in elementary school, girls weren't allowed to wear pants, and that was another confusing humiliation for me).

I got "THE BRA" when I was 13. My mother also saw it as a big rite of passage thing. I remember the first day I wore that THING at school - it was like having my chest bound with Ace bandages. I didn't understand how anyone ever learned to tolerate that, or learned to breathe in those things. To this day (I'm 46), the first thing I do when I walk in the door is rip that damned thing off. Luckily, I'm not all that bosomy, so I can do without one most of the time.

I agree with you about gender and gender roles. We are more than our anatomy. I have to admit, I take a perverse pleasure in confusing the hell out of people, because I look very femme and act very butch, and I'm married to a huge muscular bear of a man, who does many of the "female" roles at home. We really puzzle people. We're both bisexual, too, and that confuses people even more. Here's me, 5'2" and 120 pounds, and my 6'2", 275-lb husband reversing gender roles. People just don't get it. But you know what? If they'd stop trying to fucking pigeonhole people by gender, we'd just be people - there'd be nothing at all confusing about us.

[Book Lover]

6. My mom did me a huge favor

She never nagged me about wearing a bra, and she bought me sports bras LONG before they were popular to wear. She never really nagged me to do anything girly, come to think of it. There were a few times when she suggested makeup, but honestly, I can count those occurrences on the fingers of one hand (though she did fight for it when my sister got married about 6 years ago. I caved in because the makeup came with a facial and face/head massage).

[Finder]

7. No bra here...

although I did wear nursing bras while breastfeeding. Not much of a choice then.lol

[zanne]

27. Same here.

Aside from being just plain unnecessary for me, the bra strap really hurts my back. And I figure if people don't want to see a natural woman, they don't have to look.

[Sparkly]

8. Mine's a very different story from yours.

I remember, in 7th grade, how fashionable it was to have a bra showing through the back of a white shirt; how embarassing it was if a girl didn't have one in the locker room...

But even when I had breasts and wanted one, my mother was "absent" or unapproachable, from mental illness. I crawled through boxes in the attic to find some of my older sisters' yellowed crusty ones (same way I got everything else I wore).

I was determined that MY daughter wasn't going to go through that -- I'd be right with her, celebrating her womanhood, supporting her, teaching her, shopping for a brand-new bra like it was a great rite of passage! The day came, and I was in a store with her, and said, "I think today you're ready for your first bra!" I didn't get quite the exuberant response I expected. I got: "MOM!!! What FOR??"

"Uh, well, I noticed your body is developing, and --" "MOM!! OmiGod, I don't even want to talk about this!!" And she stormed away.

So much for that. Now she wears them, but it turned out that her stepmother bought her first ones. (I assume. Cause I never did.)

As for me, I have breasts I always considered out of proportion to the rest of me. I was trained as a dancer, and ballerinas simply are NOT supposed to have breasts. I could weigh 95 pounds and still have them. I'm slender except for them, so I've always tended to wear sports bras to minimize them (and a "bandeau" type before there were sports bras). I can't tell you how many times I'd look in the mirror and squish them, going "See how thin I am except for THESE?! They just don't match the rest of me!" That was about the ballet aesthetic, but also about being anorexic, and also about hating the attention of men whose attention I didn't want.

Just last week, I bought my first non-sports bra, in forever. But I still feel self-conscious. (I keep asking my husband things like, "Do they look fake? Does it look like I'm trying to show them off? Do I look like I'm doing a Katherine Harris?")

[Samurai_Writer]

9. "Do I look like I'm doing a Katherine Harris?"

*giggles* I'm sorry, but I found that just too funny!

I haven't contributed to the discussion because I was one of those girly-girls who loved all that stuff when I was younger -- bras, makeup, etc. Now I couldn't care less.

I was the opposite of you though -- I was thin with no boobs to speak of until I was 30. Then a car accident immobilized me and I gained a bunch of weight, and suddenly, I had breasts! But I was fat, so the men didn't pay much attention to me, which was fine with me. I had had enough 'male attention' (harrassment) in high school and my 20s.

[MuseRider]

10. That could almost be my story!

God how I hated that! I was the oldest but had 2 younger brothers, women were not valued at all so I thought I had to try harder to be one of the boys.

The rest of the story is similar except I had an abusive father that backed her up and I had no out, no way to make my complaints or thoughts heard. I am also older so the bra was followed by a garter belt and a girdle and those horrible belts and pads for your period. It was like living in a prison, you could barely move. Oh yes, the white white gloves. Have you ever tried to throw a baseball in that get-up and not come away without making a tell tale mess of your pristine white gloves?

Is it any wonder that we have gender/authority issues? Hell, for a lot of us it was our very own mother trying to mold us into fashion prisons. YIKES!

Thanks for sharing your story, even at this age it is so wonderful to know you were not alone feeling that way.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

11. My problem was different

My mother and grandmother were very domineering, and the clothes they chose for me were not particularly teen-like. I could wear shorts in the summer, but I didn't own a pair of jeans until I was 18. (I also wasn't allowed to get a job or even babysit during high school.) Then my geology class went on a field trip to climb around on rocks next to the Mississippi River, and I couldn't do that in a skirt, so they reluctantly gave in.

Another point of contention was padded bras. I am pear-shaped, and when I was young and skinny, I had little in the way of boobs. They bought padded bras for me, and we had many arguments about wearing them. They told me I'd never have a boyfriend if I went around so flat-chested.

As soon as I was earning my own money (through campus jobs in college) I started buying my own clothes and never bought another padded bra. I still thought I ought to wear one, for some reason, but they never fit properly.

Then about fifteen years ago, I decided not to replace my current set of worn-out bras. I haven't worn one since, preferring camisoles and undershirts.

All in all, I like solid colors and clean lines, although as a self-employed person, I dress "up" or "down" as the mood strikes me. I actually like wearing skirts and dresses, especially in the summer. But I hate so much of what is marketed to women my age: all that splashy-looking stuff they sell at Chico's, for example.

Most of my life, I've been a long-hair, even though I don't have the ideal hair for that style. I've gone through periods of thinking that I "should" be a short-hair, most recently in 1999, but last summer, I realized that I was tired of the bob and that I didn't like the way I looked in photographs with it. Since then, I've been growing my hair out, taking advantage of the popularity of butterfly clips. It's about an inch past my shoulders now, and I'm finally starting to feel like myself again.

[Warpy]

14. OOH, those butterfly clips are GREAT

When I was working 12 hour shifts, I kept my hair in what my mother called a "bull dyke haircut," and she had one just like it. When I got unemployed and I knew my back wouldn't let me do nursing any more, I just let my hair grow, figured I'd just have to suck it up during that transitional phase when I looked like a crazy woman. I also stripped the red dye out, something that took about four boxes of the stuff since the first box reduced me to dayglo orange (think "Run, Lola, Run") Now it's long enough to snag in one of those clips and it's great, just roll out of bed, drag a comb through it, and slam a clip on.

That was the other "rite of passage" thing that I hated along with all those rubber foundation garments, the perm followed by trying to sleep on brush rollers every night. Ouch. Then getting up at 5 AM to tease and spray the mess into whatever confection was popular that year. The punishment for not doing so was extreme, as was the punishment for not encasing one's body in nylon and rubber in 90 degree weather.

It's funny, I was raised on cowyboy and Indian shows. I always wanted to be the Indians because I looked at the whitefolks and their high button shoes, corsets, and all day Sunday church and decided buckskin, moccasins, and the occasional butchery of dead enemies suited me much better.

The last half of the 60s were wonderful, a wholesale breaking out of societal and physical constriction, the latter appalling our parents more than the former.

I can't belive modish young women are allowing themselves to be conned into wearing girdles and high heeled shoes. Bras are small stuff compared to those.

[noamnety]

21. No! Not the padded bras!

The first time I met my (ex) mother-in-law's sister, she gave me a bag of thrift shop clothes. I'm fine with that, I'm wearing thrift shop pants and a sweater right now, in fact. But it was the first time she'd met me, so she hadn't ever seen me or my size before, and, well, in the bag of clothes she bought for me was a bra. Not just any old bra - it was a black padded bra with a cup size way too small, and the back size way too big. And padded, did I mention that?

I tried to politely decline it. Used underwear, even though a bra shouldn't theoretically be so different from a shirt, just isn't my thing. She tried to force it on me. I protested - it's not even my size! Then an argument ensued. It is too your size! No, really, it isn't! I was wearing a thick loose sweatshirt, so she couldn't really see under that what size I was. So she did what, I'm sure to her, seemed like the logical way to settle the dispute. She reached out and felt for herself - as we were exchanging heated words - what size my chest was. Got herself a handful.

I reacted without thinking - though admittedly, if I'd thought first I might have done the same thing. I smacked her. Hard. Sent her flying across the room, which was pretty easy, since she was about 70 years old, maybe a hundred pounds, and had had a stroke. There weren't any witnesses - the family all came flying in from the other room. She was crumpled on the other side of the room, in shock, telling them "SHE HIT ME!" I was too embarrassed to explain why. I pretty much just stood there staring at her blankly.

My husband was mad at me for awhile, but honestly, if my dad had done a similar thing to him when they met, I think he would have been more understanding of my position.

That's my padded bra story. :)

[ThomCat]

24. Damn.

You don't tell stories half way. :P

[politicat]

12. Our big argument was hair, fortunately.

Which probably explains my obsession with growing it really long, then hacking it off, and with the hundreds of colors it's been since I was 12.

When I was small, there was no chance in the world I would be allowed to cut my hair, even if it needed a cut, or I couldn't take care of it. I had long, red curls, but only when someone else took the trouble to yank a brush through it - we didn't know about hair types apparently. Otherwise, I had snarls and knots and it lived in a pony tail. I wish dreds had been popular then - I would have been better off.

My other big issues with my parents and my body is that they refused to realize that my skin cannot take the sunlight, and that I must be protected from the sun. I can burn under an incandescent lamp, but since neither of my parents burn (I got my biological father's skin; my mother and my adopted father both have light olive skin) they never made it a priority to have sunscreen around in sufficient quantities, and they never made it a priority to cover me up. I had some very severe burns as a child, and I am now very careful about my skin. But rather than take this into account when we moved from place to place, my parents intentionally chose hot, sunny climates.

The big arguments were with my (adopted) father rather than my mother, though. My mother drives me crazy, but she really did need the protection and support that my sisters and I gave her.

I didn't mind bras, but I know that when my father made some sexist, creepy comments when I was a young teenager, I pretty much went into goth mode shortly thereafter, and wore baggy clothing and shapeless, dark stuff for most of the next decade.

I can wear girly clothes now, but only because I've made peace with this body. It's not necessarily what I wanted, and not necessarily what I would have chosen, but it's what I've got and it's not going away. I can't change my skin without seriously damaging my health, and the shapes, sizes and contours are not something that can just be sculpted away with a scapel, vacuum, or hormones.

I agree that children do not own their bodies, and it bothers me that children don't get to express themselves in terms of their own mental image of themselves. Even today, it's nearly impossible to dress a child without a reference to some gender role (if for no other reason than climate appropriate clothing in the right sizes at the right times often means taking whatever is on sale at Target). Finding reasonably priced, healthy childrens' shoes that take into account the differences between a girl's frame and a boy's frame and fit and give good traction and support... let's just say that even though I find it silly to buy designer clothing for a child, I've bought Dr. Martens, Petit and Propet for my niece because finding solid shoes for a girl are impossible. I find it insulting that, if I want to buy seasonally appropriate clothing for either of my nieblings, I have to take pastels and pinks for my niece and navy and khaki for my nephew. And don't even let me get started on the anti-feminist crap that is part and parcel with girls' clothing in the past few years.

However.... I do put the blame squarely on parents for the sad state of affairs with regard to marketing to children. Parents needed to stand up and refuse to buy when the first hip huggers for toddlers and "I'm a Princess" crap started coming out. There was never a reason for a parent to purchase a high heel or a platform shoe for a first grader, but they did. Marketing is a feedback loop, and once marketers find that X sells, they will make N+1 of X, and endless variations on X. Just as no matter how hard marketers try, they can't make the gaucho pant cool and attractive, they can't force Baby Slut Wear upon us unless we take it. As long as parents place their own fashions on their children (and we've been doing that since the dawn of time, save for the short century from the 1860s to the 1960s) instead of selecting clothing designed to protect them from the elements, maintain their core temperature and protect their joints and skin from damage, we're going to be stuck with this kind of crap.

There are advantages to school uniforms....

[ismnotwasm]

13. Bra's don't bother me

I'm very active, and I like some sort of support. (But like everything I wear, it has to be comfortable. Or forget it.) But as far as molding my perfectly acceptable 45 year old breasts into some sort of poke you in the eye "perkiness" I don't think so. I like mine just the way they are

My mother, bless her heart is a frightened, distant woman who probably shut down emotionally as far as she could before I was born. I didn't know the difference of course. It took my kids to point it out---"Mom, Grandma's always been a little weird" Me: "She is?"

So my knowledge come from other sources. I think I've mentioned I was a "street kid" in the seventies, since I would live anywhere but "home". My friends were homosexual males. I lived with a (my best friend Stevie)transvestite for quite a while. So I think I started to look at dress and makeup and "female" trappings in quite a different light. It was a game, body decoration, dress up, art, a contest, beauty, fun. It had shock value. You could take it off anytime you felt like it, and be ok. (I made a kick ass Magenta from Rocky Horror Picture Show.) As is usual with such things, those early experiences helped shaped my life and my additudes.
I did go through an atrocious makeup time during the 80's --blech. I was 30 when the make up started to come off little by little, and I found I looked much better without it. Still do.

I've long thought there is a bit of androgyny in everyone, my beautiful friend Stevie and I had planned to marry (as a joke--kind of a popular one back then) with me in a tuxedo and he in a wedding dress. It would have been great fun. Of course Ronnie died from AIDS, as did so very, very many shining lights from that era.

Force molding young females into attire to make them "pretty" or "sexy" or even "feminine" forgets that same look is going to get them comdemned in rape court, called names at times, and thought to be sexually available when they don't want to be. It indoctrinates them into a twisted version of What A Woman Looks Is Supposed To Look Like. And from that time on they never, ever measure up to their own expectations.

It's a bunch of bullshit epecially when you consider If females DON'T play the game, they get called very different names. "Butch" Dyke" crap like that, and are apt to get sexually harrassed ANYWAY.

[Triana]

15. a Marge Piercy poem for tortured women everywhere

I HATE bras. They inhibit my ability to freakin BREATHE. They're tight, hot, scratchy, irritating and miserable. Some of them have WIRE in them for God's sake. Luckily I can get away without one most of the time, or wear a camisole instead to cover 'things' up. Ugh.
_ _ _ _ _

What Are Big Girls Made Of?

The construction of a woman:
a woman is not made of flesh
of bone and sinew
belly and breasts, elbows and liver and toe.
She is manufactured like a sports sedan.
She is retooled, refitted and redesigned
every decade.
Cecile had been seduction itself in college.
She wriggled through bars like a satin eel,
her hips and ass promising, her mouth pursed
in the dark red lipstick of desire.

She visited in '68 still wearing skirts
tight to the knees, dark red lipstick,
while I danced through Manhattan in mini skirt,
lipstick pale as apricot milk,
hair loose as a horse's mane. Oh dear,
I thought in my superiority of the moment,
whatever has happened to poor Cecile?
She was out of fashion, out of the game,
disqualified, disdained, dis-
membered from the club of desire.

Look at pictures in French fashion
magazines of the 18th century:
century of the ultimate lady
fantasy wrought of silk and corseting.
Paniers bring her hips out three feet
each way, while the waist is pinched
and the belly flattened under wood.
The breasts are stuffed up and out
offered like apples in a bowl.
The tiny foot is encased in a slipper
never meant for walking.
On top is a grandiose headache:
hair like a museum piece, daily
ornamented with ribbons, vases,
grottoes, mountains, frigates in full
sail, balloons, baboons, the fancy
of a hairdresser turned loose.
The hats were rococo wedding cakes
that would dim the Las Vegas strip.
Here is a woman forced into shape
rigid exoskeleton torturing flesh:
a woman made of pain.

How superior we are now: see the modern woman
thin as a blade of scissors.
She runs on a treadmill every morning,
fits herself into machines of weights
and pulleys to heave and grunt,
an image in her mind she can never
approximate, a body of rosy
glass that never wrinkles,
never grows, never fades. She
sits at the table closing her eyes to food
hungry, always hungry:
a woman made of pain.

A cat or dog approaches another,
they sniff noses. They sniff asses.
They bristle or lick. They fall
in love as often as we do,
as passionately. But they fall
in love or lust with furry flesh,
not hoop skirts or push up bras
rib removal or liposuction.
It is not for male or female dogs
that poodles are clipped
to topiary hedges.

If only we could like each other raw.
If only we could love ourselves
like healthy babies burbling in our arms.
If only we were not programmed and reprogrammed
to need what is sold us.
Why should we want to live inside ads?
Why should we want to scourge our softness
to straight lines like a Mondrian painting?
Why should we punish each other with scorn
as if to have a large ass
were worse than being greedy or mean?

When will women not be compelled
to view their bodies as science projects,
gardens to be weeded,
dogs to be trained?
When will a woman cease
to be made of pain?

Marge Piercy
http://www.margepiercy.com

[ismnotwasm]

16. Damn

That is painfully beautiful.
How far have we come? From whale bone corsets and bound feet to bulimia and attractiveness/beauty standards judged by the perception of continual sexual offerings.

Thank you

[Triana]

17. Marge Piercy is a feminist and...

...a progressive political activist. You should read some of her poems about Katrina and Iraq. They're very direct. She's awesome.

[ismnotwasm]

20. I will

I've always liked poetry, and I don't read nearly as much as I should. I'll definetly check her out.

edit: I just checked out her website, VERY cool. I think I have a new reading love.....

[melnjones]

29. That's one of my favorite poems...

I put it on my dorm wall in college when I was battling an eating disorder. It's powerful.

[Katherine Brengle]

18. I've pretty much stopped wearing them altogether --

I told my husband that I was sick of being uncomfortable for no good reason, and he doesn't seem to care, lol.

I'll wear one, or at least a tight tank-top or something under my shirt, when I have to go somewhere important or to the in-law hell-house...

The day my husband feels forced into wearing a ball-rearranging garment, I will consider wearing a bra regularly again.

Until then, screw that.

(And thank you for sharing a powerful story.)

[ThomCat]

19. "ball-rearranging garment"

Just reading those words made me cross my legs and cringe. Ouwww. x(

I had to wear knee braces for 7 years. From the moment I got out of bed in the morning until the moment I got back into bed at night. They caused circulation problems in my legs and feet. They pinched. They hurt They itched. I was SO happy to be able to finally throw those things away. I happily use crutches instead.

If wearing a bra is anything like wearing those braces then I'm surprised that more women don't refuse to wear them.

[Katherine Brengle]

22. They're horrible --

pinching, itching, leaving marks -- par for the course for most women.

I think underwear in general is pretty silly, unless it's that time of the month or really really cold out.

Most clothing is designed to make people feel uncomfortable, never the right temperature, and generally miserable.

Blech.

[ThomCat]

23. I'm a bit biased

but I think underwear on men is often the sexiest thing in the world. It was designed for men, by men, and I think it was designed by men who like men.

This is not the board to be going on that tangent though so I won't expound any further. :)

[PassingFair]

25. My mother told me: Go Ahead.....

When I was about 8, I got a VERY bad sunburn. Large blisters,
filled with fluid on my shoulders that were turning GREEN.

It was summer, it was hot, and I wanted to ride my bike and
let the breeze wash over the blisters. I COULD NOT wear a shirt
without EXTREME discomfort, so I told my mom I was going to ride
my bike around the block without a shirt on.

She told me that I couldn't. I told her I was going to anyway.
She said: "Go ahead".

I had three brothers who didn't wear shirts in the summer.
I had NO breasts (Remember, I was EIGHT).

I got on my bike and sped down my street. No problems. Once
I turned the corner, some of the "enemies" from around the
block saw me.

They yelled terrible things. They threw rocks and dirt at me,
and they got on their bikes and chased me home.

I never told my mom, but I learned the lesson she had hoped to
spare me.

Even at age 8, we are OBJECTS.

Of lust.

Or derision.

Or both.

[ThomCat]

26. I'm very sorry.

That's a horrible message for any kid to have to learn. :(

At that age I was learning all about bullies. I was learning that boys are either tough and strong, or they're girls. Being called a girl was the worst thing that could happen. If you asked the adults I bet they would have sworn they weren't insulting girls, but boys sure as hell learned that they had been be be big strong boys or else.

[we can do it]

28. Another Bra-Hater Checking In....

Well, I thought it was bad having to wear dresses to school (It does make sliding into second base a little rough)...but you poor dear. I never liked frilly clothes and I loved sports, too (I Still DO). Its a shame society took that joy away from you. I will NEVER let the bastards take my joy of being active away- NEVER. I am an "a-cup" at best, and finally in my 20's took Ann Lander's advice - if you can't hold up a pencil you don't need a bra...what a revelation...no more having my boobs pop out when I raised my arms. I would often wear tank tops, unless I had on a heavy sweater or whatever - but no more stupid bras...all was well. I had several office jobs (graphic arts) no problem...I became a firefighter paramedic - after working 7 years - with no problem...suddenly my little boobs became an issue....the biggest asshole I worked with came up to me at a festival (not at work) and said - "So, I guess you're gong to have to start wearing a bra?" I had not heard any such nonsense. So when I went back to work, I had a note from the chief stating that I must now wear the "proper underwear"...give me a fucking break buttcrackman worrying about what anybody else has on. ( I was ALWAYS in uniform BTW), pocket shirts, sweatshirts, etc) - (my mom said she couldn't even tell when I had on a bra or didn't) - so then it began, one idiot question after another.