Letters to the Editor
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What the Hell?
To the anon fellow that wants we femmes to share these probs more often and honestly: look at what your fellow males (not all, but enough) have written in response to this piece if you want to know why we usually don't talk about them.
And too big isn't the only problem. As an A cup woman who's otherwise normal, even voluptuous in stature, I usually can't find a bra to save my life! Add the sales women's typical attitude: "why even wear one, honey?" (like that's an option if you're a professional or even intend to leave the effing house without looking obscene) if you really want to know what it's like to be insulted.
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Little girls and menopausal women
Women in both sets are not yet, or no longer judged as sexual creatures. Therefore then are less susceptible to the objectifying and value placed on attributes that they have little control of.
Unfortunately, a lot of older women give up on romantic relationships because the rejection is just too great to deal with. And there can be freedom associated with taking yourself off the block. You are free to wear purple and do what you want without judgement.
I look at little girls and feel sad for them and the journey they are about to take.
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Victoria's Secret
If I ever become famous, Victoria's Secret will be the first place I take out. I will go on Oprah, or maybe Tyra, and cry about how unfair it is that Victoria's Secret doesn't carry the sizes their models wear. Where do those bras go? Do you have to be a Vicky's model to get them? Is Tyra Banks hoarding all of the bras in my size? Then I will create a national campaign demanding that VS either carry the sizes their models wear, or officially announce that they are the preferred retailer for smallish-breasted women.
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Shopping for the rare miniatures at Target!
As an A cup woman who's otherwise normal, even voluptuous in stature, I usually can't find a bra to save my life! Add the sales women's typical attitude: "why even wear one, honey?"
Target's Junior's section, the Xhilaration label. I got a huge pile o' cute bras with matching drawers over the summer. The bands are a little stretchy, which is good for me b/c I have to go down a band size and up a cup size to get one that fits me. They all have a certain amount of "architecture", but without that awful seamed, bullet-shaped, fiberfill instaboob that the expensive department store bras all have. The necklines are nice too, I can wear shirts that are low-cut without having an inch of utilitarian beige satin peering over the top.
My all time favorite sneering quote was from a VS saleslady: "Oh we don't *make* bras that small." I'm sure all women on both ends of the big/small conundrum have heard their particular variant on that theme.
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Victoria Secret
Okay - am I the only one that looks at the models and think they must be VERY uncomfortable in the bra they are modelling?
For some reason they always look like 5 pounds of ground being squeezed into a 2 pound casing.
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If there was a $30 billion industry catering to condom wearers
You can bet your bottom dollar the pharmacist would be hollering out every guy's penis size, to the cashier right next to him. But you see, you're victims of your own vanity. Half the world revolves around your breasts, so deal with the attention or go live in a teepee.
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I feel your pain . . .
. . . literally. I'm sure women with small breasts feel as much emotional pain as those of us who are overendowed, but the actual physical pain is something else. After three decades of big boobage, I have a curved spine, grooves in my shoulders, a dowager's hump and humongous trapezius musclers, all from carrying "the girls" around. I have permanent gouges and bruising from the underwires, swelling from PMS that is so painful it literally brings me to tears (going from a G to an H cup each month, not fun) and after a day of sitting at my desk, shooting spasm of agony all through my my uppper back. I'm sure all the curvy gals out there can relate, and if you can't, oh, just you wait, one day you will.
But that's not really why I'm writing, fun as it is to share my misery. What I really want to say is thanks, Salon, for running articles like this one. Every time you do, the "serious" readers out there get all self-righteous and high-horse-ish and make snippy comments about how they didn't realize they were reading Cosmo, blah blah blah. Well, the reality is that as important as politics is, it's THIS stuff we have to deal with every day. And it's so refreshing to read stories on "fluff" that are smart, thoughtful and beautifully written. You won't be fining that in Cosmo any time soon.
So, thanks and give us more, please!
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So familiar
This is so familiar to me. I was an early and prodigious bloomer, too. From the time I was 10 I have had people comment on my breasts as if it were perfectly acceptable. Once an aunt asked me why my boobs were so big, since nobody else in the family had big boobs. Not only did she make this comment to me, she talked about it to my male cousins who would gleefully run to let me know all the mean spirited things she'd said. Also add countless rude comments by strangers, etc.
Part of the problem is that the societal big boob thing seems so schizophrenic. It's as if having breasts in the C to D cup range is considered fantastic. Anything over a D gets treated as freakishly large. Every bra in my size is a minimizer, as if the Universe tells me "Smash them down!" It makes no sense.
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men are hardwired for big? ridiculous.
...and I assume posted by a teenager.
My brother and I are very similar in countless ways, and like the same qualities of character and personality in women. However, my brother is two years younger, so was not mothered by our grandma as much as I was.
The result of this small difference in our upbringing is that he tends to be attracted to women with b-cup-ish breasts (like our mother's, the only breasts he knew as a child), where I tend to be mighty fond of larger breasted women (grandma's boobs were huge, and to an infant it was inexplicable that they were "off limits" beyond big hugs).
Two very similar young men, with totally different responses to large and small breasts, based on the experiences of our infancy.
That's reality.
And I will try not to take offense from the posters who suggest that men like me are shallow losers, since I know that is nonsense. As I've grown and matured I've learned that my attraction to larger bosoms is as specific to me as my attraction to darker hair or a loud laugh, or my lack of attraction to very thin women (buxom and brunette though they may be).
Everyone likes something different, so it's a good thing we're all born different.
And for the record, my sister got a reduction in her twenties, and loves it.
(posted anonymously due to personal info about my siblings.)