Letters to the Editor
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inappropriate hostility toward the sharing of personal experience
If you have never been busty, I don't see how you have a right to say anything durogatory toward this women. If you do have large breasts and you disagree I think it would be more approriate to couch your comment in that way instead of being insulting. This women is sharing her experience we should respect that, esspecially as women, even if we have dissimilar experience.
I appreciate her honesty and candedness about a sensitive and emotionally guarded subject. I can personally can relate to much of what was said.
My best friend is tall and flat chested while I'm shorter and busty. I can fully appreciate the drawbacks of many different body types. I think it is empowering to listen to other stories of a personal nature weather you agree/understand or not. I really can't understand why people would be this hostile about this article.
inappropriate hostility toward the sharing of personal experience
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Ahhh the joys of bra fitting . . .
.. . i can so relate to you Sarah !
I'm E cup (now up to an F cup thanks to being pregnant), 5"2 and yes size 6 shoes. Yes its a pain in the ass - when my smaller friends can buy $10 bras and I can't. But, i can't believe that in NYC the biggest sizes are DD or E ?? WTF ? here in good ol' small town there are E, F G, H cups everywhere. For a lot less than $50. And they're b***dy good as well - really supportive. 'Fayreform' brand. Try them.
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Practical Advice!
I am a 36F and spent 15 years in granny bras that were uncomfortable, unflattering and not the least seductive. We moved to New Zealand two years ago and I went bra shopping here for the first time six months later. I told my husband to wait for me and that he had better be ready to pick up the pieces and cheer me up. I have spent years crying in changing rooms, feeling fat and unattractive. Adjusting bra straps a million times a day, trying to fit F's into D's. I was 31 years old and had never had a matching bra/panty set. Most of the bras I bought fit OK in the store as long as I didn't move but stretched out and left me saggy.
Just because a woman has big breasts, doesn't mean she is overweight and ALL women (even if they are overweight) deserve comfortable, attractive bras.
I went into this department store in Wellington and started looking. There is a New Zealand company called Fayreform(.com) that specializes in C-J cups. The fitter brought me six, they all fit well and none of them were beige. I left happy (giddy, ecstatic) and now look forward to the shopping.
These bras are available in the US, Canada, Oz and New Zealand. I have worn them for two years and they really wear well.
Don't settle for the Victoria's Secret bull****
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I've learned never to comment on people's physical attributes,
unless I know them really, really well and know that what I say won't cause offense. I think I am this way because I worked with people with disabilities. When I remember people I met without legs or hands, I remember that they didn't necessarily want to be reminded of how they lost their legs or hands and have to recount that experience. They wanted to be treated like people first. When I remember a woman who was blind, I remember how well she moved about her house, serving me tea and talking about her poetry and her experiences teaching at school for the blind. She didn't want me to see her only as a blind woman. She wanted me to see her as a person first. When I remember the bipolar woman with the scars on her wrists, I remember admiring the ambition with which she put together a business plan. I had no trouble seeing her as a person first, even though her vocational counselor seemed to keep seeing her limitations instead. When I worked with a woman with MS who was also a bit of a religious fanatic and annoyed me by trying to persuade me to her cause, I didn't feel guilty about feeling annoyed just because she had MS. I saw her as person first and didn't insult her by offering an unwanted pity rather than an outright rejection of her beliefs.
These several years later, I am grateful I met those people. The taught me so much. Most of all, they taught me not to judge by appearances.
Not to think blondes are dumb.
Not to think short guys are feisty.
Not to think heavy people are lazy.
Not to think skinny people are anorexic.
Not to think muscle bound guys are psychos on steriods.
Not to think old folks are feeble.
Not to think young folks have nothing to teach me.
Not to think big busted women can't look stylish.
Everywhere around us people confound our expectations. Why not meet them as people first?
The author's story makes me sad for those people she met who were so limited that they could only focus on her breasts. And the guy would wanted to know the size of her breasts when he should have been enjoying the experience itself? How odd. Of what relevance was the size of her breasts? Was he planning to buy her a bra?
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Could be worse
To one of the many anonymi:
"Looks like....the writers strike has finally hit Salon."
Could be worse... they could publish more of Mary Williams' work.
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A comment on the comments, and a word (or two) of advice
For the people who said that big-breasted women should stop complaining and appreciate their "assets": There is a difference between being well-endowed and being overly-endowed. As breasts get larger and larger, they reach a point at which they cross that line and become *too* large. They are less attractive; I actually know men who find super-huge boobs to be grotesque. (Of course, as someone who is relatively flat, I tend to attract guys who are into that.) Big breasts also, as the author stated and several other women confirmed, make it difficult to find clothes and bras that fit. Finally, they can actually be painful. The extreme amounts of extra weight make a person top-heavy, and can cause severe back problems. They also make it difficult to engage in really energetic physical activity without extreme discomfort. Breast reduction surgery is not just about aestetics, or even primarily about aesthetics. For women who are overly endowed, breast reduction surgery can give them their whole lives back. It can relieve pain and enable the woman to participate in phsyical activities that might otherwise have been closed to her.
For the overly-endowed ladies:
A lady I knew in the Society for Creative Anachronism about 10 years ago told me once that the most comfortable thing in the world for a well-endowed woman was a properly constructed and fitted corset. We're not talking about the ones that try to give you an itty-bitty waist and prevent you from breathing. We're talking about an undergarment that holds you up and supports you and redistributes the excess weight without putting it all on your shoulders. Obviously I can't speak to this from personal experience, but I have heard the same thing from enough other well-endowed ladies that I suspect there's probably something to it. Just something to keep in mind. With the popularity of Renn Fairs and re-enactment groups like the SCa, it is relatively easy to find corset-makers on the Web who will be happy to make you a corset to your specific measurements. It's not going to be as inexpensive as discount-store bras, but as with most things, you get what you pay for.
I have to say this - if I have to have the ill-fortune to be an outlier on the breast-size bell curve, I'm immensely grateful to be an outlier on the small cup size end. For all its problems and as much as I hate it, having breasts that are too small is far less inconvenient and phsyically uncomfortable than having breasts that are too big. So all you over-endowed women, my hat is off to you. You have my uptmost repsect; I don't know how you do it.
P.S. I would kill to wear size 10 shoes. At least most store and manufacturers go up to size 10. I wear size 12, and it's almost impossible to find shoes in my size. And then to find shoes I actually would want to wear in my size......