Each night I go home and remove one of my most valued and most hated possessions — my bra. The feeling of removing that rubbing, slipping, constantly-needing-adjusting garment is almost orgasmic. My whole body releases a long-heavy sigh and I toss it into the corner hoping I won’t see it again until morning. I say most hated and most valued because in spite of my hatred for it, I wouldn’t dream of not wearing it in public. Sadly, I missed out on that generation that so freely slipped their bras through their shirt sleeves and flung them into a roaring bonfire filled with hundreds of other role-defying statements. I envy those women not for their statement, but because they didn’t have to wear a bra while making it. However, in our sex-saturated society, eliminating this item from my daily wear compromises my image and I have long passed the point of marketing myself as a sex symbol. To wear or not to wear is a question of identity rather than comfort and for all their alleged benefits, the only comfort bras offer is their ability to conceal. I fantasize about never again spending a hundred bucks at Victoria’s Secret or coordinating my wardrobe around whether this bra or that bra can be seen under this shirt or that shirt. And as I get older, I worry about whether my lymphatic system is circulating heartily enough to remove those nasty toxins that raise my risk of breast cancer. The endless style options offered to bra-wearers (backless, strapless, racer-back, convertible, cleavage enhancing, low-cut, full-coverage available in every color, shape and size imaginable) mimic freedom of choice. However, missing from those choices is the option to forgo the item. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to simply want the option not to wear one and as the pile of bras in my underwear drawer begins to demand more space, I think about having my own little bonfire. I understand that 30 years from now I might look back at this and recall how stupid I was at 27. I might think about how naive I was to think that the God-given support system we have could really work and catalogue these thoughts with the rest of my silly ideas. But I may be making a doctor appointment to evaluate the damage caused by those extra 30 years of wearing a bra and I’ll think about how stupid I was not to value comfort over image. Either way, I wind up feeling like a moron. So there remains no solution, other than for society to warp into one that idolizes comfort over image. As it stands, that’s not happening anytime soon. So in the meantime, I’ll relish my hours of bra-lessness and continue my fantasies of endless comfort. Maybe at some point in the future, I’ll be joined by my ladies in arms and we’ll make plans for a fire.
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