To bra or not to bra.......

I just read an awesome blog post about the usage of bras, that I highly recommend you read.  About how it's really not a funky practice for our boobs.  And the comment I wanted to leave was so huge, that I thought I'd better blog about it myself, not least because the more this kind of information is out there the better, but also because it comes down to sovereignty again.

Hot on the tail of my last post just fresh off the press about self organisation, this is so timely because the self organisation that can exist within our communities and groups, can also exist in our bodies.  Us Westerners are so into control.  Controlling our groups with heirarchies, controlling our creativity with standardised learning, controlling our animals and our children, who often have the same rights as each other, controlling our fibres that we make things with, controlling the ways that everybody does everything, and most of all, personally, and in our direct experience, we try to control our bodies.  What they look like, smell like, feel like, perform like, when they rest, when they eat, what they eat, and all the different ways that we 'manage' them into submission.  Do our best to knock all the animal edges off, so that we can prance around in our dog trotting ways emulating aliens that don't shit, stink, have hair in unsightly places, writhe with sensuality, or force us to admit our card carrying status as animals like all the others.  

And I would like to suggest, that instead we could surrender to our humanimal bodily experience, and maybe even find that our bodies, like our grass roots communities and wild environments show us, have within them an inherent consciousness, that when respected and uncontrolled, can find a harmonious balance from seeming chaos.  

I've written before about our signature smells that can be liberated through using only natural soap and water and no deodorants or cleaning products, but never really got into my proud bra free status.  I don't wear a bra.  I'm over 6 foot tall, and I've weighed between 100 and 125 kilograms for years now, especially during babies, and have big bosoms.  I've been up to a size 26H which is pretty huge, and I've breastfed 8 babies now, all for the first year of their lives, when they've naturally weaned themselves.  

Incidentally......apparently there was a test done in the 50's as to what size bra one should buy.  If your breast could hold a pencil underneath it, pinned between breast and chest, then you were a certain size. If your breast couldn't hold a pencil it was another.  Three pencils was considered a larger sized cup.  But since a very young lass, my bountiful breasts have been able to hold a whole pencil case.  A soft one of course.  I wonder what size that would have been?  Bloody Big Bra perhaps.......

When I was a young thing I was a bit of an obsessive bra wearer.  I'd wear them to sleep.  And felt awfully nude and nipple shy and vulnerable to go without one.  And then I had my first baby and discovered all sorts of things as a result, one of which was the joys of making love with women.  And a lot of women who love women are really into women.....surprisingly......in their raw, natural, authentic and real states.  So I came to really love my breasts, and their fulsome milk giving nurturance, and how they wobbled and bounced as I walked was almost a badge of honour, that I was a WILD woman, who'd howled at the moon and found her soul, and loved my body as it was.   At first it was uncomfortable and I sweated a lot, but after a time my body found it's own balance, and I got used to hanging loose.  

For a very brief time I explored complete femininity, and lacy push up bras, and fell as in love with my cleavage as all the very short men who I hugged often did.  

Then I met Currawong, but as a punk anarchist, he was every bit as into reclaiming the beauty of the untamed or uncliched body, and loved my bouncing breasts.  I convinced myself that I needed to wear maternity bras from birthing to at least 6 months down the track for only the first three of my babies, and had mastitis, and sore breasts often, and a huge mess around with bra straps and nursing pads.  But with my fourth baby I just let the whole thing go, wore latex tops that held material nursing pads in place, or just gushed into cloth nappies that stayed in place under my tank tops.  I had no problems, and my breasts were so less sore in general, and they've always been easy and comfortable since.  

I'm 42 now, and 8 babies later they droop, and my nipples point to the ground.  They're so soft and the skin is so gently stretchy that they're comfortable and warm pillows for any of my babies.  They get a bit tender coming up to bleeding, but in general I forget about them, cause they just bounce along for the ride.   Before I got to evolving into complete self love and acceptance,  I sometimes felt stared at, and uncomfortable, and exposed, and wished I could just have a body that didn't attract attention.   But what always helped me deal with that, was to remember that I was part of a sight seed of a different way of being for everyone who looked at me, for an individual who was going about their life as a natural and authentic human animal.  And for my daughters, so that when they grow they can choose which cultural fads they want to take part in, and not feel pressured into fitting into anyone else's norm.  And for my sons, to be able to appreciate women in all their glorious forms.  And for my Currawong, who has been such a huge part of my self love and appreciation, through the glowing reflection of his adoration for my body, and maybe in particular my beautiful bosoms.  

And with my complete and easy surrender to my body, and what it actually is, I find that I have such a profound gratitude for the amazing beast that it is, to have taken me this far in life, borne this many babies, enjoyed this much sex, love and bonding, had such stamina and energy for all of life's distractions, and has these amazing pillows of soft flesh and skin that can express so many sides of me.  When left to their own devices, and accepted for what they are, they come into a graceful prime.  In the cold they can shrink up almost pert like and my nipples harden in weather and in lust.  And when hot they kinda spread and hang out and try to keep as cool as they can.  They nestle and fold my loved one into me in all sorts of ways, and I wear halter tops and sheer stretchy tees and let them shake the tango along with all the other generous curves of my womans body.  

And I've got so used to it, and have so many women round me now who also walk the world braless, that sometimes I catch myself looking at women with obvious bras on, and think to myself 'Now that's just wierd.....'

Breasts are wonderful.  And a journey.  Enjoy them.