On Wearing Bras... or not

A member of a group I am in on Facebook posted asking how many in the group wear bras.  She cited a letter from Arunachalam Kumar, "Burn the bra! (and men’s tight underpants too): compromised ‘chaotic’ cooling by constrictive clothing in the causation of testicular and breast cancers", Medical Hypotheses, v 73, iss 6, Dec 2009, p. 1079–1080 which suggests that the lack of cooling caused by restrictive undergarments could be the cause of testicular and breast cancers, given that areas where these garments are less common have lower reported rates of cancer.

She took these concerns to heart, and motivated by how uncomfortable this garment is, announced that she is wearing her bra as little as possible.  She asked how alone she is in this new bra-less movement.  She mentioned the potential for negative social consequences, and recognized that it is not the most important social justice or feminist issue.  I think that is all the context needed to follow my reply. 

Facebook found my reply to be too long, so I guess I have to post it here and do a link....?

I don't know how appropriate it is for me to weigh in on this, since I have never worn a bra, but I figured I would chime in anyway, since this is the Internet and all:
1) It appears in a peer-reviewed publication, but the article itself is a letter putting the theory out there as something to be studied based on correlation between lower reported cancer rates in rural areas of low industrialized countries versus higher reports in more industrial areas, and a similar pattern of bra use. Personally, I would suggest some confounding factors: I would observe that the incidence of industrial contaminants might be a more proximate cause, as well as the potential for lesser reporting rates of any medical conditions, and (here I am really reaching) the potential for traumatic injury and pathogens to take someone before the cancer can get them.

However, the precautionary principle would suggest that all things being equal in your decision, if there is a possibility that it might cause health issues, then you should avoid this factor.

2) However, you have indicated all things are not equal in that you are uncomfortable. Further, whether we consider lack of cooling on hot days (the most direct relationship the author is drawing) as a comfort issue or a health hazard (more likely the former in this climate I would postulate) either way it would militate toward a lack of constricting clothing.

As for social norms, you will be damned for wearing it if you let it show, and you will be damned for not wearing it if you let it show. Given that, I would opt for the more comfortable choice. Not being a fashion historian I am not sure what led the change in social norms that allowed women to stop wearing corsets or being allowed to show their ankles, but I would assume there were some people in the vanguard who thought it ridiculous to be so uncomfortable for fashion and decided to push the envelope. I feel like back then these clothes were all about sculpture and engineering. With less layers it appears to me undergarments now have a very duellistic relationship: You should be wearing underwear, but you should not have a VPL, so you should appear not to be wearing them. Likewise, to be fashionable you should wear strappy or strapless clothes, but you should not appear to be wearing a bra (or at least not show the straps), but should not not be wearing a bra, so you need to redesign to have strapless bras too. So what is the origin of the more modern style of showing the bra strap? Is it a rejection of the arms race between having to assure everyone that you are wearing undergarments without appearing to be doing so, or is it a trend to hyper-sexualization in showing off one's undergarments? I have to admit that this arms race has me (and likely most non-bra wearers) confused and I think that the people most able to discern whether you have thrown off your shackles or meerly devised a more clever and more uncomfortable way of appearing to not be wearing it are those with intimate knowledge of the mechanics of the garment. That is to say that I think you should fear more negative social consequences resulting from your rebelious act from your sisters (raised eyebrows and assumptions about sexual practices) than from the male gaze (leering). I hesitate to question your lived experience, but it surprises me to learn that you fear assault on a Halifax street simply for not wearing a bra. Certainly there are places even as close as the southern USA where I would countenance this, but here I would be surprised. I am perhaps naive though.

The question of what an important feminist issue is depends on the feminist. Equal pay is vitally important to the 65 year old who has forgone hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost wages, and is facing an uncertain retirement because their pension is 60% of that of their male peers. However, to the six year old girl who wants to take off her shirt like the rest of the kids being told she can't because she is a girl, it might be the first step to accepting "you can't be an engineer because you are a girl". However, we don't really have to look to potential long term impacts. While it is all dramatic and noble to fight for the abstract child bride and the infibulated, the day to day indignities are the ones that are going to be noticeable to the most people and the small insidious gestures are the ones most likely to widespread uptake, and least likely to get push-back before they are entrenched, symbolic, and become a right that can't be taken away. I wasn't there in the 60's but I suspect that is the insight that prompted the first bra burnings: it looks like a small silly thing that the powers will look ridiculous for calling someone over, but it actually means a whole lot more.

Finally, with my recent growth in girth and resulting increase in pectoral mass subject to "up, down, [...], right or left, circular and elliptical motions" and the strange sensations of these motions when running, as well as chafing, I wonder whether there might not be a lot of men who would like permission to wear your discarded constricting garments. Clearly the grass is always greener in the other pasture.

Other thoughts I could not shoehorn into the flow:
- Riffing on the theme of widespread acceptance, this could be a point of commonality with your sisters from Real Women. "Even if a woman's place is in the home, why does she have to be uncomfortable while she is there?" "If the pinnacle of a woman's potential achievements is making babies, why make it so hard to feed them?" "I don't know nothing about that equal rights stuff, but lordy this thing is uncomfortable and you are saying it is OK to take it off? Sign me up." "Take off your corset, petticoats, bustle and bra. It's cheaper than air conditioning."

- Thinking back to my elementary school days, I wonder whether the flowering of training bras on the playground might have been the first of the things that set the girls apart. It was actually a girl that introduced me to the playground game of sneaking up behind a girl and snapping her bra strap against her back. Thinking back though, I have this overwhelming sense that it was the same girl who turned to the boy behind her at an assembly and said loudly "I'm not wearing one." after which he turned bright red (I did not see it, but I am guessing his hands might have been shall we say caressing her back). There are a lot of interesting themes one might explore in that anecdote.

- As for supposed sexual practices, I am curious as to what you think it might say about your sexual practices if you don't wear a bra. On a warm day, if you were wearing a loose comfortable top and no bra (or nothing on top), I would hear "So f-ing hot. I am more interested in comfort than anything else. Sex? Are you nuts? I am more interested in you slipping me a cold iced tea than anything else. Call the cops if you feel strongly about it, but the law is on my side and you are just going to piss everyone off." If it were a cold day and no top I would be looking around for the PETA signs, or the bicycles. However, if you were wearing no bra and something tight enough to make it obvious, to be honest I would be hearing: "I am not afraid to admit that I might like sex. I communicate clearly about it (*), and if I say 'No', I am deadly serious. If I am not having fun, I will be calling it quits so you had better be pleasing me. I am not a Rules Girl, so if this is going to happen you will know it." (* This is partly the political statement of straying from the norms, but also from the "Game" in Game Theory perspective in that you are not obscuring the signalling of your arousal by hiding your nipples, you don't feel have to hide when your body is betraying you because your head is firmly in control.) I leave it up to you whether that is the message you want to be sending, or whether you want to call me for making any assumptions at all about your sexual attitudes. However, as for your practices, I don't think a bra or lack thereof makes this any less ambiguous, but since I think it means you communicate clearly if I need to know, then I better ask lest I find myself in a very surprising situation, and if don't need to know I should probably mind my own business.