A Cup of Happiness

I went bra shopping yesterday and good lord, it is nigh impossible to find a-cup bras that aren't padded to hell. I understand it's because the makers assume women with a-cups want their boobs to look bigger - a fair assumption given that swaths of the population are having their perfectly fine breasts sliced open and stuffed with plastic - but where does that leave those of us who are happy with our smaller bust size?

One row had bras with big tags attached, saying something to the effect of "A-Cup: Extra padded B-Cup: Lightly padded and C-Cup: Lightly lined". Presumptuous much? Now, I'm not saying that I never wear a padded or pushup bra. Cleavage is fun (even bras for large busted ladies come that way and if they can avail themselves of that option so can I) and sometimes I need a little help filling out certain dresses since I have to buy them large enough to accommodate my relatively generous hips and butt. I'm completely shameless about admitting that it's part of an illusion though, much like the makeup I carefully apply everyday. For an average, go-to bra all I need is for it to not give me back fat, and to disguise the fact that I'm cold when walking around the office. Hell, I don't even need support! I'm glad pushup bras exist, but it shouldn't be such a struggle to find a-cup bras that aren't. That's all I'm saying.

It's more than presumptuous, it's insulting. As if I must want to change the look of my body parts, that they can't possibly be good enough on their own. Full disclosure: If I would wake up half a cup size fuller, magically, with no ill effects maybe I'd do it. I can't definitively say, but I can't rule it out in this hypothetical scenario. But before you take that as a sign of dissatisfaction, I'd also like a higher eyebrow arch but I'm not about to have a plastic surgeon go to town on my face. I think my curvy bottom would stand out even more without the slight saddlebags beneath it, but I'm not about to get lipo. I want the redder hair of my youth but not badly enough to keep up with dying it and give up my title as a natural redhead. Natural. That's the thing. While I have fun mastering some of the illusions that are so often a part of typical feminine beauty, everyone draws their own line somewhere between effortless and artifice. I certainly don't want larger breasts at the expense of having scars (maybe a bad example...I would undergo an anesthesia-free pinkie toe amputation before I'd get fake tits - it's more than an aesthetic preference but that's a blog post of its own so I'll save you my feminist screed just this once...) and when it comes to bras, the appearance of larger breasts is not worth the awkwardness of my boyfriend trying to cop a feel and grabbing a handful of foam; my "boobs" hung over the dresser at the end of the night. And most of the time I don't want the appearance of bigger ones. Being an a-cup is part of my identify and I enjoy all the perks (sorry! If you don't like that pun though I would also like to apologize for the title of this post) that come with having smaller breasts.

At times when I felt down about myself (mostly in my teens and early 20's) I would lament the fact that I had small breasts, but I think that was more because I felt there was some societal standard of beauty that I should be meeting. Those negative feelings originated from outside, not from within. If I hadn't been internalizing messages about what men supposedly wanted I probably never would have thought twice about my cup size in any other context than how my clothes fit. The beauty of getting older and accepting my body means I don't have to play that game anymore. I just want to look like me, because I like me.

I did eventually find a few worthy purchases, but not without a lot of hunting. My busty friends describe the hells of bra shopping in such a way that I should probably be thankful this is all I have to gripe about. But gripe I will. All I can picture is a younger, less self-assured woman - perhaps a younger version of myself -  coming into a store to buy some damn undergarments and being sent the message that something is wrong with her. This shit is insidious, and I think it's worth discussing.