Women have always worn undergarments to please “polite” society.

Girdles. Pantyhose. Corsets. Bras.

All of the above are restricting garments that women have worn through history. Marketing campaigns often tell women that to “look good” they should wrap everything up. Society has only reinforced this silly standard.

“People who insist on conformity in women’s underwear are simply bullying women when saying that only sluts go braless,” Janet Ruth Heller, Ph.D., says.

“That is not a logical argument but an ad hominem attack. In general, I question our society’s insistence on making women wear uncomfortable and impractical clothing.”

And society also has reinforced the idea that in order to be a “good” woman or girl, women and girls must wear undergarments to keep body parts contained. Because if a man even catches a glimpse of an outline of a woman’s nipple, all hell could break lose.

Show a nipple, you’re a whore

In late August, Remy Altuna, a student at Beaumont High School in Southern California, said “she got in trouble for wearing a low-cut top to school,” Teen Vogue reports.

“The vice principal at her school reportedly didn’t stop at punishing her for what she was wearing, she says she also made comments about what Remy wasn’t wearing — Remy got in trouble at school for not wearing a bra.”

The whole incident started when a teacher told the student to put on a jacket because her shirt was too low and she wasn’t wearing a bra. The teacher was apparently concerned because: “I don’t want people to see you and assume bad things about you. I’m trying to protect you.”

Teacher of the year material.

Sadly, this type of braless shaming isn’t anything new.

Kenna Cook, sex educator, thinks society’s issue with braless women is tied to sexualizing breasts and nipples. “The emphasis on modesty equals purity, which equals value, has been a long held belief in Western culture,” Cook explains.

“Women have historically been seen as property or something to be controlled. When a woman doesn’t conform to standards of modesty, she is labeled as uncontrollable and less valuable.”

Cook adds that often, women with big breasts are called sluts even when they aren’t sexually active. “The objectification of female bodies erases the other qualities a women can possess by simply existing,” she says.

“Women and girls are turning into objects for consumption when they exist in the bodies they were simply born in. Sexuality needs to be separated from simply existing.”

Don’t wear a bra, your boobs will basically die

Wendy Gardner, an aromatherapist and natural skin care formulator in England, says she chose to stop wearing bras — she’s a size D — in her early 30s because she found them uncomfortable.

Gardner says she’s now 48, breastfed for four years of her life, and her breasts still look great. “[They’re] slightly lower… [but] my husband loves my braless look,” she adds.

“That fallacy that if you don’t tie them up [that] they will drop down to your knees and [you’ll] have to roll them up like wilted socks is scaremongering by older women.”

Go braless, you’re not “being” a woman right

We recently heard from a breast cancer survivor who chooses to go braless because bras for former breast cancer patients are quite pricey. “Wire bras are not only uncomfortable, but I was told they may damage my implants,” Laura Ann says.

“Bras made for survivors run from $20 sports bras with padding, to nice bras that are $40 or above.”

Sadly, Ann says she receives criticism from women when she goes braless. “[Some] baby boomers are prudish in their view of the female body. I am curious how many really know what a woman’s body looks like after a mastectomy.,” Ann adds.

“I had my mastectomy in 2005 and would be naked in a changing room.  Older women I noticed would act weird if they saw me naked.”

Different is wonderful

No woman — no matter her age, profession, or history — should wear a bra to help others maintain their composure.

So, grow up society — your prudishness is hurtful and boorish.

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The post Why the Hell are People Still Hung Up on Braless Boobs?: #NowWhat appeared first on EcoSalon.

As a kid, I watched a lot of those PBS National Geographic type shows that visited Indigenous cultures around the world. And I always got knots in my stomach when the camera panned over topless women with elongated sagging breasts.

It wasn’t the esthetics of it—I was too young to understand the sex appeal of perky breasts over sagging ones. It was the threat of my own discomfort someday; that is, if my breasts ever appeared and then (inevitably) began to sag. How awkward that must be, to not only have those two masses bulging out from your chest like external organs, but to also have them heavily hanging down like undeveloped appendages.

In the Western world, we thankfully have Victoria’s Secret helping us out in that department. And as any woman who wears a C cup or larger knows, being without a functioning bra is quite terrifying—worthwhile of calling in sick from work and hiding out until you can properly stow your girls in their preferred Lycra/Spandex cup homes.

Bras offer us comfort and support and keep us from accidentally losing a dangling nipple in the paper shredder, but they don’t prevent sagging breasts–in fact there’s conflicting science on whether or not bras may actually accelerate sagging. Regardless of the bra’s role in it all, it seems gravity works despite our best efforts to ignore it. Naturally, many women turn to the Internet to solve their problems, and headlines like these about preventing or reversing sagging breasts are everywhere:

5 Everyday Habits That Are Causing Your Boobs to Sag

Home Remedies for Firming Sagging Breasts

Sagging Breasts: How to Perk Things Up

5 Ways to Prevent Your Boobs from Sagging

I’m no doctor, but I do have boobs (two!). And you know what? Boobs sag, whether or not they’re excessively large or used for long periods of nursing. Yes, we can have them surgically altered so they don’t sag or jiggle. We can try “home remedies” or the exercises these articles recommend to stop the sagging. But we can also just let them do their thing—bras optional.

The worst thing about our obsession with sagging breasts is that not only are women way more fixated on the issue than men (a good man loves you the way you are, aging boobs and all), but these so-called “tricks” don’t really work. Yes, you may see some minor improvements, but nothing except implants will give you those perky, porn-worthy boobs.

And here’s some irony: nobody’s writing articles about natural remedies and tricks for how to prevent sagging testicles and “perk things up” down there, even though it’s as common as sagging breasts. Why? Because society obsesses over women of all ages having the perky boobs of a teenager, regardless of how ridiculous they’d look on a 60-year-old woman. Yet we just accept that men age; we even focus more on their “distinguished” look of grey hair and crow’s feet than the erectile dysfunction and floppy balls that come along with it.

That’s not to say we should all go topless, or even braless (the horror!). But aside from medically necessary surgeries, perhaps we should spend our time on more pressing issues like making sure our breasts are healthy, rather than trying to fight aging—because even behavior that childish doesn’t fool nature.

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Woman holding breasts image via Shutterstock

The post Can We Please Stop Talking About How to ‘Fix’ Sagging Breasts? appeared first on EcoSalon.