October 31, 2023 • 52 mins
Yep. As promised this episode is about bras. Listen in for my bra journey and how I’m learning to find ways to be at home in my body.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Hey, everybody, welcome back to a new episode of Her
with Amina Brown. And y'all probably remember many episodes ago,
I did an episode about underwear that covers my booty cheeks,
and I said in that episode that I was gonna
come back and talk about Bras, and this here is
that episode. So I'm actually gonna take sort of the
(00:53):
framework that I use for the underwear episode and go
through this same thing related to Bras. So, first of all,
I want to start with what was I told about
Bras growing up. I feel like Bras started becoming really
important in the fifth grade, and this was around the
era that I read are You There, God, It's me
Margaret shout out to Judy Bloom And you can go
(01:16):
back and listen to the behind the Poetry episode that
I did on Margaret and hear a lot of things here,
a thousand things there. But around the era of reading
that book, and in the poem Margaret, where I reference
are you there, God, It's me Margaret, I talked about
really wanting to be a sea cup. That that was
(01:37):
like the cup that I was praying for, and my
grandma pretty quickly let me know as a teenager that
as a woman who was very well endowed in the chest,
that she was basically praying that all of her descendants
that had breasts would not have big breast, would have
smaller breasts, and I felt in a way that she
(01:57):
was praying against me, or praying again, it's my prayer request.
And I also felt, I mean, I don't think this
is really how it works, but it kind of feels
like this is how it works. It feels like there
could be some relation to prayers and seniority, you know,
and that the amount of years that you have lived
on this earth may or may not cause your prayers
(02:19):
to be heard more clearly or answered more effectively. And
so I kind of felt like, you know, if God
or the angels or whoever's up there helping make sure
all the prayers get answered, I just kind of felt like,
you know, if it's a choice between me and my grandma,
like obviously that my grandma was going to be chosen there,
so I was like, dang, I was kind of disappointed
about that. And around my fifth grade year, I remember
(02:43):
very distinctly that training brides were becoming very popular, and
this is sort of like a duality existing at the
same time because my friends and I are sneaking into
the library. It's kind of funny now that we were
sneaking because this book, are you their God? It to
me Margaret is clearly sitting in the library. It's not
in some sort of section that we're not supposed to read.
(03:05):
It's just sitting in the library like regular But we
could not believe that this book was there talking about
training bras and periods, which was stuff that we really
wanted to know something about. And for those of you
listening that grew up with the Internet, this is what
it was like to grow up without the Internet. You
literally had to go to a library and look through
the Dewey decimal System, etc. To actually find a book
(03:27):
that had this information. And so that was the closest
we had to anything that was like a chat room
where we could talk to other girls our same age
was reading Judy Bloom's book in the voice of this
twelve year old girl, Margaret. I remember there was a
girl named Shannon that I went to school with, and
(03:48):
I feel like my first instance of noticing training bras
was in gym class, and I'm thinking I probably had
physical education at some other years of school, but somewhere
between fifth and sixth grade, it became a gym class
that we needed to change clothes for. We were going
(04:10):
to change our clothes into like our gym clothes instead
of just having physical education class and wearing whatever we
wore to school, which is making me think that maybe
this was sixth grade, maybe into fifth grade or into
sixth grade. And I remember being in the locker room
and everyone is like changing their clothes, and so, of course,
(04:32):
on a level, everyone's changing their clothes, you are trying
not to be looked at, and at the same time
you're also trying not to look But everyone turned and
saw that Shannon was wearing this glistening white training bra.
I could like close my eyes and remember it like
(04:53):
it just happened to me, and I remember that it.
I can't say that it was like satin, but it
was like satiny in the cup part. And everyone ooed
and odd over her training bra and we were all like,
where'd you get that? Tell us what's going on here?
(05:15):
And she said her mom had taken her. If I'm
remembering this right, you know, scattered memories of a fifth
grader or sixth grader here, but I think she said
her mom had bought her this training bra, and they
went down to the department store and this whole thing,
you know. And I also remember that it had a
(05:36):
little like pink rose, like a pink sort of satiny
rose that was like in the part of the bra
that is between the two cups, and I just thought
that was as cute and dainty as it could be.
And for me, I don't know about the rest of
the girls because I really don't remember talking to them
(05:57):
much anymore about training bras. We talked a lot about
breasts later, but in speaking about training bras, I don't
remember talking to them as much. I just remember looking
at Shannon's training bra, and now I wanted that one
like that became the standard for training bras at that point.
(06:18):
And I went home and talked to my mom about
this because my friends and I were talking about We
were talking a lot about breasts between fifth and sixth grade,
and there was a lot of concern as to how
can we get breasts more quickly because there was only
a small number of girls that had larger breasts that
(06:40):
were developing already at that point. The majority of us
had not started developing. And really, we're looking forward to
having these breasts, and we're talking amongst ourselves about how
quickly can we access these breasts? And so this is
the fun part about reading are you there, God, it's
me Margaret, because you're why her do these We must,
(07:03):
we must, we must increase our bust exercises. And I
feel like between this and maybe an episode of The
Cosby Show, there's there's just some conversation around are there
creams you can put on your chest that will make
your breast grow? Like, there was a lot of conversation
around how can we get these breasts to happen? And
I think between Shannon's training bra and reading in Margaret's
(07:25):
voice in this book about her own experiences with training bras,
that was when I was really like, you know, maybe
it is the training bra. Maybe it's that you sort
of in my particular like Pentecostal, charismatic type of upbringing.
Maybe you wear the bra by faith, you know, like
(07:47):
you you wear the bra for the for the titties
you want, you know, for those of you that are
into manifestation. You know, you you wear the training bra
for the titties that you would like to have type
of thing. So that really got me fixated on training bras.
I went to my mama and basically, you know, let
her know that this was a very necessary thing. This
(08:07):
is a rite of passage now that we need to
go down to the department store and get this bra.
I mean, I didn't tell her all about Shannon, but
I'm thinking if I say these words, maybe my mom
is going to be like, Okay, let's go down there
and get you something.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
You know.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
But my mom, like, you know, somewhat lovingly looked at
my chest and was just like, I don't see it,
Like I don't see training bra for you. And at
the time I thought that she was looking at my
chest and saying, because you don't have any breasts, I'm
(08:42):
not buying a training bra for you. But my mom
and I recently talked about this now from both of
us being adult women, and she said her main concern
was that it wasn't just that I didn't have breasts yet,
but she felt like I was still a little girl
and I should be able to enjoy my time as
(09:02):
a little girl and not transition too quickly, you know,
into the age I might be where I would need
a bra, you know. So it's like now as an
adult woman, I can see my mom's like mom perspective
on that, but as a preteen, I was not feeling
my mom on that. Also, at this era of pre pubescence,
(09:23):
I am one of the tall girls in class. I'm
just arms and legs and lanky limbs all over the place.
So I was very much like sort of what I
felt was like rectangle shaped, you know. I didn't really
have curves in any way. And of course this is
an era of time that is generally awkward, you know.
(09:46):
But I felt the awkwardness of being taller than a
lot of people in my class. And I felt the
awkwardness that I wasn't sure I had a feminine body,
you know, and I really longed to have that. So
I'm having all these conversations with my mom about this.
But I would later learn about myself that I generally
(10:07):
have been a late bloomer in almost every area. Like
the age group of when you could start your period
when I was growing up was between nine and fourteen,
and I was indeed fourteen when my period started. So
in almost every area of life, I have been a
late bloomer. And now looking back on myself, this was
(10:30):
also true about my chest size, you know that these
breasts I was looking for were just not going to
come to me during this season of life. So I
went a long time where I just wore kind of
like my mom would buy me, like camousols or kind
of like undershirts to wear underthings. And by the time
(10:51):
I got into sixth grade, and I remember this pretty
particularly because I'm pretty sure now that I'm talking to
you all about it, that I saw Shannon's training bra
in fifth grade and I was living in Maryland at
the time, and then my first half of sixth grade,
I was still living in Maryland, but my mom ended
up re enlisting into the military and we ended up
(11:14):
moving to Texas. So over that Christmas break of sixth grade,
we moved from Maryland to Texas. Right, So, of course,
you know, this is a time where like your body
is just everything is changing so quickly. So I remember
being a girl who was not wearing bras at all,
you know, in school, and by the time I got
(11:34):
into my new school in Texas, this is like January,
you know, of that year. You know, not to mention
no insert commentary here about the awkwardness of moving in
the middle of your sixth grade year. I remember that
caused me like a particular kind of heartbreak because we
had been in Maryland since I was the second grader,
and I had just made it to sixth grade, which
(11:55):
in Maryland is middle school. So I had a locker,
and I think we had block schedules, so you had
like certain classes on certain days. You know, they were
already kind of preparing us for what our high school
schedule would be like, even at sixth grade and moving
to Texas and being separated from, you know, my best
(12:16):
friend there in Maryland, whose name was Portia. And also
the invisibility of moving in the middle of Christmas break
that it wasn't like you got that end of school
time where you could, you know, maybe have some get
togethers with your friends. It was like I kind of
just had to. I felt like I was moving in
the quiet of night because everyone was with their families,
(12:38):
you know, doing holiday things, and here I was moving
with my family across the country. Right. So I remember
distinctly getting to this Texas school, which which had its
own layers of awkwardness. You know, I'm already moving there
as the new girl. Texas sixth grade is not considered
middle school sixth grade is considered your life last year
(13:00):
of elementary school, so in a way, even though I
was in the same grade, it kind of felt like
I was taking a step back. I went from lockers
to the cubby holes where you put your snacks and
stuff like that, and I really resented that. And the
school district that I was in in Texas was behind
the school district that I had been in in Maryland,
So I definitely entered that moment in a very high
(13:23):
sudity way that I don't recommend. I was definitely like, Wow,
this place is terrible, and you guys just like it
because y'all never been any place. I'm pretty sure I
said that to some people, which is why didn't have
very many friends. But I remember at a certain point
that year, towards before the end of sixth grade, I
(13:43):
remember being in class and I remember two boys turned
around in class and I saw them looking at my
chest and like whispering among themselves and laughing or whatever
they were doing, and I just remember feeling so awkward
and so embarrassed. And that was probably the first time
that I felt like, now I need a bra which
(14:05):
I think at that point my mom did move forward
with actually getting me a bra, but waited until you know,
I was getting to the point where now these breasts
are showing themselves in this different way out, you know,
beyond what could be helped with an undershirt.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Right.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
I also want to give a shout out, sort of
like a slightly shady shout out to my cousin Tabitha.
This was a moment that I remember two distinct family
moments regarding having breast growing up. I guess it is
a shady shout out to my great grandmother, my grandma
Sudy also, who you probably have heard me if you've
heard me perform, you probably have heard me talk about her.
But this is a very different story than the stories
(14:46):
I normally tell of her. So I remember, around the
same time of life, we had gone back to North Carolina,
which was my mom and dad's hometown, and my mom
had taken me back there. I don't think I can't
remember if my sister had been born yet, so I
can't remember. Yeah, she probably had been born if I
was like fifth or sixth grade. So we went back
(15:07):
to see my grandma, and my grandma's Sudie had had
in Physima. She worked in a tobacco factory for a
long time. So this was before there were any safety
considerations given to people who were working in tobacco factories. Right,
So she had in physima as if she had smoked,
you know, packs of cigarettes all her life, even though
(15:27):
she didn't. So she had reached the point where she
had gotten sick enough that she would kind of have
to be like, you know, in a wheelchair because she
would get out of breath so quickly, you know, just
walking and different things like that. And this was my
first time I think seeing her in the wheelchair that
I can remember. And so, you know, Grandma wheeled her
in and I think a few of us were there.
(15:48):
So I don't remember if this was like a holiday
or the summertime where family was kind of getting together
for a reunion or something. I don't remember, but I
remember my grandma wheeled my grandma Suity into the room,
and you know, she's reminding her of all of us,
and you remember Mina, you know, she's telling her that
and my grandma suit He said, well, Bert, were are
(16:08):
her breasts. And if you want to know how a
sixth grader can want to melt into the cracks of
the tile, in the kitchen. Is that moment right there.
And the second one was when I was a little
bit older, probably when I was like fifteen or so.
My cousin Diane, she had she had two daughters. We
(16:32):
actually just went to her youngest daughter's wedding, my cousin Stephanie.
So shout out to Stephanie and Tabitha. Tabitha was the
older sister, and so Tabitha and my sister were kind
of close in age. Right. So around this time, Tabitha's
probably like three or four years old and Stephanie was
a baby. So cousin Diane had asked my mom and
I we would come over and watch the girls, you know,
(16:53):
while she had to go out. So my mom and
I went there and we're keeping the girls, and you know,
Stephanie was probably like less than a year old, so
she was pretty easy and Tabitha was too. Until it
was time to like start picking up toys and getting
ready to go to bed, and so I talked to
her the same way I would talk to my sister.
So I was like, okay, like let's go ahead and
(17:13):
pick up these toys. Let's let's get ready, so we can,
you know, get ready for bed, and Tabitha looked at me,
and then she looked at my mom and she said,
but she doesn't even have any breasts. I don't have
to listen to her. First of all, I applaud my
cousin Tabitha in a way for the logic, for the
(17:34):
logic being that that is how she knew it's a
grown ass woman, you know, Like, that's how she knew. Oh,
you grown by the size of the titty. So if
I don't see a certain size of titty, then I
don't need to respect you. There's a certain part of
that logic that is very, very funny. But from my
teenage self, it was a wamp wamp womp kind of moment, like, yikes,
(17:58):
I'm trying everything I can to find these breast. I
don't know where they are, I don't know how I
get to them, but I'm trying to find them. So
all these years later that I have now become a
girl who was in the big titty club, Tabatha and
I had a very good laugh as adult women because
I saw her many years later and was like, do
you remember saying this to me as a child. She
did not remember it at all. And then I said,
(18:19):
but now you do have to listen to me, like
you have to listen to every word I say. So
we had a very good time. We had a very
good time talking about that. Here has been my bra evolution.
(18:42):
I'm pretty sure that my first bras came in a box, right.
I feel like we were not target shoppers at this time,
so I'm imagining this may have been like a JC
Penny Sear. It's not even talking about like a Macy's
shout out to y'all that are old enough to remember
folies back in the day, or Dillard's. I'm pretty sure
(19:05):
these were Sears JC Penney situations, and you would go
there and pick your size, and each of the bras
came in a little box. I'm pretty sure those were
my first bras, and then sort of graduates to Walmart
or the random low, lower cost department store. Right, That's
(19:26):
pretty much what I remember doing all through high school
and everything, and then when I got to college, I
kind of feel like same thing. Maybe by the time
I got to college, I was a person who would
frequent target a little bit more so I probably if
I bought bras for myself, I probably bought them from there,
and then by the time I got into my twenties,
(19:49):
and I've discussed this year on the podcast before that
in my twenties, I went through a church break, and
the church that I had been going to before I
took my church break, they did not allow dating. To
some of y'all that didn't grow up in church, it's gonna
sound wild as hell, but they didn't allow dating unless
you were getting married, which I know sounds like it
(20:11):
doesn't make sense because it doesn't make sense. So it
was pretty much like if you were a scene hanging
out with somebody, and these were definitely church situations where
there was no space made for queer folks. So it
was like, if you were hanging out with somebody of
the opposite sex air quotes right, that you better be
(20:36):
pretty much thinking about marrying that person. Otherwise there was
no place for casual dating pretty much, which made things weird.
Made things weird for the people who were not married.
It sometimes made people, you know, end up in weird
situations when they did get married too, you know, But
that's for another episode. So I never really had concern
(20:58):
through all of my call years because I didn't date
at all through college and I didn't really start dating
until I had left church because there was no way
to date unless I was really gonna marry somebody, and
that just didn't I was looking around at the church like,
I don't really see anybody here that seems like that's
my husband, so I don't know. So I never really
thought about what my undergarments looked like at all, because
(21:21):
I didn't have concern about anyone seeing them because I
wasn't dating and I wasn't having sex, so it was like,
I don't know. I mean, I wasn't even making out
to be honest, like I wasn't even having like a
good kiss at all, so it was like nobody was
really seeing my clavigal, not to mention seeing my bra
per se. So I think two things happened because I
(21:44):
left church and I took like my first ever church
break where I didn't immediately go and try to find
a church to go to. I just started like kind
of hanging out and figuring out how to be a
twenty five year old that just enjoys her life and
isn't constantly like within the rigors church things. So I
think the second thing that happened is I got my
(22:05):
first I mean, it's hard to say if it was
my first real job, but it was my first, like
I felt like a grown person corporate job. And I
happened to get hired alongside three other women that weren't
far from me in age. So I'm sort of like
overhearing a lot of conversation. Between that and I had
(22:29):
joined this online community that was for like single people
in Atlanta, so I would go and hang out with
them too, but I really didn't know a lot of
what they were talking about. But I was privy to
a lot of conversation, hearing about how people were handling
their dates, how they were handling their sex lives, you know,
all these things. And so from that I gathered that
(22:49):
it was important for your underwear to match. I also
gathered that you could be on a date and maybe
the person you're on the date with would see your
underwear somehow. And that was the first time that I
sort of assessed my ragtag bunch of bras and underwear
(23:13):
that I would just sort of grab as needed. I
think at the point of being twenty five years old,
I had not actually bought a set of underwear that match,
like a bra and panti set I had never bought that.
So it was this moment in my mid twenties that
made me go Even at this moment, I was a
(23:33):
person who felt like I was not ready to have
sex yet, but at least for myself to sort of
graduate myself from my teenage mindset and to begin thinking
like a grown woman. You know, I want to have
matching underwear for myself. That sounds nice, you know. And
at this time, the biggest brand for grown woman underwear
(23:57):
was Victoria's Secret. They were really like two well known brands.
I feel Victoria's Secret and Fredericks, And I feel like
Victoria's Secret gave the vibe that it was for. It
was for like all American girls. It was for next door,
you know, the girl next door kind of vibe. It
was for the girls who are good girls but have
(24:23):
certain times that they're naughty, right. Fredericks was for the freaks,
and Fredericks was for the people that want to wear
vinyl and latex and animal print and things like this,
that want to have like chaps and crotchless drawls. Like
(24:43):
Fredericks was that place. So at this era of life,
I didn't have no shade towards Fredericks. I just knew
that I wasn't ready for that. Victoria's Secret at that
time was one of the biggest brands as far as
you buy an underwear for yourself, and it felt like
it had elements that were on the edge. It had
(25:03):
like freaky things you could buy, but it also had
like every day like T shirt bras and you know,
regular cotton underwear and stuff like that. So I remember
starting to go in there and that sort of became
my place that I would buy my bras and try
to buy bras and underwear that matched. That was the
first time I remember kind of focusing on that. And
then I arrived into my thirties, and you have heard
(25:25):
me speak on this podcast that I got married when
I was thirty.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
One, and.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Actually got engaged on my thirty first birthday, right and
we had three and a half months in between the
proposal and our wedding. And so one of the big
rights of passage, especially in some of y'all will have
to give me feedback about how this goes. If you
are a person who did not grow up in a
(25:55):
conservative church environment, but in our conservative church upbringing. Those
of us who grew up that way this moment of
getting married, and the types of showers that you have
prior to your wedding are very specific, right, So typically
you would have two different showers. You would have one
(26:16):
bridle shower that was for your household things. This is
the one that the women from the church, you know,
would come to, the older women, your aunties, your mama,
your grandmama, your mother in law. This was the one
where like, they want to get you your casserole dishes,
you know, they want to get you a good set
of hirecks, you know. So you would have that sort
(26:37):
of family friendly kind of bridle shower, right, and then
you would have the bridal shower that was for lingerie.
And I did not technically have a bachelorette party. I
feel like the type of conservative Christian that I was
at that time, I didn't know what I would even
(26:58):
do at a bachelorette party. So the bridal shower that
was a lingerie shower was like the closest to that.
And these were so important because you're not having You're
either I'm gonna tell you, you're either not having sex
at all, or you're at least appearing to not be
having sex. So when you go to the shower. The
(27:21):
assumption is that everyone is buying for you the things
that you will need to love on your husband after marriage. Right,
So I had I feel like, I'm thinking about this
now and I'm like, I feel like maybe I had
(27:42):
two showers. But I feel like I feel like, technically
I may have had a couple of like small gatherings
because I feel like the church we were going to
at the time that we got engaged, they may have
had like some small things for us that were more
like family kind of or into things. But then I
think they also some of the women in the church
(28:03):
also had smaller gatherings that was all like lingerie stuff
that they gave me. And then my best friend planned
a brighter shower for me that was just for my friends,
not for my mom, grandma's mother in law, anybody like that,
but just for my friends. That was my lingerie shower.
So leading it into this shower meant that I needed
to get measured right so that people would know my
(28:26):
sizes what to buy if they were going to buy
me actual lingerie sets. So I went back to Victoria's
Secret It's my old faithful you know. I went back
there and got measured, and the lady, you know, measures
the band, and then she measured my cup and she
said thirty six D and I said, excuse me, She
(28:50):
said thirty six D. I said no, She said yes.
I said no. She said you could wear thirty four
double D if you prefer. And I was like, why
would you make the cup bigger? Why would you make
the cup bigger? I walked out of that store so
pissed off. All I could think was that this lady
is lying to me because I had been a little
(29:11):
bitty titty girl for so long, Like I just could
not imagine how these titties went from being a B
cup because I was an A cup all of high school.
And then I realized as I got into college that
my breasts were getting bigger. So but I never went
and got measured, so I just assumed, like, oh, okay,
my bras aren't fitting, so let me just bump this
(29:32):
up to a be cup. And I pretty much stayed
in the be cup. If a bra stopped fitting me,
then I would just increase the band. But I stayed
in the beacup because I just thought, like I these
is little bitty titties, Like okay, When she said thirty
six D to me. I was like, why would you
even speak to me like this? I huffed and puffed
(29:53):
out of the store. Matt was with me in the mall,
but he hadn't come into the store with me. So
I'm huffed the puffing up to him while he's sitting
out on the little couches they have in the middle
of the mall, and I'm like, you will I believe
what this lady said to me. And I'm looking on
his face and can tell that the measurement that I
have said that is upsetting me is a measurement that
(30:15):
he is hearing that. He's like, yes, I think there
were even some praise. Hands lifted on Matt's side of things.
So I was like, Okay, you're not really helpful to
me right now. I went in Macy's had them measure
me again. She said thirty sixty and I said huh.
And it was a black woman measuring me. She said,
that's you. I was like, oh, how can that be me?
(30:36):
How can that be me? So apparently I had a
hormonal shift and growth spurt in my thirties. It was
like between my late twenties and my early thirties, then
breasts jumped up, and then breasts are even bigger than
they were at that time when I got measured. So
(30:58):
this is what really forayed me into the big titty club.
And I did not realize that I would get to
be a member of the big tity club because my
grandma was praying against it and I had all those
years where these would not be big titties. Although I
invited a girlfriend of mine to celebrate my grandma's birthday
(31:20):
many years ago, so this was the first time in
a long time that she had seen me, my mom,
and my grandma in the same room. She looked at
me and she said, why why would you think that
you would not have big titties? Looking at your mama
and your grandma, like why would you? Why would you
think that? And I wanted to take her outside, to
take her outside and be like, why would you say
(31:43):
that to me? But then I looked at my mom
and my grandma and I was like, you know, I
can see now how that would be coming from me.
I can see now, I can see that I had
come from women of the big titty I come from
women who are well in doubt. I can see that
this might come down to me as well. Okay, another
thing that happens, which I talked about in the underwear episode,
that there's so much about undergarments that also played a
(32:06):
role in my church upbringing. And one of the things
that is an absolute no when you are not just
growing up in church, but when you are in church
settings on a stage as a woman is nipples. I
don't care what size of breast you have, but what
(32:27):
a conservative church is not gonna have is nipples out
of you. This means for women who are preachers, who
are singers in church, who like me, I was performing
poetry in church for a living for a long time.
So this meant now I can't just buy bras that
(32:49):
are cute. Now, I need to buy bras that There
are a couple of thoughts that come with this. One
is as a black woman. Now, this was before there
were companies actually making nude bras across skin tone. Okay,
so the closest color that I would have would be
a black bra. So now I need to have a
(33:12):
black bra because I'm afraid to wear a red bra,
or an orange bra, or a lime green bra, because
then for some reason, if my shirt were to fall
a little you know, a little over my shoulder, someone
is going to see that lime green strap, and now
they will know I'm wearing a bra. This is the
(33:32):
weird thought. Now they will know I'm wearing a bra.
But also I need them to know that I'm wearing
a bra, so I would avoid loud color straps. The
straps needed to be black. Then I discovered in my
Victoria's Secret shopping as as my breast size got to
(33:56):
a certain point that I was like, okay, well, I'm
not a girl who needs like a push up or
needs that type of thing, but I also need a
bro that's gonna give me full coverage so that my
nipples will not be seen through my clothing while I'm
up on stage. Because what my nipples showing through my
clothing could what people who grew up in church are
(34:18):
already saying it out loud, could be a stumbling block,
and we would say the words to somebody, but it
was really to a man that my nipples showing through
my shirt, my blouse, my blazer, or whatever I had
on could be a stumbling block to a man. So
there was a lot of work that women who are
(34:39):
on stage at church are doing to try their very
best to not be a stumbling block to men who
should just control themselves and understand that they don't have
consent to women's body in any regard. That's for another episode.
So I would buy these full coverage bras. I figured
(35:00):
out sort of the right type of bra that they
sold of it for a secret, and I would pretty
much buy that bra and as many variations of black
as they had, and then I would allow myself a
couple of fun colors that I would wear when maybe
I wasn't going to be working in church. And that
was pretty much kind of the life that my bras had,
(35:20):
you know, over the last decade or so. Then the
pandemic hit and y'all, you know, especially during the lockdown time,
during the time period that a lot of things were
happening more virtually you weren't having to go in person
to work or meetings or events. I was like, first
(35:42):
of all, you know, you get to a certain titty
size and now it may require underwire for you. That
could be because of the heft of your breasts, or
it could be because of the length of your breast,
but either way, you can't just throw on like those
tank tops. The getty strapped tank tops that had the
shelf bras. Back in the day, what they called a
(36:04):
shelf bra, which is basically like a tank top, but
it had a little like a little kind of extra
thing of fabric that would sort of like sit under
your breast and the rest of the tank top would
go down to your waist. You get to a certain
titty size where that shelf bra is not going to
do the work for you. It's not gonna do the
work for you, So now you're an underwire girl. And
(36:25):
during my time of being home at the beginning of COVID,
I was like, I don't care about a bra anymore.
I don't give a damn about a bra anymore. Like
I'm at home, I don't need to put my titties
up in a sling for nobody. But then there were
some times that, like I'm on a zoom, maybe I
don't want my titties hanging freely for everybody. So this
(36:47):
is what got me into a bra lette season. Shout
out to Savage Fini. This is my favorite, one of
my favorite. I was about to say one of my favorite,
but it might be like my top favorite bra an
underwear brand right now. I would say Bras more so
because I think Soma is probably really in there for
like my favorite underwear brand as far as like panties
(37:08):
are concerned. Also special shout out to me Undis because
I do enjoy some of their underwear as well. But
for Bras, I think it's Savage Fenty for me because
what I loved about Savage fenty is because Savage Fenty
was a more body inclusive brand than Victoria's Secret was
for a long time. That meant that you could go
(37:30):
and buy like a sports bra from Savage Fenty, and
they would show you, like, what does this model who
wears a small look like in the bra? What does
this model who wears an extra large look like in
the bra? What does this model who wears a three
X look like in the bra? And so you could
kind of see based on different people's body types and
(37:50):
how their body type may have been similar to yours,
you could kind of actually get a feel for how
it would fit on your body. And I I liked
that sometimes there were certain like modifications for you know,
if you wore a larger size, if you had larger breasts,
maybe that meant that the clasps on the back of
the bra that there were more clasp to give you
(38:13):
more support, or maybe that meant the straps were wider,
and I loved that. So then I became a bra
let girl and became a member of Savage Finty and
just bought all the sports bras and bra lettes and
just really lived a very great life. So that's kind of,
you know, where my bra evolution took me. What are
the types of bras that I like? Obviously my favorite
(38:35):
sort of what I would still call a work bra
is cotton. And I have to tell y'all, and I'm
not sure. I'm not sure if this is is good, bad,
or indifferent. But the nipple coverage that I learned being
in church settings, now it's now it's less like it's
less like I feel like nipples are unacceptable, like I
(38:58):
may have when I was younger, but now it's more
like a mental thing that like, if I'm dressed for work,
for a video shoot, for an event, I just don't
want to worry about what my nipples are doing. And
I know if I'm wearing a bra or some other
undergarment that is giving my nipples coverage, I know that
(39:18):
I'm gonna have more confidence on stage because I'm not
thinking about what my nipples are doing and wondering what
they're doing out there. I sometimes feel like, you know,
titties can be very nosy. It's like they kind of
want to be out and about. They want to know
what other people are up to or whatever. You know.
Sometimes they want to be seen, and sometimes I may
not be in a mood for them to be seen.
So I definitely have my standard work bra, which is
(39:42):
a very good support bra that provides me coverage that
I can pretty much wear with anything. Then I have
what I would say is like a sexy or a
date night bra. And some of these are things that
I have because I know that my husband likes them.
But some of these are things that I have because
I like that, I like how they make me feel,
I like how the material is. I have some bras
(40:06):
that I wear just to wear as tops, you know,
or as shirts in a way. I think one thing
that has evolved about my bra life since I have
entered my forties, as well as since I no longer
work in a lot in any conservative Christian church spaces
(40:27):
like what I did when I was in my twenties,
and a lot of my thirties is now I do
have bras of all sorts of colors and different shapes.
You know. They have like balconet shapes that I really like.
They might have a T shirt bra that I really like.
So I like having variety there, and I like having
(40:49):
different bras that make me feel whatever I want to
feel that day, whether that's sexy or comfortable. I also
have less fear of cleavage. I should have talked about
that earlier. That that's another thing that when you grow
up in a conservative Christian church environment, you fear your
nipples showing, and you fear cleavage. You fear the top
(41:11):
titty so bad because the idea of any you know,
beginning of a woman's breast showing in a church setting
is like, now all of the men cannot function, they
cannot control themselves or their thoughts whatever. And so I
do think a part of my becoming a more liberated
(41:31):
self has been embracing my cleavage. You know, for a
long time, I would still like wear outfits that showed
my cleavage, but when I worked in Christian conservative settings,
I would fear having those pictures, you know, like on
online or on my social media. I would be like,
oh gosh, even though I'm out, I need to make
sure I crop the picture or make sure the picture
(41:52):
shows you know, me above, you know, from a certain angle.
And as I've come away from those spaces and as
I've just come into myself more and into having the
freedom to be more of myself, just being like, I
am a girl who you know, is of the big city.
You know, so there are gonna be some shirts or
some dresses I wear that I'm not going to be
(42:14):
able to avoid cleavage no matter what I do. And
cleavage is beautiful and I like it. I like showing it.
I like showing it if I'm going to date with
my husband. Sometimes I like showing it just because I'm
walking around the house or whatever. But I have a
lot less fears of my cleavage showing than I did
when I was younger. And then, you know, by the
(42:34):
time I got into my bralett and sports bra era,
which was also great, and I still do that most
days if I'm at home, that's what you'll catch me in.
Or also, my favorite type of bra is no bra
at all. For those of you who wear bras who
have breasts, y'all know the vibes. It's like, now that
we're somewhat back outside, some of us have returned back
(42:56):
to working in an office or doing things in person,
and again it's like, that's the first thing I'm gonna
do when I get home. I'm gonna take my shoes
off first, because we're trying to be a no shoes house.
And then after that, this bra coming off. That's it.
That's it, that's how that has to be now, you know,
that's what's happening. So that's probably my favorite type of
bra is no bra at all. Well, I hope you
(43:19):
enjoyed going down bra and Titty memory Lane with me,
and I hope it gave you some things to think
about in your own journey, some ways that you can
lean more into your free self, into your liberatedself. So
I will give you a couple of questions to consider
at the end of our episode today. First of all,
I want to start with, when was the last time
(43:40):
that you got measured for a bra? And please go
get measured. And now you don't just have Victoria's Secret
as your option. There are a lot of amazing locally
owned lingerie stores, locally owned stores that sell undergarments that
would be perfect places for you to go and get measured,
especially for my people who are of the big titties
(44:03):
like there are a lot of stores that really specialize
in that. I know we have a couple of stores
like that here in Atlanta, but if you live some
place where maybe you don't have locally owned places like that.
A lot of the bigger brands have this availability. Most
department stores also, and sometimes, you know, getting measured for
your bra can be similar to the experience that we
(44:23):
have weighing ourselves, depending on how we feel about those numbers.
You know, that we kind of feel like we're better
off not knowing, because what if we don't like the
number that they're about to say that We feel the
same way about the scale. Some of us may not
get on a scale because we don't know how we
may feel about what the number says there And in
a way I'm making a comparison, but in a way
(44:44):
it's not quite the same, but that in that small way,
you know, sometimes the knowing makes us afraid, so then
we avoid and we decide that we'll just you know,
be someone who doesn't know what our measurements are. But
our measurements our measurements. Being larger than we expected is
(45:07):
not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing. It
may take us a journey depending on where we are
in our life, of how we can accept what the
number is there. But as it relates to bras, it
is healthy for you to be wearing a bro that
is your proper size. Sometimes we treat our bras like
sometimes we treat our licenses, right our driver's license. You know,
(45:30):
you get your license started twenty years ago, and you
just keep your same weight on there, even as your
weight fluctuates, you know, And so some of us do
that to our bras. But with our bras, it can
be damaging to us, not damaging. Whatever you decide to
put on your driver's license, live your life, you know.
But if you're still wearing the same bra size that
(45:51):
you had fifteen years ago, when maybe your bra size
has changed, it's healthier for you to be wearing a
bro that is actually the the right size for you.
You could have a more comfortable experience wearing a bra
when you are in the right size for you, and
you may end up wearing a bigger cup than you expected.
(46:12):
You may have a bigger band than you expected, but
the best thing is for you to have your right size,
and whatever your right size is is your best size.
It's great. You know, that's when you can really be
in a bra that doesn't have to dig into your
shoulders or dig into under your ripped cage, you know,
(46:33):
dig into your shoulders and all that in this way.
So please consider going to get measured if you are nervous,
Get you a little titty buddy, get you a bra buddy.
My mom, my grandma and I have actually gone together.
We did that one year for my birthday. I think
it was for our birthday. It was one for one
of our birthdays. We went and all three of us
(46:55):
got measured and we're able to actually get a good
bra in our proper size, which is really really important.
So I would think about when was the last time
you got measured for a bra. Try and go to
get measured if you are nervous, take a friend with you.
Y'all can both get measured. And a part of it
(47:16):
is this very interesting journey that we have with our bodies,
with the curves of our body, with the sizes of
the clothing or undergarments that our bodies may need. I
know that that can be very sensitive. For many of us,
it can have a lot of nuances and sometimes a
(47:36):
lot of mind fields in a certain way, and all
of that is very valid. So do what you need
to to care for yourself related to this. If this
is an area that is a very sensitive one, see
if you can have a buddy, if you're prepared for that.
You may be at a point where you're not ready
to go and get measured by anyone, and maybe it'll
(47:58):
be better for you to be able to measu yourself
and the privacy of your home. That's also a thing
that can happen, you know. But whatever our journey, we
want to be gentle with ourselves and gentle with the
bodies that we have, including our breasts for those of
us who have breasts. Right, and if you are a
bra wearer, I think it is good to consider what
(48:21):
is your most comfortable bra, what is the kind of
bra that makes you feel comfortable, what is the kind
of bra that makes you feel fun, what's the kind
of bra that makes you feel beautiful or makes you
feel sexy? And try to seek out those kinds of
bras that I think one of the things I love
about bras and just underwear generally is it can be
(48:44):
something we wear for our partners, for our lovers, for
people like that, but also it's something that we put
on and we could have on the sexiest set of
underwear under a pair of sweatpants. But I love that
about bras and underwear that it's something I can also
do for myself. It's not something just to do for
other people's enjoyments. You can also take pleasure in your
(49:07):
own body too, you know. And the last question I'll
put out there is what are the ways that you
can be at home with your body? And this looks
different for everybody, you know. For some people, the journey
of being at home with your body is about accepting
the body that you're in. For some people, it may
(49:27):
be deciding that you want to change the body that
you're in. That can also be a way that you
can become more at home with your body. For some people,
that is about finding clothing that can make you feel
at home with your body. For some people, that is
a journey of exercise. For some people that is a
(49:47):
journey of finding ways to just enjoy food and whatever
food you like. Like. There are so many layers to
that journey and that will be very particular to you.
But to think about what are some ways you can
be at home in your body, and whatever those ways are,
how can you take steps towards them. That's my hope
(50:10):
for all of you listening, and for myself too, that
I can be at home with my body. You know,
even the body that I have in my forties is
not the same as the body that I had in
my thirties, and not the same in my twenties, and
won't be the same as the body I'll have in
my sixties. You know, all of us will experience those
various changes, not to mention all of the things that
(50:32):
we may have taken in, you know, from our families,
from our religions, from bad relationships. You know, we're going
to have some negative things that are said about our
bodies too, But we can speak back to our bodies
the good things we can hold our bodies. I remember
being in public floor therapy once, and I you know,
(50:56):
first of all a thousand things I could say to
y'all about public floor therapy, but I was kind of
working through some trauma there and my public floor therapist
looked at me. And for those of you aren't familiar
with public floor therapy. Public floor therapy is like a
physical therapy, but you used to physical therapy, and maybe
you've heard that term. If someone has an injury, for example,
(51:19):
if they you know, break their leg or break their
ankle in a certain way, they may have to have
physical therapy in order to strengthen the muscles around that
area in order to be able to walk on it
again properly. Right, And public floor therapy is really physical
therapy for the pelvic floor. Right. And we got to
(51:40):
this point as she's taking me through this physical therapy
to kind of help me, you know, heal from some
trauma I had experienced, and she said, you know, it's
okay for you to just even you know, massage this area,
you know, find a really good lotion and rub a
lotion on this area. And even some of those small
things can be ways that we can come home to
(52:03):
ourselves and come home to our bodies. So thank y'all
for listening and shout out to all of the people
who are people of the Big Titty. Just know I
feel you. And probably as soon as I finish recording this,
I'm just gonna go take my bra off because that
feels like a right thing to do.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
See y'all next week.
Speaker 1 (52:35):
Heard with Amina Brown is produced by Matt Owen for
sober Feity Productions as a part of the Seneca Women
Podcast Network and partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening, and
don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.
Hey, everybody, welcome back to a new episode of Her
with Amina Brown. And y'all probably remember many episodes ago,
I did an episode about underwear that covers my booty cheeks,
and I said in that episode that I was gonna
come back and talk about Bras, and this here is
that episode. So I'm actually gonna take sort of the
(00:53):
framework that I use for the underwear episode and go
through this same thing related to Bras. So, first of all,
I want to start with what was I told about
Bras growing up. I feel like Bras started becoming really
important in the fifth grade, and this was around the
era that I read are You There, God, It's me
Margaret shout out to Judy Bloom And you can go
(01:16):
back and listen to the behind the Poetry episode that
I did on Margaret and hear a lot of things here,
a thousand things there. But around the era of reading
that book, and in the poem Margaret, where I reference
are you there, God, It's me Margaret, I talked about
really wanting to be a sea cup. That that was
(01:37):
like the cup that I was praying for, and my
grandma pretty quickly let me know as a teenager that
as a woman who was very well endowed in the chest,
that she was basically praying that all of her descendants
that had breasts would not have big breast, would have
smaller breasts, and I felt in a way that she
(01:57):
was praying against me, or praying again, it's my prayer request.
And I also felt, I mean, I don't think this
is really how it works, but it kind of feels
like this is how it works. It feels like there
could be some relation to prayers and seniority, you know,
and that the amount of years that you have lived
on this earth may or may not cause your prayers
(02:19):
to be heard more clearly or answered more effectively. And
so I kind of felt like, you know, if God
or the angels or whoever's up there helping make sure
all the prayers get answered, I just kind of felt like,
you know, if it's a choice between me and my grandma,
like obviously that my grandma was going to be chosen there,
so I was like, dang, I was kind of disappointed
about that. And around my fifth grade year, I remember
(02:43):
very distinctly that training brides were becoming very popular, and
this is sort of like a duality existing at the
same time because my friends and I are sneaking into
the library. It's kind of funny now that we were
sneaking because this book, are you their God? It to
me Margaret is clearly sitting in the library. It's not
in some sort of section that we're not supposed to read.
(03:05):
It's just sitting in the library like regular But we
could not believe that this book was there talking about
training bras and periods, which was stuff that we really
wanted to know something about. And for those of you
listening that grew up with the Internet, this is what
it was like to grow up without the Internet. You
literally had to go to a library and look through
the Dewey decimal System, etc. To actually find a book
(03:27):
that had this information. And so that was the closest
we had to anything that was like a chat room
where we could talk to other girls our same age
was reading Judy Bloom's book in the voice of this
twelve year old girl, Margaret. I remember there was a
girl named Shannon that I went to school with, and
(03:48):
I feel like my first instance of noticing training bras
was in gym class, and I'm thinking I probably had
physical education at some other years of school, but somewhere
between fifth and sixth grade, it became a gym class
that we needed to change clothes for. We were going
(04:10):
to change our clothes into like our gym clothes instead
of just having physical education class and wearing whatever we
wore to school, which is making me think that maybe
this was sixth grade, maybe into fifth grade or into
sixth grade. And I remember being in the locker room
and everyone is like changing their clothes, and so, of course,
(04:32):
on a level, everyone's changing their clothes, you are trying
not to be looked at, and at the same time
you're also trying not to look But everyone turned and
saw that Shannon was wearing this glistening white training bra.
I could like close my eyes and remember it like
(04:53):
it just happened to me, and I remember that it.
I can't say that it was like satin, but it
was like satiny in the cup part. And everyone ooed
and odd over her training bra and we were all like,
where'd you get that? Tell us what's going on here?
(05:15):
And she said her mom had taken her. If I'm
remembering this right, you know, scattered memories of a fifth
grader or sixth grader here, but I think she said
her mom had bought her this training bra, and they
went down to the department store and this whole thing,
you know. And I also remember that it had a
(05:36):
little like pink rose, like a pink sort of satiny
rose that was like in the part of the bra
that is between the two cups, and I just thought
that was as cute and dainty as it could be.
And for me, I don't know about the rest of
the girls because I really don't remember talking to them
(05:57):
much anymore about training bras. We talked a lot about
breasts later, but in speaking about training bras, I don't
remember talking to them as much. I just remember looking
at Shannon's training bra, and now I wanted that one
like that became the standard for training bras at that point.
(06:18):
And I went home and talked to my mom about
this because my friends and I were talking about We
were talking a lot about breasts between fifth and sixth grade,
and there was a lot of concern as to how
can we get breasts more quickly because there was only
a small number of girls that had larger breasts that
(06:40):
were developing already at that point. The majority of us
had not started developing. And really, we're looking forward to
having these breasts, and we're talking amongst ourselves about how
quickly can we access these breasts? And so this is
the fun part about reading are you there, God, it's
me Margaret, because you're why her do these We must,
(07:03):
we must, we must increase our bust exercises. And I
feel like between this and maybe an episode of The
Cosby Show, there's there's just some conversation around are there
creams you can put on your chest that will make
your breast grow? Like, there was a lot of conversation
around how can we get these breasts to happen? And
I think between Shannon's training bra and reading in Margaret's
(07:25):
voice in this book about her own experiences with training bras,
that was when I was really like, you know, maybe
it is the training bra. Maybe it's that you sort
of in my particular like Pentecostal, charismatic type of upbringing.
Maybe you wear the bra by faith, you know, like
(07:47):
you you wear the bra for the for the titties
you want, you know, for those of you that are
into manifestation. You know, you you wear the training bra
for the titties that you would like to have type
of thing. So that really got me fixated on training bras.
I went to my mama and basically, you know, let
her know that this was a very necessary thing. This
(08:07):
is a rite of passage now that we need to
go down to the department store and get this bra.
I mean, I didn't tell her all about Shannon, but
I'm thinking if I say these words, maybe my mom
is going to be like, Okay, let's go down there
and get you something.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
You know.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
But my mom, like, you know, somewhat lovingly looked at
my chest and was just like, I don't see it,
Like I don't see training bra for you. And at
the time I thought that she was looking at my
chest and saying, because you don't have any breasts, I'm
(08:42):
not buying a training bra for you. But my mom
and I recently talked about this now from both of
us being adult women, and she said her main concern
was that it wasn't just that I didn't have breasts yet,
but she felt like I was still a little girl
and I should be able to enjoy my time as
(09:02):
a little girl and not transition too quickly, you know,
into the age I might be where I would need
a bra, you know. So it's like now as an
adult woman, I can see my mom's like mom perspective
on that, but as a preteen, I was not feeling
my mom on that. Also, at this era of pre pubescence,
(09:23):
I am one of the tall girls in class. I'm
just arms and legs and lanky limbs all over the place.
So I was very much like sort of what I
felt was like rectangle shaped, you know. I didn't really
have curves in any way. And of course this is
an era of time that is generally awkward, you know.
(09:46):
But I felt the awkwardness of being taller than a
lot of people in my class. And I felt the
awkwardness that I wasn't sure I had a feminine body,
you know, and I really longed to have that. So
I'm having all these conversations with my mom about this.
But I would later learn about myself that I generally
(10:07):
have been a late bloomer in almost every area. Like
the age group of when you could start your period
when I was growing up was between nine and fourteen,
and I was indeed fourteen when my period started. So
in almost every area of life, I have been a
late bloomer. And now looking back on myself, this was
(10:30):
also true about my chest size, you know that these
breasts I was looking for were just not going to
come to me during this season of life. So I
went a long time where I just wore kind of
like my mom would buy me, like camousols or kind
of like undershirts to wear underthings. And by the time
(10:51):
I got into sixth grade, and I remember this pretty
particularly because I'm pretty sure now that I'm talking to
you all about it, that I saw Shannon's training bra
in fifth grade and I was living in Maryland at
the time, and then my first half of sixth grade,
I was still living in Maryland, but my mom ended
up re enlisting into the military and we ended up
(11:14):
moving to Texas. So over that Christmas break of sixth grade,
we moved from Maryland to Texas. Right, So, of course,
you know, this is a time where like your body
is just everything is changing so quickly. So I remember
being a girl who was not wearing bras at all,
you know, in school, and by the time I got
(11:34):
into my new school in Texas, this is like January,
you know, of that year. You know, not to mention
no insert commentary here about the awkwardness of moving in
the middle of your sixth grade year. I remember that
caused me like a particular kind of heartbreak because we
had been in Maryland since I was the second grader,
and I had just made it to sixth grade, which
(11:55):
in Maryland is middle school. So I had a locker,
and I think we had block schedules, so you had
like certain classes on certain days. You know, they were
already kind of preparing us for what our high school
schedule would be like, even at sixth grade and moving
to Texas and being separated from, you know, my best
(12:16):
friend there in Maryland, whose name was Portia. And also
the invisibility of moving in the middle of Christmas break
that it wasn't like you got that end of school
time where you could, you know, maybe have some get
togethers with your friends. It was like I kind of
just had to. I felt like I was moving in
the quiet of night because everyone was with their families,
(12:38):
you know, doing holiday things, and here I was moving
with my family across the country. Right. So I remember
distinctly getting to this Texas school, which which had its
own layers of awkwardness. You know, I'm already moving there
as the new girl. Texas sixth grade is not considered
middle school sixth grade is considered your life last year
(13:00):
of elementary school, so in a way, even though I
was in the same grade, it kind of felt like
I was taking a step back. I went from lockers
to the cubby holes where you put your snacks and
stuff like that, and I really resented that. And the
school district that I was in in Texas was behind
the school district that I had been in in Maryland,
So I definitely entered that moment in a very high
(13:23):
sudity way that I don't recommend. I was definitely like, Wow,
this place is terrible, and you guys just like it
because y'all never been any place. I'm pretty sure I
said that to some people, which is why didn't have
very many friends. But I remember at a certain point
that year, towards before the end of sixth grade, I
(13:43):
remember being in class and I remember two boys turned
around in class and I saw them looking at my
chest and like whispering among themselves and laughing or whatever
they were doing, and I just remember feeling so awkward
and so embarrassed. And that was probably the first time
that I felt like, now I need a bra which
(14:05):
I think at that point my mom did move forward
with actually getting me a bra, but waited until you know,
I was getting to the point where now these breasts
are showing themselves in this different way out, you know,
beyond what could be helped with an undershirt.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Right.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
I also want to give a shout out, sort of
like a slightly shady shout out to my cousin Tabitha.
This was a moment that I remember two distinct family
moments regarding having breast growing up. I guess it is
a shady shout out to my great grandmother, my grandma
Sudy also, who you probably have heard me if you've
heard me perform, you probably have heard me talk about her.
But this is a very different story than the stories
(14:46):
I normally tell of her. So I remember, around the
same time of life, we had gone back to North Carolina,
which was my mom and dad's hometown, and my mom
had taken me back there. I don't think I can't
remember if my sister had been born yet, so I
can't remember. Yeah, she probably had been born if I
was like fifth or sixth grade. So we went back
(15:07):
to see my grandma, and my grandma's Sudie had had
in Physima. She worked in a tobacco factory for a
long time. So this was before there were any safety
considerations given to people who were working in tobacco factories. Right,
So she had in physima as if she had smoked,
you know, packs of cigarettes all her life, even though
(15:27):
she didn't. So she had reached the point where she
had gotten sick enough that she would kind of have
to be like, you know, in a wheelchair because she
would get out of breath so quickly, you know, just
walking and different things like that. And this was my
first time I think seeing her in the wheelchair that
I can remember. And so, you know, Grandma wheeled her
in and I think a few of us were there.
(15:48):
So I don't remember if this was like a holiday
or the summertime where family was kind of getting together
for a reunion or something. I don't remember, but I
remember my grandma wheeled my grandma Suity into the room,
and you know, she's reminding her of all of us,
and you remember Mina, you know, she's telling her that
and my grandma suit He said, well, Bert, were are
(16:08):
her breasts. And if you want to know how a
sixth grader can want to melt into the cracks of
the tile, in the kitchen. Is that moment right there.
And the second one was when I was a little
bit older, probably when I was like fifteen or so.
My cousin Diane, she had she had two daughters. We
(16:32):
actually just went to her youngest daughter's wedding, my cousin Stephanie.
So shout out to Stephanie and Tabitha. Tabitha was the
older sister, and so Tabitha and my sister were kind
of close in age. Right. So around this time, Tabitha's
probably like three or four years old and Stephanie was
a baby. So cousin Diane had asked my mom and
I we would come over and watch the girls, you know,
(16:53):
while she had to go out. So my mom and
I went there and we're keeping the girls, and you know,
Stephanie was probably like less than a year old, so
she was pretty easy and Tabitha was too. Until it
was time to like start picking up toys and getting
ready to go to bed, and so I talked to
her the same way I would talk to my sister.
So I was like, okay, like let's go ahead and
(17:13):
pick up these toys. Let's let's get ready, so we can,
you know, get ready for bed, and Tabitha looked at me,
and then she looked at my mom and she said,
but she doesn't even have any breasts. I don't have
to listen to her. First of all, I applaud my
cousin Tabitha in a way for the logic, for the
(17:34):
logic being that that is how she knew it's a
grown ass woman, you know, Like, that's how she knew. Oh,
you grown by the size of the titty. So if
I don't see a certain size of titty, then I
don't need to respect you. There's a certain part of
that logic that is very, very funny. But from my
teenage self, it was a wamp wamp womp kind of moment, like, yikes,
(17:58):
I'm trying everything I can to find these breast. I
don't know where they are, I don't know how I
get to them, but I'm trying to find them. So
all these years later that I have now become a
girl who was in the big titty club, Tabatha and
I had a very good laugh as adult women because
I saw her many years later and was like, do
you remember saying this to me as a child. She
did not remember it at all. And then I said,
(18:19):
but now you do have to listen to me, like
you have to listen to every word I say. So
we had a very good time. We had a very
good time talking about that. Here has been my bra evolution.
(18:42):
I'm pretty sure that my first bras came in a box, right.
I feel like we were not target shoppers at this time,
so I'm imagining this may have been like a JC
Penny Sear. It's not even talking about like a Macy's
shout out to y'all that are old enough to remember
folies back in the day, or Dillard's. I'm pretty sure
(19:05):
these were Sears JC Penney situations, and you would go
there and pick your size, and each of the bras
came in a little box. I'm pretty sure those were
my first bras, and then sort of graduates to Walmart
or the random low, lower cost department store. Right, That's
(19:26):
pretty much what I remember doing all through high school
and everything, and then when I got to college, I
kind of feel like same thing. Maybe by the time
I got to college, I was a person who would
frequent target a little bit more so I probably if
I bought bras for myself, I probably bought them from there,
and then by the time I got into my twenties,
(19:49):
and I've discussed this year on the podcast before that
in my twenties, I went through a church break, and
the church that I had been going to before I
took my church break, they did not allow dating. To
some of y'all that didn't grow up in church, it's gonna
sound wild as hell, but they didn't allow dating unless
you were getting married, which I know sounds like it
(20:11):
doesn't make sense because it doesn't make sense. So it
was pretty much like if you were a scene hanging
out with somebody, and these were definitely church situations where
there was no space made for queer folks. So it
was like, if you were hanging out with somebody of
the opposite sex air quotes right, that you better be
(20:36):
pretty much thinking about marrying that person. Otherwise there was
no place for casual dating pretty much, which made things weird.
Made things weird for the people who were not married.
It sometimes made people, you know, end up in weird
situations when they did get married too, you know, But
that's for another episode. So I never really had concern
(20:58):
through all of my call years because I didn't date
at all through college and I didn't really start dating
until I had left church because there was no way
to date unless I was really gonna marry somebody, and
that just didn't I was looking around at the church like,
I don't really see anybody here that seems like that's
my husband, so I don't know. So I never really
thought about what my undergarments looked like at all, because
(21:21):
I didn't have concern about anyone seeing them because I
wasn't dating and I wasn't having sex, so it was like,
I don't know. I mean, I wasn't even making out
to be honest, like I wasn't even having like a
good kiss at all, so it was like nobody was
really seeing my clavigal, not to mention seeing my bra
per se. So I think two things happened because I
(21:44):
left church and I took like my first ever church
break where I didn't immediately go and try to find
a church to go to. I just started like kind
of hanging out and figuring out how to be a
twenty five year old that just enjoys her life and
isn't constantly like within the rigors church things. So I
think the second thing that happened is I got my
(22:05):
first I mean, it's hard to say if it was
my first real job, but it was my first, like
I felt like a grown person corporate job. And I
happened to get hired alongside three other women that weren't
far from me in age. So I'm sort of like
overhearing a lot of conversation. Between that and I had
(22:29):
joined this online community that was for like single people
in Atlanta, so I would go and hang out with
them too, but I really didn't know a lot of
what they were talking about. But I was privy to
a lot of conversation, hearing about how people were handling
their dates, how they were handling their sex lives, you know,
all these things. And so from that I gathered that
(22:49):
it was important for your underwear to match. I also
gathered that you could be on a date and maybe
the person you're on the date with would see your
underwear somehow. And that was the first time that I
sort of assessed my ragtag bunch of bras and underwear
(23:13):
that I would just sort of grab as needed. I
think at the point of being twenty five years old,
I had not actually bought a set of underwear that match,
like a bra and panti set I had never bought that.
So it was this moment in my mid twenties that
made me go Even at this moment, I was a
(23:33):
person who felt like I was not ready to have
sex yet, but at least for myself to sort of
graduate myself from my teenage mindset and to begin thinking
like a grown woman. You know, I want to have
matching underwear for myself. That sounds nice, you know. And
at this time, the biggest brand for grown woman underwear
(23:57):
was Victoria's Secret. They were really like two well known brands.
I feel Victoria's Secret and Fredericks, And I feel like
Victoria's Secret gave the vibe that it was for. It
was for like all American girls. It was for next door,
you know, the girl next door kind of vibe. It
was for the girls who are good girls but have
(24:23):
certain times that they're naughty, right. Fredericks was for the freaks,
and Fredericks was for the people that want to wear
vinyl and latex and animal print and things like this,
that want to have like chaps and crotchless drawls. Like
(24:43):
Fredericks was that place. So at this era of life,
I didn't have no shade towards Fredericks. I just knew
that I wasn't ready for that. Victoria's Secret at that
time was one of the biggest brands as far as
you buy an underwear for yourself, and it felt like
it had elements that were on the edge. It had
(25:03):
like freaky things you could buy, but it also had
like every day like T shirt bras and you know,
regular cotton underwear and stuff like that. So I remember
starting to go in there and that sort of became
my place that I would buy my bras and try
to buy bras and underwear that matched. That was the
first time I remember kind of focusing on that. And
then I arrived into my thirties, and you have heard
(25:25):
me speak on this podcast that I got married when
I was thirty.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
One, and.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Actually got engaged on my thirty first birthday, right and
we had three and a half months in between the
proposal and our wedding. And so one of the big
rights of passage, especially in some of y'all will have
to give me feedback about how this goes. If you
are a person who did not grow up in a
(25:55):
conservative church environment, but in our conservative church upbringing. Those
of us who grew up that way this moment of
getting married, and the types of showers that you have
prior to your wedding are very specific, right, So typically
you would have two different showers. You would have one
(26:16):
bridle shower that was for your household things. This is
the one that the women from the church, you know,
would come to, the older women, your aunties, your mama,
your grandmama, your mother in law. This was the one
where like, they want to get you your casserole dishes,
you know, they want to get you a good set
of hirecks, you know. So you would have that sort
(26:37):
of family friendly kind of bridle shower, right, and then
you would have the bridal shower that was for lingerie.
And I did not technically have a bachelorette party. I
feel like the type of conservative Christian that I was
at that time, I didn't know what I would even
(26:58):
do at a bachelorette party. So the bridal shower that
was a lingerie shower was like the closest to that.
And these were so important because you're not having You're
either I'm gonna tell you, you're either not having sex
at all, or you're at least appearing to not be
having sex. So when you go to the shower. The
(27:21):
assumption is that everyone is buying for you the things
that you will need to love on your husband after marriage. Right,
So I had I feel like, I'm thinking about this
now and I'm like, I feel like maybe I had
(27:42):
two showers. But I feel like I feel like, technically
I may have had a couple of like small gatherings
because I feel like the church we were going to
at the time that we got engaged, they may have
had like some small things for us that were more
like family kind of or into things. But then I
think they also some of the women in the church
(28:03):
also had smaller gatherings that was all like lingerie stuff
that they gave me. And then my best friend planned
a brighter shower for me that was just for my friends,
not for my mom, grandma's mother in law, anybody like that,
but just for my friends. That was my lingerie shower.
So leading it into this shower meant that I needed
to get measured right so that people would know my
(28:26):
sizes what to buy if they were going to buy
me actual lingerie sets. So I went back to Victoria's
Secret It's my old faithful you know. I went back
there and got measured, and the lady, you know, measures
the band, and then she measured my cup and she
said thirty six D and I said, excuse me, She
(28:50):
said thirty six D. I said no, She said yes.
I said no. She said you could wear thirty four
double D if you prefer. And I was like, why
would you make the cup bigger? Why would you make
the cup bigger? I walked out of that store so
pissed off. All I could think was that this lady
is lying to me because I had been a little
(29:11):
bitty titty girl for so long, Like I just could
not imagine how these titties went from being a B
cup because I was an A cup all of high school.
And then I realized as I got into college that
my breasts were getting bigger. So but I never went
and got measured, so I just assumed, like, oh, okay,
my bras aren't fitting, so let me just bump this
(29:32):
up to a be cup. And I pretty much stayed
in the be cup. If a bra stopped fitting me,
then I would just increase the band. But I stayed
in the beacup because I just thought, like I these
is little bitty titties, Like okay, When she said thirty
six D to me. I was like, why would you
even speak to me like this? I huffed and puffed
(29:53):
out of the store. Matt was with me in the mall,
but he hadn't come into the store with me. So
I'm huffed the puffing up to him while he's sitting
out on the little couches they have in the middle
of the mall, and I'm like, you will I believe
what this lady said to me. And I'm looking on
his face and can tell that the measurement that I
have said that is upsetting me is a measurement that
(30:15):
he is hearing that. He's like, yes, I think there
were even some praise. Hands lifted on Matt's side of things.
So I was like, Okay, you're not really helpful to
me right now. I went in Macy's had them measure
me again. She said thirty sixty and I said huh.
And it was a black woman measuring me. She said,
that's you. I was like, oh, how can that be me?
(30:36):
How can that be me? So apparently I had a
hormonal shift and growth spurt in my thirties. It was
like between my late twenties and my early thirties, then
breasts jumped up, and then breasts are even bigger than
they were at that time when I got measured. So
(30:58):
this is what really forayed me into the big titty club.
And I did not realize that I would get to
be a member of the big tity club because my
grandma was praying against it and I had all those
years where these would not be big titties. Although I
invited a girlfriend of mine to celebrate my grandma's birthday
(31:20):
many years ago, so this was the first time in
a long time that she had seen me, my mom,
and my grandma in the same room. She looked at
me and she said, why why would you think that
you would not have big titties? Looking at your mama
and your grandma, like why would you? Why would you
think that? And I wanted to take her outside, to
take her outside and be like, why would you say
(31:43):
that to me? But then I looked at my mom
and my grandma and I was like, you know, I
can see now how that would be coming from me.
I can see now, I can see that I had
come from women of the big titty I come from
women who are well in doubt. I can see that
this might come down to me as well. Okay, another
thing that happens, which I talked about in the underwear episode,
that there's so much about undergarments that also played a
(32:06):
role in my church upbringing. And one of the things
that is an absolute no when you are not just
growing up in church, but when you are in church
settings on a stage as a woman is nipples. I
don't care what size of breast you have, but what
(32:27):
a conservative church is not gonna have is nipples out
of you. This means for women who are preachers, who
are singers in church, who like me, I was performing
poetry in church for a living for a long time.
So this meant now I can't just buy bras that
(32:49):
are cute. Now, I need to buy bras that There
are a couple of thoughts that come with this. One
is as a black woman. Now, this was before there
were companies actually making nude bras across skin tone. Okay,
so the closest color that I would have would be
a black bra. So now I need to have a
(33:12):
black bra because I'm afraid to wear a red bra,
or an orange bra, or a lime green bra, because
then for some reason, if my shirt were to fall
a little you know, a little over my shoulder, someone
is going to see that lime green strap, and now
they will know I'm wearing a bra. This is the
(33:32):
weird thought. Now they will know I'm wearing a bra.
But also I need them to know that I'm wearing
a bra, so I would avoid loud color straps. The
straps needed to be black. Then I discovered in my
Victoria's Secret shopping as as my breast size got to
(33:56):
a certain point that I was like, okay, well, I'm
not a girl who needs like a push up or
needs that type of thing, but I also need a
bro that's gonna give me full coverage so that my
nipples will not be seen through my clothing while I'm
up on stage. Because what my nipples showing through my
clothing could what people who grew up in church are
(34:18):
already saying it out loud, could be a stumbling block,
and we would say the words to somebody, but it
was really to a man that my nipples showing through
my shirt, my blouse, my blazer, or whatever I had
on could be a stumbling block to a man. So
there was a lot of work that women who are
(34:39):
on stage at church are doing to try their very
best to not be a stumbling block to men who
should just control themselves and understand that they don't have
consent to women's body in any regard. That's for another episode.
So I would buy these full coverage bras. I figured
(35:00):
out sort of the right type of bra that they
sold of it for a secret, and I would pretty
much buy that bra and as many variations of black
as they had, and then I would allow myself a
couple of fun colors that I would wear when maybe
I wasn't going to be working in church. And that
was pretty much kind of the life that my bras had,
(35:20):
you know, over the last decade or so. Then the
pandemic hit and y'all, you know, especially during the lockdown time,
during the time period that a lot of things were
happening more virtually you weren't having to go in person
to work or meetings or events. I was like, first
(35:42):
of all, you know, you get to a certain titty
size and now it may require underwire for you. That
could be because of the heft of your breasts, or
it could be because of the length of your breast,
but either way, you can't just throw on like those
tank tops. The getty strapped tank tops that had the
shelf bras. Back in the day, what they called a
(36:04):
shelf bra, which is basically like a tank top, but
it had a little like a little kind of extra
thing of fabric that would sort of like sit under
your breast and the rest of the tank top would
go down to your waist. You get to a certain
titty size where that shelf bra is not going to
do the work for you. It's not gonna do the
work for you, So now you're an underwire girl. And
(36:25):
during my time of being home at the beginning of COVID,
I was like, I don't care about a bra anymore.
I don't give a damn about a bra anymore. Like
I'm at home, I don't need to put my titties
up in a sling for nobody. But then there were
some times that, like I'm on a zoom, maybe I
don't want my titties hanging freely for everybody. So this
(36:47):
is what got me into a bra lette season. Shout
out to Savage Fini. This is my favorite, one of
my favorite. I was about to say one of my favorite,
but it might be like my top favorite bra an
underwear brand right now. I would say Bras more so
because I think Soma is probably really in there for
like my favorite underwear brand as far as like panties
(37:08):
are concerned. Also special shout out to me Undis because
I do enjoy some of their underwear as well. But
for Bras, I think it's Savage Fenty for me because
what I loved about Savage fenty is because Savage Fenty
was a more body inclusive brand than Victoria's Secret was
for a long time. That meant that you could go
(37:30):
and buy like a sports bra from Savage Fenty, and
they would show you, like, what does this model who
wears a small look like in the bra? What does
this model who wears an extra large look like in
the bra? What does this model who wears a three
X look like in the bra? And so you could
kind of see based on different people's body types and
(37:50):
how their body type may have been similar to yours,
you could kind of actually get a feel for how
it would fit on your body. And I I liked
that sometimes there were certain like modifications for you know,
if you wore a larger size, if you had larger breasts,
maybe that meant that the clasps on the back of
the bra that there were more clasp to give you
(38:13):
more support, or maybe that meant the straps were wider,
and I loved that. So then I became a bra
let girl and became a member of Savage Finty and
just bought all the sports bras and bra lettes and
just really lived a very great life. So that's kind of,
you know, where my bra evolution took me. What are
the types of bras that I like? Obviously my favorite
(38:35):
sort of what I would still call a work bra
is cotton. And I have to tell y'all, and I'm
not sure. I'm not sure if this is is good, bad,
or indifferent. But the nipple coverage that I learned being
in church settings, now it's now it's less like it's
less like I feel like nipples are unacceptable, like I
(38:58):
may have when I was younger, but now it's more
like a mental thing that like, if I'm dressed for work,
for a video shoot, for an event, I just don't
want to worry about what my nipples are doing. And
I know if I'm wearing a bra or some other
undergarment that is giving my nipples coverage, I know that
(39:18):
I'm gonna have more confidence on stage because I'm not
thinking about what my nipples are doing and wondering what
they're doing out there. I sometimes feel like, you know,
titties can be very nosy. It's like they kind of
want to be out and about. They want to know
what other people are up to or whatever. You know.
Sometimes they want to be seen, and sometimes I may
not be in a mood for them to be seen.
So I definitely have my standard work bra, which is
(39:42):
a very good support bra that provides me coverage that
I can pretty much wear with anything. Then I have
what I would say is like a sexy or a
date night bra. And some of these are things that
I have because I know that my husband likes them.
But some of these are things that I have because
I like that, I like how they make me feel,
I like how the material is. I have some bras
(40:06):
that I wear just to wear as tops, you know,
or as shirts in a way. I think one thing
that has evolved about my bra life since I have
entered my forties, as well as since I no longer
work in a lot in any conservative Christian church spaces
(40:27):
like what I did when I was in my twenties,
and a lot of my thirties is now I do
have bras of all sorts of colors and different shapes.
You know. They have like balconet shapes that I really like.
They might have a T shirt bra that I really like.
So I like having variety there, and I like having
(40:49):
different bras that make me feel whatever I want to
feel that day, whether that's sexy or comfortable. I also
have less fear of cleavage. I should have talked about
that earlier. That that's another thing that when you grow
up in a conservative Christian church environment, you fear your
nipples showing, and you fear cleavage. You fear the top
(41:11):
titty so bad because the idea of any you know,
beginning of a woman's breast showing in a church setting
is like, now all of the men cannot function, they
cannot control themselves or their thoughts whatever. And so I
do think a part of my becoming a more liberated
(41:31):
self has been embracing my cleavage. You know, for a
long time, I would still like wear outfits that showed
my cleavage, but when I worked in Christian conservative settings,
I would fear having those pictures, you know, like on
online or on my social media. I would be like,
oh gosh, even though I'm out, I need to make
sure I crop the picture or make sure the picture
(41:52):
shows you know, me above, you know, from a certain angle.
And as I've come away from those spaces and as
I've just come into myself more and into having the
freedom to be more of myself, just being like, I
am a girl who you know, is of the big city.
You know, so there are gonna be some shirts or
some dresses I wear that I'm not going to be
(42:14):
able to avoid cleavage no matter what I do. And
cleavage is beautiful and I like it. I like showing it.
I like showing it if I'm going to date with
my husband. Sometimes I like showing it just because I'm
walking around the house or whatever. But I have a
lot less fears of my cleavage showing than I did
when I was younger. And then, you know, by the
(42:34):
time I got into my bralett and sports bra era,
which was also great, and I still do that most
days if I'm at home, that's what you'll catch me in.
Or also, my favorite type of bra is no bra
at all. For those of you who wear bras who
have breasts, y'all know the vibes. It's like, now that
we're somewhat back outside, some of us have returned back
(42:56):
to working in an office or doing things in person,
and again it's like, that's the first thing I'm gonna
do when I get home. I'm gonna take my shoes
off first, because we're trying to be a no shoes house.
And then after that, this bra coming off. That's it.
That's it, that's how that has to be now, you know,
that's what's happening. So that's probably my favorite type of
bra is no bra at all. Well, I hope you
(43:19):
enjoyed going down bra and Titty memory Lane with me,
and I hope it gave you some things to think
about in your own journey, some ways that you can
lean more into your free self, into your liberatedself. So
I will give you a couple of questions to consider
at the end of our episode today. First of all,
I want to start with, when was the last time
(43:40):
that you got measured for a bra? And please go
get measured. And now you don't just have Victoria's Secret
as your option. There are a lot of amazing locally
owned lingerie stores, locally owned stores that sell undergarments that
would be perfect places for you to go and get measured,
especially for my people who are of the big titties
(44:03):
like there are a lot of stores that really specialize
in that. I know we have a couple of stores
like that here in Atlanta, but if you live some
place where maybe you don't have locally owned places like that.
A lot of the bigger brands have this availability. Most
department stores also, and sometimes, you know, getting measured for
your bra can be similar to the experience that we
(44:23):
have weighing ourselves, depending on how we feel about those numbers.
You know, that we kind of feel like we're better
off not knowing, because what if we don't like the
number that they're about to say that We feel the
same way about the scale. Some of us may not
get on a scale because we don't know how we
may feel about what the number says there And in
a way I'm making a comparison, but in a way
(44:44):
it's not quite the same, but that in that small way,
you know, sometimes the knowing makes us afraid, so then
we avoid and we decide that we'll just you know,
be someone who doesn't know what our measurements are. But
our measurements our measurements. Being larger than we expected is
(45:07):
not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing. It
may take us a journey depending on where we are
in our life, of how we can accept what the
number is there. But as it relates to bras, it
is healthy for you to be wearing a bro that
is your proper size. Sometimes we treat our bras like
sometimes we treat our licenses, right our driver's license. You know,
(45:30):
you get your license started twenty years ago, and you
just keep your same weight on there, even as your
weight fluctuates, you know, And so some of us do
that to our bras. But with our bras, it can
be damaging to us, not damaging. Whatever you decide to
put on your driver's license, live your life, you know.
But if you're still wearing the same bra size that
(45:51):
you had fifteen years ago, when maybe your bra size
has changed, it's healthier for you to be wearing a
bro that is actually the the right size for you.
You could have a more comfortable experience wearing a bra
when you are in the right size for you, and
you may end up wearing a bigger cup than you expected.
(46:12):
You may have a bigger band than you expected, but
the best thing is for you to have your right size,
and whatever your right size is is your best size.
It's great. You know, that's when you can really be
in a bra that doesn't have to dig into your
shoulders or dig into under your ripped cage, you know,
(46:33):
dig into your shoulders and all that in this way.
So please consider going to get measured if you are nervous,
Get you a little titty buddy, get you a bra buddy.
My mom, my grandma and I have actually gone together.
We did that one year for my birthday. I think
it was for our birthday. It was one for one
of our birthdays. We went and all three of us
(46:55):
got measured and we're able to actually get a good
bra in our proper size, which is really really important.
So I would think about when was the last time
you got measured for a bra. Try and go to
get measured if you are nervous, take a friend with you.
Y'all can both get measured. And a part of it
(47:16):
is this very interesting journey that we have with our bodies,
with the curves of our body, with the sizes of
the clothing or undergarments that our bodies may need. I
know that that can be very sensitive. For many of us,
it can have a lot of nuances and sometimes a
(47:36):
lot of mind fields in a certain way, and all
of that is very valid. So do what you need
to to care for yourself related to this. If this
is an area that is a very sensitive one, see
if you can have a buddy, if you're prepared for that.
You may be at a point where you're not ready
to go and get measured by anyone, and maybe it'll
(47:58):
be better for you to be able to measu yourself
and the privacy of your home. That's also a thing
that can happen, you know. But whatever our journey, we
want to be gentle with ourselves and gentle with the
bodies that we have, including our breasts for those of
us who have breasts. Right, and if you are a
bra wearer, I think it is good to consider what
(48:21):
is your most comfortable bra, what is the kind of
bra that makes you feel comfortable, what is the kind
of bra that makes you feel fun, what's the kind
of bra that makes you feel beautiful or makes you
feel sexy? And try to seek out those kinds of
bras that I think one of the things I love
about bras and just underwear generally is it can be
(48:44):
something we wear for our partners, for our lovers, for
people like that, but also it's something that we put
on and we could have on the sexiest set of
underwear under a pair of sweatpants. But I love that
about bras and underwear that it's something I can also
do for myself. It's not something just to do for
other people's enjoyments. You can also take pleasure in your
(49:07):
own body too, you know. And the last question I'll
put out there is what are the ways that you
can be at home with your body? And this looks
different for everybody, you know. For some people, the journey
of being at home with your body is about accepting
the body that you're in. For some people, it may
(49:27):
be deciding that you want to change the body that
you're in. That can also be a way that you
can become more at home with your body. For some people,
that is about finding clothing that can make you feel
at home with your body. For some people, that is
a journey of exercise. For some people that is a
(49:47):
journey of finding ways to just enjoy food and whatever
food you like. Like. There are so many layers to
that journey and that will be very particular to you.
But to think about what are some ways you can
be at home in your body, and whatever those ways are,
how can you take steps towards them. That's my hope
(50:10):
for all of you listening, and for myself too, that
I can be at home with my body. You know,
even the body that I have in my forties is
not the same as the body that I had in
my thirties, and not the same in my twenties, and
won't be the same as the body I'll have in
my sixties. You know, all of us will experience those
various changes, not to mention all of the things that
(50:32):
we may have taken in, you know, from our families,
from our religions, from bad relationships. You know, we're going
to have some negative things that are said about our
bodies too, But we can speak back to our bodies
the good things we can hold our bodies. I remember
being in public floor therapy once, and I you know,
(50:56):
first of all a thousand things I could say to
y'all about public floor therapy, but I was kind of
working through some trauma there and my public floor therapist
looked at me. And for those of you aren't familiar
with public floor therapy. Public floor therapy is like a
physical therapy, but you used to physical therapy, and maybe
you've heard that term. If someone has an injury, for example,
(51:19):
if they you know, break their leg or break their
ankle in a certain way, they may have to have
physical therapy in order to strengthen the muscles around that
area in order to be able to walk on it
again properly. Right, And public floor therapy is really physical
therapy for the pelvic floor. Right. And we got to
(51:40):
this point as she's taking me through this physical therapy
to kind of help me, you know, heal from some
trauma I had experienced, and she said, you know, it's
okay for you to just even you know, massage this area,
you know, find a really good lotion and rub a
lotion on this area. And even some of those small
things can be ways that we can come home to
(52:03):
ourselves and come home to our bodies. So thank y'all
for listening and shout out to all of the people
who are people of the Big Titty. Just know I
feel you. And probably as soon as I finish recording this,
I'm just gonna go take my bra off because that
feels like a right thing to do.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
See y'all next week.
Speaker 1 (52:35):
Heard with Amina Brown is produced by Matt Owen for
sober Feity Productions as a part of the Seneca Women
Podcast Network and partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening, and
don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.
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