Braless Preteen
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In a photo shared on her Instagram Story, Madison, 23, went braless, donning a see-through top made entirely of chains and rhinestones. The garment left much to the imagination, but still perfectly covered her chest.
In Western society, since the 1960s, there has been a slow but steady trend towards bralessness among a number of women, especially millennials, who have expressed opposition to and are giving up wearing bras.[1] In 2016, Allure magazine fashion director Rachael Wang wrote, "Going braless is as old as feminism, but it seems to be bubbling to the surface more recently as a direct response to Third Wave moments like #freethenipple hashtag campaign, increased trans-visibility like Caitlyn Jenner's Vanity Fair cover ... and Lena Dunham's show Girls."[1]
Women choose to go braless due to discomfort, health-related issues, their cost, and for social reasons, often having to do with self-acceptance and political expression. Women have protested the physical and cultural restrictions imposed by bras over many years. A feminist protest at the 1968 Miss America contest is often seen as the beginning of the anti-bra movement, prompting manufacturers to market new designs that created a softer, more natural look.[2]
Bras are increasingly an issue for women and girls. In the past, women and school-age girls have been harassed for not wearing a bra. Women have also sued employers for both attempting to require them to go braless, and for harassment as a result of choosing to be braless. High school-age children were also disciplined and humiliated by administrators for going braless. Administrators and faculty were also criticized for failing to educate male students that girls should not be harassed or given undue attention because they are braless[citation needed].
The word braless was first used circa 1965.[3] Other terms for going braless include breast freedom, top freedom, and bra freedom.[4][5][6] Activists advocating going braless have referred to protests as a "bra-cott".[7]
Researchers and physicians have found health benefits for going braless. One researcher found that women who did not wear a bra experienced less shoulder and neck pain. According to a study published in the Clinical Study of Pain, large-breasted women can reduce back pain by going braless, and they may find going braless as a preferred treatment instead of reduction with a mammaplasty.[8] Of the women with larger breasts who participated in the study, 79% decided to stop wearing bras completely.[9]
Obstetrician Lucky Sekhon stated that women with breasts of all sizes can benefit from bralessness. "Women with larger breasts may initially feel more uncomfortable than those with smaller breasts as their muscles may initially be weak and not feel strong enough to provide adequate support", she says. "Over time, though, their bodies will adjust and naturally start to support the breast tissue appropriately, without the aid of a bra." She states that there is evidence "that wearing a bra can make the muscles and ligaments that support the breasts lazy over time, leading to breast sagging and laxity." She says the belief that going braless for an extended period of time makes your breasts sag is a common misconception. "Women who have gone long periods without wearing a bra often report that this leads their breasts to being firmer, rounder, and perkier over time", she says. Women with larger or fuller breasts may feel more back strain when not wearing a bra, though. "It can take weeks to months to build up the strength in their chest and back muscles for the breasts to become well supported without a bra."[10]
Rouillon noted that all of the study volunteers were between 18 and 35 years old and that the study results were still preliminary. However, he said, "a middle-aged woman, overweight, with 2.4 children? I'm not at all sure she'd benefit from abandoning bras."[17] His conclusions were supported in part by plastic surgeon Dr. Stafford Broumand from Mount Sinai Medical Center. "For younger women, not wearing a bra will lead to increased collagen production and elasticity, which improves lift in a developing breast. Also, the tension on the connective tissue and ligaments supporting the breast can be beneficial to prevent sagging."[18] Rouillon's research has gained currency among some women who use it to bolster the argument that wearing bras is unhealthy and unnecessary.[14] His study is cited by a number of articles that use it to support the idea that it's acceptable for a woman to go braless.[19]
Sekhon says that women who are used to wearing a bra may initially feel self-conscious and exposed when they go braless.[33] But as women go braless more often, they feel more comfortable and free. Women with large breasts feel increased comfort compared to women with smaller breasts.[10][32] Some women who have gone braless while working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic do not want to go back to wearing bras again.[34]
Women wearing a bra often experience "boob sweat", clogged pores, skin irritation, and body odor. They can develop acne mechanica. It is possible to alleviate this problem by going braless.[35][36][31][34][32]
Women welcomed the chance to avoid the normal discomfort that often accompanies wearing a bra.[44] One clothing manufacturer surveyed 1000 women and found that 35% of women were braless while working from home. They also reported that hashtags like #nobranoproblem and #bralessandflawless were common on Twitter.[45]
Modern women have been socialized to believe that perky breasts are desirable. Laura Tempesta, bra expert and founder of bra manufacturer Bravolution, stated, "Lifted breasts are considered attractive in our culture which is why bra-wearing is a cultural development."[72] Women feel pressured to wear bras because society expects their breasts to "stay firm and in the right position", or that if they are braless, it means she is promiscuous, loose, or slutty. An increasing number of millennial women reject these ideas as holdovers from earlier eras when a "woman's existence is for the male gaze."[2][33]
Going braless, which for many years was considered a political statement, has in recent years become fashionable.[77] An increasing number of women, especially those among the millennial generation, feel more comfortable about not wearing a bra, and what they wear is based more on what they want and not due to social norms or feminist ideology. With the increasing acceptance of the Me Too movement, co-workers and others have finally realized that they do not have the right to say anything about a woman who chooses not to wear a bra.[78] Jennifer Maher, a gender studies professor at Indiana University, says wearing or not wearing a bra is no longer "a feminist tenet".[79]
Greer's book The Female Eunuch (1970) became associated with the anti-bra movement because she pointed out how restrictive and uncomfortable a bra could be.[100] "Bras are a ludicrous invention", she wrote, "but if you make bralessness a rule, you're just subjecting yourself to yet another repression."[101]
In March, 2017, actress Emma Watson was braless in a Vanity Fair photo shoot. She was criticized by some[who?] who thought she was a hypocrite for supporting feminism and showing some skin. She responded, "Feminism is about giving women a choice; feminism is not a stick with which to beat other women with. It's about freedom, it's about liberation, it's about equality. I really don't know what my tits have to do with it."[104]
In the 1960s, some hippie women went braless to make political statements about sexual liberation or their relationship with nature and their bodies.[106] In 1966, during the height of the hippie era in San Francisco, two women students at San Francisco State College protested a proposed law that would require women to wear bras by walking topless near the campus.[107][108] On August 1, 1969, an Anti-Bra Day was declared in San Francisco to protest societal pressure to wear constrictive, feminine garments. The protest drew large crowds, blocking traffic, and a few women took their bras off from under their clothing in the Financial District.[109][110]
In 1971, activist and actress Bianca Jagger broke tradition and wore a tailored Yves St. Laurent Le Smoking jacket to her Catholic wedding with nothing underneath. Singer, songwriter, model, and actress Debbie Harry was well known for going braless during the 1970s. Model and actress Jerry Hall set an example during the same period when she was frequently photographed braless and featured in fashion magazines.[114][115]
An increasing number of women question previously accepted medical, physiological, anatomical, and social reasons for wearing bras.[121] They recognize that they wear bras for psychological, aesthetic, or practical reasons.[122] An informal movement advocates breast freedom, top freedom, bra freedom, or simply going braless.[123][124][125][126] There are a large number of magazine articles and YouTube videos in which women describe their motives and offer guidance on how to go braless.[127] Poet Savannah Brown of London published a YouTube video, "sav's guide to going braless", which has nearly one million views.[128][129][130]
In many Western countries, women used social media to show their support of the right to go topless or without a bra. In Iceland during Free the Nipple day in 2015, some female university students purposefully wore clothing that revealed they were not wearing a bra and a few others chose to go topless for the day.[136] Teen Vogue reported that the Free the Nipple movement may have initially focused on being actually topless, but it has grown to include the idea of going braless under clothes. Women are seeking to free the nipple beneath the outer clothing they wear.[137]
One woman[who?] commented, "The reason is that I tried being braless, and I liked it better. It wasn't a political decision, except insofar as everything a woman does with her body that isn't letting someone else dictate what she ought to do with it is a political decision."[attribution needed][127] 2b1af7f3a8