Dealbreaker: Push-Up Bra
The anxiety of the not-so-big reveal.
by Nicole Repice
May 16, 2007
I had been raised to own two bras: the clean one and the dirty one. I didn't believe in false advertising, faking orgasms, or that the Republicans would ever win. Thus, I boycotted padded bras. I was perfectly okay — just fine, dammit — with my small but perky endowment. My breasts may have been average, but my intellect and youthful enthusiasm could fill a double-D. True, bartenders ignored my orders while handing my busty friend Tabitha free shots. I didn't even enter the "best chest" contest like my pal Stacey did. (And won. At a gay bar). And I certainly couldn't hold a bottle of Jack Daniels and pour it into a shot glass — using no hands but just one, voluptuous, earth-goddess breast — like my friend Alba. Men stared at my eyes when they met me.
Then I spent a summer working at Victoria's Secret. I ate lunch every day under a billboard-sized poster of Stephanie Seymour, lounging on breasts the size of pillows, which were resting on actual pillows. It only seemed sensible to put the employee discount to use. I began with a slightly padded bra — just a little extra foam to round out the edges. Then a regular padded bra went on sale. It was a short, slippery slope to the ultimate in padded, push-up bras, with cups thick enough to stop bullets and enough underwire for MacGyver to build an impromptu bridge. If I took a deep breath, I popped buttons.
Now I knew why they were called miracle bras. I admired my new assets as much as the guys I met did. It still seemed inconceivable that I had real, live cleavage. Not just boobs — cleavage. Paris Hilton and her new push-up bra know what I'm talking about. My breasts rose in little hillocks above my tank top; like Nerf balls, you could push down on them and they'd bounce right back. I felt like the best of all French whores in Hollywood corsets. There was a perfect dovetail crease where my breasts now actually touched. I could, like Molly Ringwald, stick a tube of lipstick in there and apply it, sans hands.
I bought a rainbow assortment of low-cut shirts, and flaunted my newfound girlfriends in every bar, park and concert venue in town. It wasn't long before I moved from enjoying my own cleavage (it caught cookie crumbs that fell from my mouth!) to wanting to share the wealth.
I was just out of college and at a "sexual superheroes" costume party. I didn't know exactly what this meant — nor did anyone else there — but the apartment was filled with men in pleather nurses' outfits, women dressed as Bond girls, a guy in a tux with a green Afro wig sprouting from his open fly and anal lube next to the Cheerios in the kitchen. All of this was being hosted in the Midwestern suburbs by an amiable window salesman who would later embrace his Muslim roots and marry a virgin.
One soulful-eyed dude stood out from the leather-and-bondaged crowd. He sported the only humorous costume in the place: his nametag read "Marv Albert." Before I knew it we were upstairs in a stranger's bedroom, and I realized I'd never thought further than, "Look, I have boobs!" Now the lights were off and, like a bad toupee or a third nipple, the truth was about to be revealed.
Intellectually, I was fine with my breasts. I didn't expect him to run screaming from the room when he realized that on the spectrum of boobage, I was closer to a Cameron Diaz than a Pam Anderson. He was a young drunk guy, after all. But still, I couldn't bear the imagined disappointment. The bra — and then his lovely face — would fall in slow motion. He was expecting melons; all I could offer were plums. "Stop." I pushed him off me. "I have to tell you something." Alcohol fumes wavered between us. I decided that revealing the truth — like ripping off a Band-Aid — was best done quickly and with brute force. "These [deep breath] are not my real breasts. I [sigh] am wearing [ohgod] a Push. Up. Bra."
I studied his face for signs of disgust, or outrage at my cruel deceit.
He shrugged. Mumbled okay. And removed my bra. I lay back and what joy! What unfettered freedom! He was, in fact, burrowing into my normal-sized breasts like he was a prairie dog and I was the Great Plains. As women can do, even young drunk women, I was half-there enjoying his attentions, and half-musing on how silly I'd been. All this fuss over a little underwire and foam? I wasn't selling out; I wasn't lying; I could still be a feminist —
When a sharp pain ripped into my right breast. Then another — I gasped and cursed and realized: Marv Albert was biting me. Not a little nip. Not a cupcake lick. The bastard was chomping and the night air burned where his teeth had been. No wonder he didn't care about my little white, padded and pushed-up lie. He had a whole other agenda, though I had to admit, he'd worn it on his sleeve. I couldn't be mad at Marv; I'd put my bait out there, and he'd . . . bit. And though Marv didn't care about my confession, other lovers have admitted — after a few nights together or after our relationship ended — that they found my melodramatic monologues "cute" but unnecessary. They insisted that breast size means nothing.
Yeah. Sure. That's what they say. But they still all wanted to fuck my tits.
And while some of my girlfriends are too large to care, the B-cup and below crowd are split. Half declare they'd never wear a push-up because it is — and this term is used over and over again — "false advertising." I think their vehemence against a visual lie just shows how terrified of intimacy we all are. Dating requires that we lay so much bare; it's easier to cut down on the number of fakeries we must admit to.
As for false advertising, my pushed-up friends call this idea bullshit, claiming a big bra is no different than highlighting your hair or taking Viagra. Though a few of my friends don't claim to mind dropping a cup size in five seconds ("all parties involved know that my shit is being pushed up, so when I take it off, there should be no surprise when things 'settle' a bit"), many admit that, though they put on a brave face — hell yeah, it's an awkward moment no matter how much you love your inner goddess.
Among the ladies who push up then take it off, none of my friends have gone for the outright, Catholic-style confessions, the way I did. (And approaching intimate moments with a pained expression and an I-have-to-tell-you-something sigh causes guys to jump to STD- or pregnancy-related conclusions.) So while I no longer dramatically prep my dates about the actual size of my breasts, I have learned a few tricks which help with the big bra reveal.
A quick note: of course, absolute personal acceptance is the best route to go. But we all have our good days and bad, our good sides and not-so-good sides. Do I admire those downtown hipster girls who let their real sagging breasts and luscious spreading thighs be photographed in bad light and torn underwear, all while wearing too much makeup and a "fuck you, if you're lucky" expression? Sure. But I also know one woman who — even after she had been married a full year — would not let her husband see her ass in the light. She would back out of rooms.
Most of us are somewhere in the middle.
I have one girlfriend who practices good posture; she strips, straightens, then pulls her shoulders back into near yogic-poses, thereby raising her breasts a few inches. I don't know how long she can hold it, but she also says using her inner arms to prop up her boobs works when she gets tired. I'm lazier; I often fling off the bra as I grab my partner's hands and form them into impromptu cups — he gets a nice handful but doesn't have a clear view of what's going on. A little moaning, shaking and hair flinging are my distracting special effects. For the beginnings of actual relationships, I unwittingly developed a bait-and-switch routine. I'd sneak into the bathroom before sex, remove my bra and slip on a tight tank top. With some careful placement and nipple tweaking, I looked almost as full-figured as in the bra. Just a lot colder.
And every A-cupper knows that the dark, like a moderate amount of alcohol or a near-sighted lover, can be your best friend. But when the lights are on, the few moments before disrobing are the mental equivalent of lingering on the high dive before you leap. You know it will be okay once you're in the water, but it looks like a long, long way down. But as with so many aspects of sex and relationships, you just have to take a deep breath, pop a button or two and try not to make mountains out of molehills.
©2007 Nicole Repice and hooksexup.com