Budding Breasts Asstr

Budding Breasts Asstr
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For as long as I can remember, bras have fascinated me. Rummaging through my mom’s drawers, I’d find intricately designed lace bras with cups the size of my head. I saw Victoria’s Secret ads of glamorous models with gravity-defying cleavage and couldn’t wait for my own awe-inspiring rack to develop. When I got my first bra in seventh grade, I was disappointed that the Target purchase didn’t magically transform me into “a woman.” I was still the same flat-chested Ogechi. I held onto the hope that my boobs would grow in eventually. I chugged milk and scarfed down ramen (Google told me this would transform my AAs to DDs) in hopes of speeding that process along. To me, bras were the ultimate symbol of maturity and femininity. The fact that my bra size wasn’t that big made me feel like I wasn’t girling right. As my body grew, and I realized that my boobs weren’t getting much bigger, I made peace with my breasts and accepted my itty bitty titty committee membership. I can still fit comfortably into that same Target bra but I no longer feel like I’m missing something because of it.
First bras, binders, and other underthings are milestones in and of themselves. I grew up thinking that everyone’s experience was exactly the same because I only really knew one version. I recently talked to a few friends about their experiences with boobs and the garments that hold them to show how different each person’s story can be. Bras make my friend Mari feel confident and sexy. My friend Izzy was uncomfortable with her breasts but learned to accept them through her involvement in sports. My friend Marlee’s first bra represented a step toward womanhood. Another of my friends views binders as representing “freedom and restriction.” Em forgoes bras all together. You’ll find each of their stories below.
Mari G., 19, she/her, student: I used to pray that God would bless my chest with some killer boobs, and when I was 11 those prayers were answered. My bra size quickly went from a 36B to 36C, and then to a 36D. My first bra was purple with black lace lining and every time I wore it, I felt like I was the sexiest little sixth grader alive. But with that came unwanted attention from all the boys. I remember they would always stare at my boobs. My best friend, whose breasts were growing as fast as mine, and I became known as “the girls with the boobs.” Boys would always come up to us and hug us just to get that tight boob hug. I had a phase when I would only wear a baggy sweater to school in order to hide my boobs. But then I got over that and realized I was a bad bitch with great boobs.
I loved that purple and black lace bra. I kept it until eighth grade, even when the wire started coming off from the bottom and poking my under boob—I would just put some tape over it. Sometimes I’ll find myself in the junior bra section in search of that same model. That bra started my love for sexy bras. For me, bras represent femininity. The right bra can be an extra boost of confidence. I wear red or black when I want to feel sultry and white when I want to feel delicate. Sometimes I feel like my features are too strong—big nose, bold brows, broad shoulders. When all else fails, my boobs and a nice bra can make broad-shouldered Mari feel like a cute, delicate, feminine Mari.
Izzy, 19, she/her, student athlete: I developed early. I was a solid A cup at 10 years old, and was very embarrassed about it because I didn’t look like other girls my age or the women in my family. The idea of wearing a bra made me self-conscious, so I refused to wear a bra for a while. My aunt gave me a sports bra for my birthday in fourth grade and said it was something I “might want soon.” I remember my mom made me wear it to a friend’s birthday party. A boy saw it and wouldn’t stop teasing me about it.
As I got older, my boobs only got bigger. Going on birth control made my cup size go all the way to a DDD. All the women on my abusive biological father’s side are curvy; I associated my breasts with that abuse and developed body dysmorphia. Sports helped me reconcile with my negative body image. When I was a runner, I became more confident in my legs but I was still self-conscious of my breasts because they bounced around so much. When I started competitive mountain biking, I began to see a lot more athletes who looked like me—full-figured BADASS women kicking ass and succeeding. My breasts had nothing to do with how good I was at mountain biking. When I began to really succeed, making top 10 in almost every race, I was much more at peace with my body because I was able to appreciate it for all its capabilities.
Marlee, 19, she/her, actress and high school senior: In middle school, I had just gotten my first “real” bra with underwire and padding. I was proud that I had finally reached a rite of passage, but I wasn’t sure how I felt about the contraption digging into my ribcage. I was backstage at a dress rehearsal of Singin’ in the Rain , in an itchy feather-covered costume, getting ready to go on for a scene. A guy who was going on stage with me was trying to make room for the dancers who had just finished a musical number. He put his hands on my shoulders and slid me out of the way of the growing crowd…or at least he thought it was my shoulders. He had actually missed my left shoulder and grabbed my boob. As soon as he realized what he had done, his eyes got really big. All he could manage to say was, “I’m so, so sorry!” before sprinting down the hallway. I couldn’t decide if I was frustrated that, by sight, my boobs were still indistinguishable from the rest of my body or if I was happy that someone who accidentally touched them could tell what they were. This event was confirmation that needing a “real” bra meant I was becoming a woman.
Anonymous, 20, he/him: I remember my nana taking me to Macy’s to get my chest size measured because she didn’t think I had a “properly fitting bra, which was unacceptable for a young lady.” Having some stranger measure my chest in a Macy’s dressing room was utterly embarrassing. I remember her whispering into my ear, “Wow, a 32D. Some boy is going to be very lucky.” As I quickly put my clothes back on, my nana congratulated me on my “womanhood.”
To me, bras represent restrictions. I felt obligated to wear an uncomfortable, hyper-sexualized object for no other reason than to adhere to societal norms. It also didn’t exactly help going to a Catholic all-girls school, where going without a bra was frowned upon. Binders, on the other hand, represent freedom and restriction. Freedom to feel comfortable about how my chest was going to be publicly received in a way I felt body-positive about. I love my transgender body, but my breasts gave me severe body dysphoria. I used to use duct tape and ace bandages [as binders] because that’s all I could access as a 14-year-old young baby transgender kid. I broke ribs binding before I had the means to buy my own binder with a friend’s credit card—Venmo wasn’t a thing back then. Now, after my top surgery, I am very grateful that I don’t have to wear either [bras or binders]. I feel comfortable with my chest because, as cliché as it sounds, my chest finally feels how it naturally should be.
Em, 16, she/her, activist: In high school, when I “grew” actual boobs and became more athletic, I discovered bralettes and sports bras and made the switch. I have always been very, very, very small, so underwire bras were more of a romanticized rite of passage than a necessity. Then life got hectic and I started to wean off bras all together. For the past two years, I’ve basically only worn a bra when I’m wearing a sheer shirt, when my boobs grow while I’m on my period, or when I want to “look hot” with a lacy or mesh bralette. Older, gross men on the street sometimes blatantly stare, and that really sucks, but a few girls in school who notice what I’m doing have come up to me and announced that they’ve started to wear bras less too. That solidarity is wonderful. At protests, I sometimes “free the nipple” to reclaim the sexualized gaze and call for unlimited bodily autonomy. Taking off your shirt and bra in [New York’s] Washington Square Park is terrifying, but it really boosts your confidence to get genuine support from strangers. Advice to new Free the Nipple protesters: Take however much tape you think is enough, and put on even more. ♦

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Published March 24, 2013 1:00AM (EDT)

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Names and identifying details have been changed.
Over the years, I have called it an "inappropriate relationship." I have called it "an incident with an older man." Most frequently, I have called it "the thing that happened that summer." As in -- remember the thing that happened that summer?
I never called it sexual abuse, because it felt like an overly dramatic Oprah-ization of what happened. The word "abuse" seems to imply victimization and has always made me uncomfortable in this instance. Until now, I have been far too politicized to admit the chief reason I never called it sexual abuse in spite of the fact that it would be considered as much from both a criminal and a clinical perspective. The real reason is because I believed I asked for it.
The summer I turned 12, I went to sleepaway camp. I shaved my legs for the first time, dumped Sun-In in my hair and tanned with baby oil. I had my first boyfriend -- a skinny, freckly arrogant kid a year my senior who took me for two paddle boat rides and then broke up with me, declaring me a prude and, I was sure, ruining my romantic life forever.
I turned from real life to fantasy, and eschewed the hazardous boys my own age in favor of a secret crush on Nathan, the 20-year-old swimming counselor. Nathan was sarcastic and slouchy and unusually stylish for a camp full of spoiled East Coast Jewish kids. His dyed black hair spilled over one eye and he wore his shorts low on his hips. Trumping all, he was from New York City, mecca of all things wild and wonderful. I spent countless hours imagining myself into a future in which I strolled through Washington Square Park with Nathan, preferably on a fall day in between college classes.
Nathan didn’t quite fit in and there were all kinds of rumors circulating about him. He was bisexual; he was friendly with Morrissey; he was a model for the United Colors of Benetton. I, too, felt like an outsider, never able to summon the same gung-ho camp spirit as the other girls. I imagined Nathan understood me in some fundamental way, he just didn’t know it yet.
One morning in the chilly lake, Nathan swam up behind me to correct my stroke and an electrical charge passed between us that was unlike anything I had ever felt before. My whole chest seemed to tighten around it. I was flooded with the exquisite realization that I was not alone in my desire. After that, my crush flowered into something more raw and persistent. I plotted and preened and placed myself in his eyeline at every possible moment. I gave myself asthma attacks and stomachaches with the anxiety of it all.
This went on for weeks before I finally found the courage to seek him out alone. I was asking for it, to be sure, but what exactly was I asking for? I wanted to kiss him; I thought about it constantly. But ultimately, I was asking to be loved, without grasping the possible manifestations that love might take.
The night I snuck out to see him, I slept carefully on my hair, set my alarm clock under my pillow and stationed my white Keds at the ready by my bedside. It was a long walk across camp and the darkness outside my flashlight beam seemed alive and threatening. I was covered in a cold sweat when I arrived. Nathan’s bunk smelled like feet and mold and was strewn with the detritus of the 8-year-old boys for whom he was a counselor. I tread silently, aware that the stakes were very different than those of any of my previous transgressions.
I found his bed and stood over him, trembling with adrenaline. What if he sent me away? What if he didn’t? Finally, I reached out and touched his bare shoulder. When he opened his eyes, he didn’t seem surprised at all. A bright moon hung in the frame of the window behind him and he was only a silhouette when he cradled my face in his hands and leaned in to kiss me. I closed my eyes and tried to memorize it, figuring that it was my first real kiss and I would want to remember it someday. When his breath started to get ragged, he whispered in my ear, “Do you even know how I feel when I have to look at you running around in your shorts all day long. You're so pretty and I can’t even tell anyone. Do you even know what you do to me?”
I didn’t know what to say. Of course I didn’t know. How could I have known?
Over the next couple of weeks I went see him every night until I was exhausted and confused. I wanted it to stop and I wanted it never to stop. Eventually we were caught and he got fired. I found myself crumpled in a chair in front of the camp director’s desk, bombarded with impossible questions like, “What were you thinking?”
The director responded, “You’re 12 years old, you don’t know what love is.”
Which is foolish, of course. I’m a grown woman now and I can say without reservation that I did. I loved him truly and with all the audacity of youth, which is to say with absolutely no sense of consequences.
I don’t remember it with anger. I still remember the initial deliciousness of getting what I wanted, of feeling truly desired for the first time, and in such a transgressive and erotically charged way. And yet, upon closer inspection, I’m not sure I asked for "it" exactly. I was just asking for my longing to be answered, for the suffering to be relieved. I asked with all of the need and chaos of a burgeoning sexuality I did not yet understand.
At the website of the Department of Health and Human Services, one of the qualifiers for the clinical definition of sexual abuse is a “knowledge differential.” It states, “An act is considered abusive when one party (the offender) has a more sophisticated understanding of the significance and implication of the sexual encounter.” This is certainly true about my "inappropriate relationship," my "incident with an older guy."
Whether or not I feel comfortable identifying as a victim, I acknowledge the profound and lasting impact that my relationship with Nathan had on my life. My first kiss was not about pleasure but about power and for a long time those two things became indistinguishable. I learned to trade sex for affection. This was a dangerous lesson for a young girl, and I believe one that ultimately kept me from deriving much authentic pleasure from my body for a long time. And while it would be too reductive to say that this led me to spend a number of years as a sex worker, I do believe that it was an ingredient in the mix.
Furthermore, when it all came to light, I learned that my parents and others in authority positions concurred that the incident had been, at least partially, my fault. I learned what kind of girl I was: I was a boundary-pusher, a rule-breaker, a girl who was always in trouble. This was what happened to girls like me. When the incident at camp somehow managed to make it to the gossip mill at my school, I immediately went from a girl who had never been kissed to a notorious slut.
I wonder what I would have learned from not getting what I asked for. Would I have learned that there are other things about me as valuable and compelling as my sexuality? Would I have learned that some men are trustworthy? Would I have had more options than the ones available to "that kind of girl"?
I recently spent an afternoon at the beach with a friend and her 12-year-old daughter. I noted the sharp lines of the daughter’s body (perfection, by our media’s standards), so like my own at that age. She was dazzling and precious and still unaware of the ruckus she was causing among the male onlookers. I realized that regardless of what this girl asked for, if someone eight years her senior touched her, I would unreservedly call it sexual abuse. In that case my politics and my emotions would have no quarrel at all.
So that is what I will call it. Feelings around abusive dynamics are often complex and ambiguous, but that doesn’t lessen the impact in the lives of the victims. I was abused. And I liked it, some of the time. I loved him, certainly. But that doesn’t change the fact that I have lived with it for the rest of my life and I couldn’t possibly have foreseen the extent of the reverberations. That is meant to be the job of the adults in the equation.
Jillian Lauren is the author of the new memoir "Everything You Ever Wanted" about adopting her son from Ethiopia. You can find her on Twitter @jillylauren.
Copyright © 2022 Salon.com, LLC. Reproduction of material from any Salon pages without written permission is strictly prohibited. SALON ® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark of Salon.com, LLC. Associated Press articles: Copyright © 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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