Racking up the years

Racking up the years
Ros Thomas
The Weekend West Magazine
Published Saturday February 23, 2013

My first bra came from Jayne Mansfield’s closet. At least it felt like it did. It was pale pink satin and doubled as a bullet-proof vest. The label said ‘Action’ bra but that was the last thing I was going to get in it. The hooks at the back were large enough to catch herring, there was not a skerrick of elastic for comfort and I needed to be Houdini to get in or out of it. Houdini, or a locksmith.

That bra came from the bottom of mum’s drawer of antiquity and I’m pretty sure the cups hadn’t seen breasts since 1953. But I was 13 and desperate. It was Thursday night, there was school on Friday and late night shopping hadn’t been invented. My breasts and I could not face another round of heckling from the leering boys who hung on the fence watching our school softball.

That afternoon, my bra-less dash round the bases clinched the game – but my breasts must have sailed over the home plate before I did, because those boys started cheering: ‘Hey yer headlights ‘r on! Yer blinding us with yer high beams!’

I was deflated. And humiliated. So that night, mum dug through her cupboard and unearthed her heirloom bra. I thought I was going to be swallowed in it, but if it kept my particulars under wraps, I was prepared to wear it. And so began a complicated relationship with my breasts.

For 30 years, I have re-played that bra-less home run as my Bo Derek moment. Me: nubile gazelle-woman, running in slow motion, nothing jiggling, just a gentle swaying up front, spectators mesmerised. That was until I took up jogging last year and the man of the house watched me stumble in through the gate: ‘Hey blossom, Dudley Moore would have been proud of that running style. Even sober.’

Having worn a bra since 1980, I’ve grown accustomed to constriction. (Breasts that don’t move are my objective now.) But women are never happy with what they’ve got. Breasts are always too small, too pointy, too cumbersome or just too big: those boobs so outspoken they take all the male attention off your face: ‘Hey soldier – eyes up and front!’

Why are men still fixated on breasts when half the population has them? And why are there so many names for them? In the 50’s there are photos of my mum in bras so pointy they could take your eye out: “Look at the lungs on that sheila!”. By the 60’s bosoms were ‘Bristol cities’ and winging it freestyle. In the 70’s,  ‘A Clockwork Orange’ called them ‘Groodies’ and then foxy mammas went disco: ‘Check out the rack on that chick!’ In 1982, Jane Fonda dressed her Pointer Sisters in lycra and aerobics took over the gym. By the time I was at school we were comparing ‘hooters’ and girls with ‘bodacious ta-ta’s’ were flaunting their assets every chance they got.   

Now I notice two types of women: those who dress for the breast and those who don’t – women are either offence or defence. Some breasts are so properly controlled they’re standoffish. Others aren’t shy enough – they’re in your face everywhere  – spilling out of the waitress’ uniform as she takes your order, or blindsiding you in the supermarket aisle.

I pity men confronted with a pair of barely contained breasts. Cleavage a woman can hide her keys in is like a car crash – no man can look away. I can’t either.

Fashionable women disguise their breasts in wonder-bras and push-ups, minimisers, firmers and separaters. Breasts can be made to look bigger, higher, friskier. It’s not until we get them home that they can really be themselves and relax. (Some relax better than others.)

The breast connoisseur I live with says bosoms quicken his pulse. That’s because until he’s allowed to unwrap them, he doesn’t know what he’s going to get: ‘I’ve never been disappointed. I’m just thrilled to see them in the wild at all.’

My breasts have served me well. They’ve done their hard work putting fat cheeks on three babies,they’ve not complained about getting up in the middle of the night or the endless dawn starts.

For that, breasts deserve some respect. Good manners dictate men don’t ogle women whose breasts are feeding babies. Or breasts that fall out of bathers while their owner gets dumped in the City Beach surf.

Maybe my breasts need to reclaim their charisma. Now I’ve finished with the business of procreation and my breasts can go back to being just for fun, I  have to juggle them into support mechanisms because they’re tired and can’t stay up late anymore.

Sometimes the sight of an impossibly pert pair of breasts makes me pine for those days when I didn’t realise how good mine were. Breasts start out in life as star-gazers and end up as path-finders, but all breasts get their quality time. I’m okay with what I’ve got. I think we’ve finally got the hang of each other.