Amena Brown:
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to a new episode of HER with Amena 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 going to come back and talk about bras, and this here is that episode.
So I'm actually going to take sort of the framework that I used 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 Blume. And you can go back and listen to the behind the poetry episode that I did on Margaret and hear a lot of things, hear 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 C cup, that that was 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 breasts, would have smaller breasts.
And I felt in a way that she was praying against me or praying against my prayer requests. 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, and that the amount of years that you have lived on this earth may or may not cause your prayers to be heard more clearly or answered more effectively. And so I kind of felt like if God or the angels, or whoever's up there helping to make sure all the prayers get answered, I just kind of felt like if it's a choice between me and my grandma, 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 very distinctly that training bras were becoming very popular.
And this is sort of 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 There God? It's Me, Margaret, is clearly sitting in the library. It's not in some sort of section that we're not supposed to read. 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, et cetera, to actually find a book 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 Blume's book in the voice of this 12 year old girl, Margaret.
I remember there was a girl named Shannon that I went to school with. And 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 to change our clothes into 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, end of fifth grade or into sixth grade.
And I remember being in the locker room and everyone is changing their clothes. And so of course 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 close my eyes and remember it like it just happened to me. And I remember that, I can't say that it was satin, but it was like satiny in the cup part. And everyone oohed and awed over her training bra, and we were all like, "Where'd you get that? Tell us what's going on here."
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. And I also remember that it had a little pink rose, like a pink sort of satiny rose that was 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 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.
That became the standard for training bras at that point. 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 were developing already at that point. The majority of us had not started developing, and really were looking forward to having these breasts and were 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 watching her do these "We must, we must, we must increase our bust" exercises. And I feel like between this and maybe an episode of the Cosby Show, there's just some conversation around are there creams you can put on your chest that will make your breasts grow?
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 voice in this book about her own experiences with training bras, that was when I was really like, "Maybe it is the training bra." Maybe it's that you, sort of in my particular Pentecostal, charismatic type of upbringing, maybe you wear the bra by faith. You wear the bra for the titties you want. For those of you that are into manifestation, 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 let her know that this was a very necessary thing. This 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." But my mom somewhat lovingly looked at my chest and was just like, "I don't see it. 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 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 a little girl and not transition too quickly into the age I might be where I would need a bra.
So it's like now as an adult woman, I can see my mom's mom perspective on that, but as a preteen I was not feeling my mom on that. Also, at this era of pre-pubescence, 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 what I felt was rectangle shaped. I didn't really have curves in any way. And of course this is an era of time that is generally awkward, 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, 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 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 14, and I was indeed 14 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 also true about my chest size, 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 camisoles or undershirts to wear under things. And by the time I got into sixth grade, and I remember this pretty particularly because I'm pretty sure now that I'm talking to y'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 moving to Texas.
So over that Christmas break of sixth grade, we moved from Maryland to Texas. Of course, this is a time where your body is just, everything is changing so quickly. So I remember being a girl who was not wearing bras at all in school. And by the time I got into my new school in Texas, this is like January of that year, not to mention insert commentary here about the awkwardness of moving in the middle of your sixth grade year. I remember that caused me a particular kind of heartbreak because we had been in Maryland since I was a second grader and I had just made it to sixth grade, which in Maryland is middle school. So I had a locker, and I think we had block schedule, so you had certain classes on certain days. 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 my best 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 maybe have some get-togethers with your friends. It was like I felt like I was moving in the quiet of night because everyone was with their families doing holiday things. And here I was moving with my family across the country. So I remember distinctly getting to this Texas school, which had its own layers of awkwardness, I'm already moving there as the new girl. Texas sixth grade is not considered middle school. Sixth grade is considered your last year 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 Texas was behind the school district that I had been in Maryland. So I definitely entered that moment in a very high-sidity 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 I didn't have very many friends. But I remember at a certain point that year, towards before the end of sixth grade, I remember being in class and I remember two boys turned around in class and I saw them looking at my chest and 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 I think at that point, my mom did move forward with actually getting me a bra, but waited until I was getting to the point where now these breasts are showing themselves in this different way, out beyond what could be helped with an undershirt. 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... I remember two distinct family moments regarding having breasts growing up. I guess it is a shady shout out to my great-grandmother, my grandma Sudie also, who if you've heard me perform, you probably have heard me talk about her. But this is a very different story than the stories I normally tell of her. 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 fifth or sixth grade. So we went back to see my grandma. And my grandma Sudie had emphysema. 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. So she had emphysema as if she had smoked packs of cigarettes all her life, even though she didn't. So she had reached the point where she had gotten sick enough that she would kind of have to be in a wheelchair because she would get out of breath so quickly 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 grandma wheeled her in and I think a few of us were there. So I don't remember if this was 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 Sudie into the room and she's reminding her of all of us. And you remember Mena, she's telling her that. And my grandma Sudie said, "Well, Bert, where are 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, it's that moment right there. And the second one was when I was a little bit older, probably when I was 15 or so. My cousin Diane, she had two daughters. We 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.
So around this time, Tabitha is probably three or four years old, and Stephanie was a baby. So cousin Diane had asked my mom and I if we would come over and watch the girls while she had to go out. So my mom and I went there and we're keeping the girls. And Stephanie was probably less than a year old, so she was pretty easy, and Tabitha was too until it was time to 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, let's go ahead and pick up these toys. Let's get ready so we can 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 logic being that that is how she knew it's a grown-ass woman. That's how she knew, oh, you grown by the size of the titties. 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 whomp, whomp, whomp kind of moment. Like, yikes, I'm trying everything I can to find these breasts. 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, Tabitha and I had a very good laugh as adult women. 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, "But now you do have to listen to me. 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. I'm pretty sure that my first bras came in a box. I feel like we were not Target shoppers at this time. So I'm imagining this may have been a JCPenny, Sears, not even talking about a Macy's or shout out to y'all that are old enough to remember Foley's back in the day, or Dillard's, I'm pretty sure these were Sears, JCPenney 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 lower-cost department store. That's 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 probably if I bought bras for myself, I probably bought them from there. And then by the time I got into my twenties, and I've discussed this here 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, this is going to sound wild as hell, but they didn't allow dating unless you were getting married, which I know sounds like it doesn't make sense because it doesn't make sense. So it was pretty much like if you were seen 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, that you better be pretty much thinking about marrying that person. Otherwise, there was no place for casual dating pretty much, which made things weird.
It made things weird for the people who were not married. It sometimes made people end up in weird situations when they did get married too, but that's for another episode. So I never really had concern through all of my college 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 going to marry somebody. And that just didn't... I was looking around at the church, 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 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. I wasn't even having a good kiss at all. So it was like nobody was really seeing my clavicle, not to mention seeing my bra, per se.
So I think two things happened, because I left church and I took my first ever church break where I didn't immediately go and try to find a church to go to. I just started hanging out and figuring out how to be a 25-year-old that just enjoys her life and isn't constantly within the rigors of church things. So I think the second thing that happened is I got my first, I mean it's hard to say if it was my first real job, but it was my first 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 overhearing a lot of conversation between that, and I had joined this online community that was for 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, all these things. And so from that, I gathered that 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, that I would just sort of grab as needed. I think at the point of being 25 years old, I had not actually bought a set of underwear that matched, like a bra and panties 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 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, I want to have matching underwear for myself. That sounds nice. And at this time, the biggest brand for grown woman underwear was Victoria's Secret.
They were really like two well-known brands, I feel. Victoria's Secret and Frederick's. I feel like Victoria's Secret gave the vibe that it was for all-American girls. It was for the girl next door kind of vibe. It was for the girls who are good girls but have certain times that they're naughty, right? Frederick's was for the freaks. Frederick's was for the people that want to wear vinyl and latex and animal print, and things like this that want to have chaps and crotchless draws, Frederick's was that place. So at this era of life, I didn't have no shade towards Frederick's, I just knew that I wasn't ready for that. But Victoria's Secret, at that time, was one of the biggest brands as far as you buying underwear for yourself, and it felt like it had elements that were on the edge. It had freaky things you could buy, but it also had everyday T-shirt bras and 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 me speak on this podcast that I got married when I was 31, and actually got engaged on my 31st birthday. And we had three and a half months in between the proposal and our wedding. And so one of the big rites of passage, especially, and 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 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.
So typically you would have two different showers. You would have one bridal shower that was for your household things. This is the one that the women from the church would come to. The older women, your aunties, your mama, your grandmama, your mother-in-law, this was the one where they want to get you your casserole dishes. They want to get you a good set of Pyrex. So you would have that sort of family friendly kind of bridal shower. 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 do at a bachelorette party. So the bridal shower, that was a lingerie shower was the closest to that. And these were so important because you're not having... Let me 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 assumption is that everyone is buying for you the things that you will need to love on your husband after marriage. I'm thinking about this now and I'm like, I feel like maybe I had two showers, but I feel like technically I may have had a couple of small gatherings. I feel like the church we were going to at the time, that we got engaged, they may have had some small things for us that were more family kind of oriented things, but then I think they also, some of the women in the church also had smaller gatherings that was all lingerie stuff that they gave me. And then my best friend planned a bridal shower for me that was just for my friends, not for my mom, grandmas, mother-in-law, anybody like that, but just for my friends. That was my lingerie shower.
So leading into the shower meant that I needed to get measured so that people would know my 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. I went back there and got measured, and the lady measures the band and then she measured my cup and she said "36 D." And I said, "Excuse me." She said, "36 D." I said, "No." She said, "Yes." I said, "No." She said, "You could wear 34 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 bitty titty girl for so long.
I just could not imagine how these titties went from being a B cup. I was an A cup all of high school. And then I realized, as I got into college, that my breasts were getting bigger, 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 up to a B cup." And I pretty much stayed in the B cup. If a bra stopped fitting me, then I would just increase the band. But I stayed in the B cup.
I just thought, these is little bitty titties, okay. When she said 36 D to me, I was like, "Why would you even speak to me like this?" I huffed and puffed out of the store. Matt was with me in the mall, but he hadn't come into the store with me. So I'm huffing and 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 not 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 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 "36 D." And I said, "Huh." And it was a Black woman measuring me. She said, "That's you."
I was like, "Oh, how could that be me? 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, them breasts jumped up and them breasts are even bigger than they were at that time when I got measured. So this is what really forayed me into the big titty club. I did not realize that I would get to be a member of the big titty 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 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 would you think that you would not have big titties looking at your mama and your grandma? Why would you think that?"
And I wanted to take her outside and be like, "Why would you say that to me?" But then I looked at my mom and my grandma and I was like, I can see now how that would be coming from me. I can see now. I can see that I come from women of the big titty. I come from women who are well endowed. 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 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 a conservative church is not going to 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 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. So the closest color that I would have would be a black bra. So now I need to have a 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 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 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 my breast size got to a certain point, then I was like, okay, well I'm not a girl who needs a pushup or needs that type of thing, but I also need a bra that's going to 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 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, whatever I had on, could be a stumbling block to a man.
So there was a lot of work that women, who are 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 a woman's body in any regard. That's for another episode. So I would buy these full coverage bras. I figured out sort of the right type of bra that they sold at Victoris's Secret, and I would pretty much buy that bra in 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 over the last decade or so. Then the pandemic hit and y'all, 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 of all, 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 breasts. But either way, you can't just throw on those tank tops, the spaghetti strap tank tops that had the shelf bras back in the day, what they called a shelf bra, which is basically like a tank top, but it had a little kind of extra thing of fabric that would sort of 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 going to do the work for you.
So now you're an underwire girl. And 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. 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 I'm on a Zoom, maybe I don't want my titties hanging freely for everybody. So this is what got me into a bralette season, shout out to Savage Fenty. And this is my favorite, one of my favorite... I was about to say one of my favorite, but it might be my top favorite bra and underwear brand right now. I would say bras more so, because I think Soma is probably really in there for my favorite underwear brand, as far as panties are concerned. Also, special shout out to MeUndies 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 and buy a sports bra from Savage Fenty and they would show you 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 3X look like in the bra? And so you could kind of see, based on different people's body types and 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 liked that sometimes there were certain modifications for 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 clasps to give you more support, or maybe that meant the straps were wider and I loved that. So then I became a bralette girl and became a member of Savage Fenty, and just bought all the sports bras and bralettes and just really lived a very great life. So that's kind of where my bra evolution took me.
What are the types of bras that I like? Obviously my favorite, sort of what I would still call a work bra, is cotton. And I have to tell y'all, and I'm not sure if this is good, bad, or indifferent, but the nipple coverage that I learned being in church settings, now it's less like I feel like nipples are unacceptable. I may have when I was younger, but now it's more like a mental thing, that 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 I'm going to 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 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. 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 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 them. I like how they make me feel. I like how the material is. I have some bras that I wear just to wear as tops 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 any conservative Christian church spaces, 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. They have balconette 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 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 titty so bad because the idea of any 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 self has been embracing my cleavage. For a long time I would still wear outfits that showed my cleavage, but when I worked in Christian conservative settings, I would fear having those pictures 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 shows me above, from a certain angle. And as I've come away from those spaces, and as I've just come into myself more and I'm into having the freedom to be more of myself, just being like I am a girl who is of the big titty, so there are going to be some shirts or some dresses I wear that I'm not going to be 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 on a 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 by the time I got into my bralette 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 to working in an office or doing things in person again, it's like that's the first thing I'm going to do when I get home. I'm going to take my shoes off first, because we 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. That's what's happening. So that's probably my favorite type of bra, is no bra at all.
Well, I hope you 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 liberated self. 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 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 under garments that would be perfect places for you to go and get measured. Especially for my people who are of the big titties. 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 someplace 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 getting measured for your bra can be similar to the experience that we have weighing ourselves, depending on how we feel about those numbers. 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 it's not quite the same. But in that small way, sometimes the knowing makes us afraid. So then we avoid and we decide that we'll just be someone who doesn't know what our measurements are. But knowing our measurements, our measurements being larger than we expected is 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 bra that is your proper size.
Sometimes we treat our bras like sometimes we treat our licenses, our driver's license. You get your license started 20 years ago and you just keep your same weight on there even as your weight fluctuates. And so some of us do that to our bras, but with our bras, it can be damaging to us. It's not damaging, whatever you decide to put on your driver's license, live your life. But if you're still wearing the same bra size that you had 15 years ago, when maybe your bra size has changed, it's healthier for you to be wearing a bra that is actually 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. 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.
That's when you can really be in a bra that doesn't have to dig into your shoulders or dig under your rib cage, 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 my birthday, it was for one of our birthdays. We went and all three of us got measured and were 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 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 lot of minefields 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 be better for you to be able to measure yourself in the privacy of your home. That's also a thing that can happen. 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.
And if you are a bra wearer, I think it is good to consider what 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. I think one of the things I love about bras and just underwear generally, is it can be 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. And 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 own body too.
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. 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 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 journey of finding ways to just enjoy food and whatever food you like. There are so many layers to that journey and that will 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 for all of you listening. And for myself too, that I can be at home with my body. Even the body that I have in my forties is not the same as the body that I had in my thirties, is not the same in my twenties, and won't be the same as the body I'll have in my sixties.
All of us will experience those various changes. Not to mention all of the things that we may have taken in from our families, from our religions, from bad relationships. 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 pelvic floor therapy once, and first of all, a thousand things I could say to you all about pelvic floor therapy, but I was kind of working through some trauma there, and my pelvic floor therapist looked at me. And for those of you who aren't familiar with pelvic floor therapy, pelvic floor therapy is like a physical therapy, but you're used to physical therapy and maybe you've heard that term. If someone has an injury, for example, if they 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.
And pelvic floor therapy is really physical therapy for the pelvic floor. And we got to this point, as she's taking me through this physical therapy to kind of help me heal from some trauma I had experienced. And she said, "It's okay for you to just even massage this area, 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 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 going to go take my bra off, because that feels like a right thing to do. See y'all next week.
HER with Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions, as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening, and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast.