Breasts are complicated. You dream about having them, but as soon you do, you realize that they come with a raft of expectations, scrutiny and constraint—of both the social and underwire kind. (Mo’ boobs, mo’ problems.) In our Free the Breast package, we seek to get all that baggage off our chest. 

I never had strong feelings about my boobs. They were a reasonably pert B-cup and they were, you know, fine. Then I had a baby in my late 30s, and that’s when things got real. When rapper Cardi B posted an Instagram video about how the birth of her daughter “did me filthy” and her plans to re-up immediately on her breast implants—I believe the phrase was “titty renovation”—I felt her pain.

The only time my breasts had those fantastical bowling-ball, porn-star proportions was when I was nursing, but the downside was that when milk power hour was over, they deflated to #sadface searchlights, endlessly scanning the ground for their lost will to live. (For those who think that it’s just breastfeeding that deflates formerly valiant breasts, think again: Pregnancy itself changes their composition.) Add 10 years and 30 pounds, and what I have now amounts to pudding poured into dingy C cups.

As a teenage dancer, a 20-something yoga cliché and a 30-something power dater, I always obsessed over my body’s supposed faults. Ridiculously, in retrospect, I actually had a so-called “good” body—firm, strong, flexible, pain-free, with nipples that saluted the sun. I curse all the energy I wasted obsessing over calories and dimming bedroom lights rather than being grateful for what I had. What I wouldn’t do to have that body now!

“It occurs to me that in 10 years, I’ll be saying the same thing about my current body, my current breasts. This late-40s vessel that I spend so much time lamenting is going to look bloody gorgeous to late-50s me.”

It occurs to me that in 10 years, I’ll be saying the same thing about my current body, my current breasts. This late-40s vessel that I spend so much time lamenting is going to look bloody gorgeous to late-50s me. Not to mention, I’ve reached a point on the mortal coil when breasts have started to become liabilities. I already have one friend who has had breast cancer and a double mastectomy, and another who is about to have a preventative double mastectomy because breast and ovarian cancers have stalked every female in her family.

I’ve never been one for, you know, feelings, especially positive ones about myself (gross!), but I’ve decided it’s time to try to be nicer about my aging bod because, honey, this train is only going one way. My boobs have been pretty good to me, after all—they fed my son, they still come out swinging for The Sex With The Husband, and, best of all, they haven’t tried to kill me. All in all a good result, even if they aren’t as jaunty as they once were.

But I haven’t been treating them very well. I don’t gaze at them in the mirror with love (unless saying “Ugh!” counts as a sweet nothing) and I never dress them up anymore. It doesn’t help that I work from home, which means I’ve been sliding down the slippery “soft bra” slope. Lately I’ve been favouring a certain oh-so-comfy wireless style that turns my bust into a compact, un-enticing rectangle—sort of like a Harry Potter book with teats. (Tasting note: Pair with grey sweatpants!)

So I decide to get my girls a present to cheer all of us up. I take them to a purveyor of tasteful, oh-so-European lingerie called Brava Boutique and sit on a tufted sofa as the store’s owner, Christine Lackan Ory, brings over a frothy armful of sheer, delicately embroidered magenta, teal and navy bras from French brand Simone Pérèle. They’re a far cry from their utilitarian cousins that I’ve been unceremoniously shovelling into my cart at the grocery store, though at a starting price of around $135—which is actually cheap for a “proper” bra—they’re definitely more expensive. They’re also lovelier than any bra I’ve ever owned. I settle on the Lumineuse demi-cup style in blue-green lace—it’s as if my breasts are perched on an ornate balcony, waving at their admirers. My pudding looks…pretty?! I send my husband a change-room pic, just to be sure.

The sales assistant wraps up my prize in a glossy box. I take it home and open it carefully. Then I pull my ratty T-shirt over my head and announce ceremoniously: “Girls, I have a thank-you gift for you.”

They like it. They really, really do.

 
 

    More from Free The Breast