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Band sizes and 'vanity'
My latest fitting adventures are pushing me towards a 32J/JJ, at least to try. This is quite surprising to me as someone who had been wearing a 38DDD.
I've heard comments to the effect that, "A woman who wears a 32 band can't be fat." I assure you, if I can wear a 32 band, that is not true. At this time, I'm about a hundred pounds heavier than the American societal ideal for my height. Most of it doesn't sit around this part of my torso, but I definitely have some squishiness; elsewhere, there is padding aplenty.
Despite my desire to practice body positivity, I can't deny that switching to a smaller band makes me feel a tiny bit happy (ah, lifelong cultural indoctrination!). But it's utterly meaningless.
And it's not just meaningless in the sense that smaller/larger/whatever bodies don't make us any better humans, but it also doesn't really say anything about whether we *are* fat/thin. There are just so many more factors involved: bone structure, torso shape, musculature, personal preference for tightness, etc. I've heard from several women that their band sizes don't really change when they lose and gain weight, even quite significant amounts. I suspect this is true for me, too.
The whole concept of vanity sizing is based on a totally false, overly simplistic premise: namely, that a woman's shape can be reduced to two numerical measurements. Anyone even slightly involved in the bra fitting community should know that we are more complex than this.
So yes, a 32 band can be fat, and a 40 band can likely be muscular with little body fat, and none of this determines your attractiveness or worth as a person.
Filed under Boob and body issues
4 comments
When I first got into my real size I had a bit of this 'vanity' shock. "I can't be under a 40, no way, I CAN'T be a 36. At the time I was a 36K wearing a 48DDD. But you're trained to believe 'this is big, and this is small' - and that's crazy, because as a whole we don't even know how bras work. Every single busty celebrity is a "34D". I'm a 30G now, and I can assure you, I still have plenty of puff - just not on my rib cage. I've got that 'looks skinny, and then puts on a swimsuit and feels like a beached whale' sort of body. lol.
It's all media brainwashing. And then it's hard to even say 'this is vanity sized', because depending on the cut of a pair of pants or a blouse I can be any of three or 4 different sizes. In pants I've got 2s that are bigger than 5s and 6s. Now THAT'S vanity sized. When you can fit a size Small dress around a 40 inch bust, THAT'S vanity sized, but when you wiggle between two sizes or three? That's just designers fucking with your head, and bras are no different.
I think that the fact that some bra bands are stretchier than others only adds to the fusterclucking that one can experience as they try and navigate size variances.
I have a friend who was a men's magazine model and was also getting some work in the regular acting industry (she was even one of the stripper chicks in "Showgirls"! :P) and her comp card listed her bra size as 32D even though at the time she'd just had a 2nd breast augmentation and was most definitely a lot bigger than a D. I asked her about this, and evidently her manager wanted her to put down C not D but realized that wouldn't fly with anyone who saw her for auditions, and said that giving her true size would limit her in terms of auditions and work offered. For this reason, the idea that the media has influenced women to perceive size (what is small, what is large, what size a-b-c (not literally a b or c) looks like); is something I believe to be happening. The only way to determine what is behind the fact that in one brand you wear a certain size but in another brand your size is something different - yet your boobs haven't changed over the last couple of minutes...is to get out a tape measurer and compare the numbers. After that it's about accepting that the mystery of how brands come up with the size that they put on the tag will only be revealed if you go and work in the R&D division at said brand. Or perhaps with their design team.
There has been a fair amount of media attention paid to the subject of vanity sizing in women's clothing, but it seems to be limited to pointing out that it exists rather than anyone needing to do something about it. I'm not sure anyone really can force designers to knock it off.
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