Boob etiquette (a question for the ladies).

i prefer them ripe and as relatively unbruised as possible.

xpost - oh baby

sundae booby sundae

Did this just get really weird or am I missing something?

'banana boobs' I think is the idea of what I call 'tennis ball in a sock boobs.'

I feel like if a bra is worn with some regularity, anything involving figurative tennis balls and imaginary socks can be ruled out for life. I think of these as National Geographic boobs, for what are probably obvious reasons.

There is, so far as your columnist can discover, zero evidence that bras prevent saggy breasts.

"ground pointers"

xpost

Laurel - as soon as I read "tennis ball in sock," all I could think was National Geographic.

http://www.straightdope.com/images/art/2009/dope_090522_bras.gif

l-r: knockers, cones

A 1952 article in Parents magazine (then called Parents’ Magazine), which offers the bizarre suggestion that one should periodically trace the silhouette of one's daughter's breasts (presumably unclothed) to gauge their development, also exhorts parents to get their girls training bras at the first sign of puberty lest the poor kids' breasts drop.

my friends always referred to a side boob as a tithouette

no alternates to swoop titties though

this thread is doing fantastic things for my vocabulary

"Bob Hope's nose"

I'd suggest bras are primarily a tool of fashion: they give women an approximation of the idealized female shape plus some control over jiggle, cleavage, and nipple protrusion

^^ This is what I've always thought of them as although I do know some women with really big boobs that just feel more comfortable with a bra on.

Usually the same ones who sleep in their bras.

When I was like 11 or 12 my parents gave me a sex ed book, which said you should go around looking at women's breasts so you could appreciate the variety of shapes and sizes of breasts, and I was like "ok."

Sure mom and dad, if you say I HAVE to . . .

lol

As soon as I saw the Excelsior in "new answers" I thought - Dan just posted n/a's comment.

Thanks, Uncle Cece!

Women's breasts, even small ones, clearly sag over time, and it's not hard to believe the steady tug of gravity on minimally supported tissue partly explains why. ... Conceivably a bra could delay the process. However, not to harp on this, we don't know it for a fact.

All this means is that no one has conducted/funded/published any scientific studies that PROVE bras prevent sagging. It doesn't mean that breasts don't sag on their own in a directly observable way, or that other parts of the body also lose elasticity and that protecting those areas from pulling or stress can lessen wrinkles and other effects of aging.

looooooooool

i have enrolled myself in a small breast appreciation program over the last few years.

xp it seems weird that bra companies wouldn't have funded a study like that by now.

It does, doesn't it.

I'm sure I've posted this before but can't find it now but it is topical . . .

One of the most embarrassing moments of my life - When I was about 11 or so a friend and I decided to stuff our training bras with tissue and go to my parents' restaurant for lunch. Once we arrived I went into the kitchen to say hi to my dad. He took one look at me and in front of all the other chefs he poked me in the fake boob and said, "What the hell is that?". I nearly died but did learn that faking one's breast size is never really a good idea.

xp women sleep in bras? I've fallen asleep with my clothes on before, but I don't intentially wear a bra to bed. I can see it being no big thing if you don't have to wear ones with an underwire, but once underwires are required, I just don't see how that would be desirable.

I know a lotter of bigger breasted girls who wear bras to bed!

For some reason, ENBB, that kitchen story seems like a really German thing to do. Did you ever read the book/blog called "Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About"? British guy, German woman, they go home to Germany to visit her family and she considers it normal to walk around starkers and discuss totally personal stuff with both her parents and everyone else in the room.

Mil Millington! His blog was AMAZING

I knew this one girl in college who was like a 44FF and she didn't wear a bra to sleep, but she sorta cradled one of them under her armpit.

most of the larger chested women i've known can't wait to ditch the bra come bed time. apparently having to wear the thing all day gets uncomfortable?

xposts

LOL Laure - I remember when that book came out but I've never actually read it. I should though because I would probably love it and I think that you're right it probably was a very German thing to do. Here's another - between 6th and 7th grade I spent a month by myself in Germany visiting my grandmother. She took me to a public swimming pool one day and we got into this huge argument because she didn't understand why I didn't want to take my top off!

Boy I had no idea that I completely made up my definition of side boob. That's the reason I wear a bra, the damn things are just rubbing all over my arms all day otherwise. This is why I never got the point of 'lift & separate.' Lift I get, but thinking everyone else had the same thing as me, I wondered how/why one wld separate the things even further.

I've never noticed any correlation between boob size and sleeping with a a bra either, though I don't know too many girls with boob size larger than D. Do big boobs really get in the way while you're sleeping?

Mine separate too, Abbots. It's an ideal not of this era, and it makes it completely impossible for me to ever wear a push-up bra or have cleavage. Oh well, boobies, eh?

I mean, who's gonna complain?

Men with gynecomastia?

The boobs at the beginning of the final episode of Eastbound and Down were great huh?

[/i]Mine separate too, Abbots. It's an ideal not of this era, and it makes it completely impossible for me to ever wear a push-up bra or have cleavage. Oh well, boobies, eh?[/i]

Me too! I may have some of that swoop action going on but cleavage is something I don't think I'll ever really be able to acheive.

The ones I've known who have done this are the kind of girls that have back problems stemming from their boobs. Btw - I'm talking like sports bras for sleeping not lacy underwire type things.

wayyyyyy upthread: the reason 'banana boobs' hasn't caught on is that sometimes the kind of people you'd all hate refer to the man part as a 'tummy banana'

xp abbott - yeah, I pick bras on the basis of bringing them closer together.

xp laurel - I think I read something somewhere that if you have boobs that move toward the sides to get a push up bra in a cup size one smaller than the one you normally wear.

Jenny Jones.

xp enbb - okay, yeah, I can see back problems thing ... but I guess it somewhat depends on your posture when sleeping.

The ones I've known who have done this are the kind of girls that have back problems stemming from their boobs. Btw - I'm talking like sports bras for sleeping not lacy underwire type things.

But I thought boobs cause back problems only when you're standing/sitting? Shouldn't lying in bed allow them to rest even without a bra?

(xx-post)

Bill Engvall used the phrase 'banana boobs' in a stand-up performance, which is 100% reason to hate it.

Um no because anything pushy-uppy just smushes them together and makes my chest look folded in the middle.

Wikipedia page for gynecomastia v informative btw:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Severe_Gynecomastia.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Asymmetric_Gynecomastia.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Adolecent_with_Gynecomastia.jpg (Z-Man!)

and

Television personality Richard Simmons suffered from gynecomastia as a youth inspiring him to pursue a career as a fitness guru.

x-post That's reason enough Abbott.

Tuomas - Like I said, having boobs big enough to either cause back trouble or necessitate sleeping in a bra is something I will never personally know about. All I know is that I have met a handful of ladies who do this. Sorry I can't provide you with the exact reasoning behind it. :-(

See . . . they even make special ones for it http://www.sleepbra.com/

Remember in Persepolis, her grandma wore a bra to sleep with pressed flowers in it?