Comment on What is the actual point of a bra?
Nefara@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Breasts can get heavy, and the sensation of the gravity constantly pulling down on your skin and soft tissues can be very uncomfortable. If you get sweaty, moisture can get trapped underneath and cause rashes or fungal infections. Moving about, they can get in the way of your arm movements and if jumping or running the movement can be downright painful. Imagine piercing your ears with a heavy weight and then shaking your head. You would want to minimize their movement!
Historically, women have used woven cloth bandeaus, breast bands, belts, straps, stays, corsets, bralets, bodices and all sorts of things to try to minimize movement and support breast tissue. Bras are just the most common contemporary thing.
EABOD25@lemm.ee 5 months ago
So with all you mentioned (and please don’t misunderstand my intention for asking. I truly am unaware) does it cause damage to the actually mammary glands in the breast? Or are you just referring to skin deep damage?
Nefara@lemmy.world 5 months ago
It can cause some damage, in that the tissues inside the breast can lengthen and lose their firmness. It doesn’t damage function in any way but it could be considered premature aging. There’s that picture of the white woman with the African tribeswomen and they’re comparing their breasts, because the African women were so interested in how her breasts were a different shape than theirs. If you’ve seen pictures of people from cultures who don’t wear clothing that supports breasts, you can see the difference in shape that constantly fighting against gravity makes.
lovely_reader@lemmy.world 5 months ago
There are a lot of factors that can contribute to sagging, but bralessness doesn’t seem to be one. There are studies indicating that bras likely weaken breast tissue over time, making sagging more likely in people who wear them regularly. Of course, even those studies are tricky to generalize to the broader population because of how many factors there are to control for (breast size, pregnancies, tobacco use, genes, etc etc etc). What we do know is that the difference in breast shape from one whole ethnic group to another is largely attributable to genetics, and as for the photo: those women simply have very different bodies.
Interestingly, photos of African women have been used countless times throughout history to dishonestly market bras to fashionable Westerners. The image of African women who simply have a different body type from their own has frightened millions of white ladies into bras.
Nefara@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Hmm I didn’t know that, thanks for the info. There’s probably a major factor of sample bias in that perception too, as Western women who wear bras and whose breasts naturally look like the African women’s wouldn’t be recognized as being similar, unless you’re intimate or sharing a home. It seems I fell for the propaganda, or “bra-paganda”, if you will.
EABOD25@lemm.ee 5 months ago
I know exactly what you’re talking about, and again please excuse my ignorance and bluntness, but saggy boobs don’t necessarily mean lack of milk production?
Nefara@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Correct, in fact size, shape, perkiness, all of the cosmetic factors seem to have no correlation to milk production. The major factors seem to be age, genetics, stress and hormone levels.
Source
RBWells@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Size of boobs has no bearing on milk production. We all have the same equipment in there, more or less, most of the difference in breast size is just fat. I never got big boobs while nursing and made so much milk, it’s made on demand when the baby nurses, not stored in the boobs!