What happened?

You know, I just realized that I never got my bras from A.W. Kaufman that I ordered by phone NEARLY ONE YEAR AGO.  Well, I didn’t “just” realize this.  I have thought about this intermittently since I ordered them but as more and more time passed, it seemed kind of weird to call back and ask what happened.  Miriam did tell me it could take “a while,” because she wasn’t sure when she was going to get the next shipment in, but, it’s been a bit more than “a while” although I guess it’s possible another order never arrived.  Or something.  I don’t really know how their ordering system works.

Anyway, I decided ten minutes ago that I couldn’t wait any longer because in the 18 months since I bought the bra, I am starting to feel some sag*, so I ordered two Conturelle Provence bras from a store called Bits of Lace.  No A.W. Kaufman discount, but free shipping and no tax.  Not too bad.

We’ll see how long it takes.

-DeeDee

* I know that I could just get the bra altered by taking in the straps.  Someone at a lingerie store once suggested this to me.  But, my bra feels too personal to take to a tailor, although writing about my bra and what goes inside them on the internet feels just fine for some reason.

Another Oops at the Office

Bras, nipples, and cleavage at work seems to be a big topic in the big boobed community.  For example, 3D wrote about nippleitis a few months back in one of her very first posts.  In fact, she wrote about it twice.  I weighed in, with a slightly different view.  Nippleitis isn’t the only problem — sometimes we choose the wrong bra.

That happened to me today.  In my hurried state this morning, I accidentally put on a very lacy bra under a very thin shirt.  It actually occurred to me that maybe I was wearing the wrong bra, but I was too rushed to check myself out in the mirror.  I didn’t realize it until I went to the bathroom before lunch, after I had a long meeting with my coworkers.

Wardrobe malfunctions are hard at work, because we aren’t amongst strangers whom we will never see again, nor are we among our friends with whom we feel comfortable. Instead, the viewers are people we respect, or should respect, or who should ideally respect us.  And the bigger the boob, the more opportunities for malfunction.

I hope when I leave my job I won’t be known as the girl who always wore the wrong bra.

-DeeDee

Boobs and Sex: Some preliminary thoughts

This is first in what I hope will be a series of postings on boobs and sex.

I had sex on Saturday night. It was enjoyable for the obvious reasons, but one less-obvious perk was that it provided a wonderful research opportunity for this blog. This may be crazy, but, swear to god, I actually thought about this blog at one point during the evening. I mean, during the act of sex itself, I thought about blogging.

He was on top. His hands were on the bed on either side of me and his torso was pushed away from me, perhaps at a sixty degree angle or so. Anyway, because he was, you know, thrusting with gusto, and because his body was not pressed against mine, my boobs were bopping back and forth. I wouldn’t say it hurt or anything, but I felt myself becoming very self-conscious. (This was when I thought, “aha, blog time!”)

Now, I don’t know how much of my self-consciousness had to do with the fact that my breasts were moving about kind of awkwardly, and how much was really just a general discomfort with the intense intimacy of being stared at by my partner during sex. I met him only that night, which may have contributed to the awkwardness I felt. A million thoughts were running through my head:

Do all breasts move like that during sex, or only those that pass a certain size threshold? Is he enjoying the view? Is he specifically enjoying the view of large breasts dancing around? Why isn’t he making eye contact with me? Is it because he is enjoying the view? Okay, I’m going to look into his eyes. Is he in this position because it feels good or because he likes the way it looks? Am I thinking way too much about my breasts? Oh, that feels good. Do I actually like the fact that my boobs are jiggling? Why am I so weird? Should I blog about this? Wow, I’m crazy. Wow, he’s pretty hot. Oh, looks like I’m on top now.

Clearly, as I warned, it’s difficult to sort out the boob-specific thoughts from all of my other neuroses. However I do wonder if large-breasted women have common experiences in sex different from smaller-breasted women, and if their sex partners notice differences in having sex with small-boobed girls vs. large-boobed girls.

-DeeDee

BBB Field trip: I’m off to see the Wizard

I took a road trip today to do some research for your reading pleasure. I ended up somewhere over the mountains, way up high; my destination was a store I had heard of once in a lullaby. OK, I didn’t exactly hear about it in a lullaby but the place is called “The Wizard of Bras” so I thought I might try to play with as many puns as possible. But before I talk about my trip, it’s time I came clean about something.

I was off to see the Wizard for more than just research. It’s time for me to buy new bras because I’ve had a problem in the past couple of weeks. My boobs have been growing at an alarming rate in a way they never have before. I wish I could say that this was due to some magical pill I had invented or because those “I must, I must, I must increase my bust” exercises I did in the sixth grade finally paid off but the truth is: this half of the Big Boob Blog is pregnant. And, as a result, I’ve been popping out of almost every bra I own from expensive to cheap. I’m three months in and it’s time for me to get a handle on all of this extra boobage.

So, back to my wizardly experience. I knew I could not handle my new situation on my own and I’d heard those who go to see the Wizard leave with something more useful than a heart or a brain or courage: the elusive perfect fitting bra. So, I followed the yellow brick road across several miles and freeways until I found Oz. When I got there I was sort of disappointed; I was expecting the Emerald City and what I found was a hole in the wall on the side of the highway that sold everything from bras to feather boas to crotchless panties to a game called “Pin the Macho on the Male.” Oz was a little trashier than I thought. Still, their website said they carried some of my favorites like Fantasie of England and Wacoal so I figured I’d stick around.

Just like in the movie, there was a long wait to see the Wizard. I had to fill out a form with my needs and was told it would be 30-60 minutes before I would be served. Perhaps this is a tactic to weed out those not strong enough to face the Wizard? It didn’t matter to me. I write a blog about boobs and I have a reputation to protect so I wasn’t going anywhere.

When my name and number were finally called, the Wizard, (who turned out to be a petite blonde named Holly) escorted me into the back and got down to work with a tape measure. I explained that I had been fitted many times and that I wear a 38DDD but I knew I had grown a little bit. As it turns out, that would be the understatement of the year.

When the Wizard was through measuring and sizing me up with her eyes, she made her ruling. “I’m going to have you start by trying a 38G” she explained. That’s right, you read that correctly. A 38G. G as in girl. G as in grandiose. G as in GOOD GOD how did I ever GET so big? I remember my shock and horror when I moved up from a DD to a DDD for the first time. I enjoy having big boobs but I never wanted them freakishly big. This news was almost too much to take. . .and then the Wizard hit me with the kicker: “in the next few weeks and months, you’re only going to get bigger and bigger.”

I don’t know what I was expecting when I went in there but not this. After a few moments of shock, I gathered my thoughts and emotions and held my head (and boobs) high. OK, I said. I’ll try anything you’ve got. The Wizard disappeared and returned with a 38H. H as in the letter that comes after G. Why were the letters going up? Had I grown a cup size while she was picking out bras behind the curtain? The Wizard explained that she wanted to put me in something with room to grow. Fortunately, I was swimming in the H and we agreed it wasn’t necessary. . .yet.

I tried on a bunch of other suitors, many of which made me way too pointy. I told the Wizard I wanted more of a molded and less of a Madonna fit. Some of the next few were pretty but just too lacy. I was beginning to give up hope. Then, another woman behind the curtain emerged with the winner. Much to my surprise, it was a bra I blogged about just a few weeks ago: the Fantasie Smoothing Balcony bra. Only this time instead of a DDD or and E, I took home two in a 38G. If I couldn’t have my normal size, at least I could have an old friend by my side who was ready to take on my ever-expanding chest. As an added bonus, I also picked up an awesome black sports bra made by Anita.

When it was all over, I decided me and my boobs needed a nap. I woke up to find that my day wasn’t a dream at all and I now have not only a heart, brain, and courage, but the support I need to get though the next six months in style and comfort. I’ll keep you updated on my progress and my sizing. And even though I just cleaned out my bra drawer to make room for my new purchases, I’m keeping my name (3D) for now. There’s only so much change one boob blogger can take in a day. I may not be in Kansas anymore but I am just not ready to admit I’m in G-town yet.

-3D

 

 

Another article about a big boobed gal finding her way.

I feel like I have read this article 100 times before. Or maybe it’s that I know a hundred girls like this one. Or maybe I feel connected to this article because I used to be this girl.

In a nutshell, the author has big boobs, isn’t so happy with them, and then goes and gets fitted for her correct bra size all the while agonizing over her size and lack of comfort with them. By the end of the story, she is still unsure of herself (but much better supported!), she won’t even reveal her bra size, and of course there is no picture to accompany the piece.

When I was in her position (I even went to Town Shop and Orchard Corset like she did), getting fitted for the right bras immediately raised my confidence level in my breasts, completely changing the way I felt about them. I hope that’s the epilogue to this story as well.

-3D

The itch I just can’t scratch

Lately my nipples have been really itchy. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the dry weather? Anyway, they are incredibly hard to scratch. Forgetting the problem of not wanting to run my fingers over my boobs in public, doing so in private doesn’t give me much relief. I guess it’s easier to scratch something with more surface area. So far the best relief is a technique I discovered while getting out of the shower last night. Rubbing a terry cloth towel over my breasts provides some friction which relieves a bit of the itch. I guess I can try putting lotion on them.

-3D

Catching a glimpse

I had an exceptionally good hair day today so I thought that if anybody was looking at me at work, they would be checking out my ‘do. Instead, I caught a few people checking out my bra, more precisely the fact that you could see my bra poking out over the top of my dress. I got dressed in a rush this morning and commited the fashion faux pas of wearing a light bra under a black top. I noticed only after I had left the house that parts of the bra were noticeable and the color of the bra made them even more noticeable.

I guess I wasn’t surprised that people stared. I stare too when I see a woman who is showing a little cloth. I just can’t figure out why. Is it the idea that we are catching a glimpse of something not intended to be seen? Is it because it helps us imagine the woman naked, or at least without her outer garments on? Does it make us feel sexy? Perhaps for women it’s just a bit of schadenfreude; we like to see other women looking messy because it makes us feel better when we look neat. I’d like to think of it as just more research on bras and boobs for this blog.

-3D

The dead giveaway

When I was about 13 I had a really short haircut. Well, it was more like a really bad haircut that happened to be short. I hated my hair so I started wearing hats to cover it. I was lucky that hats happened to be in fashion back then so most of the time, they were just cute accessories.

But sometimes I liked to wear baseball hats which weren’t exactly cute, nor feminine. I have a vivid memory of wearing one in a diner in Florida with my sister and cousins. I placed my order wearing my hat and the waitress mistook me for a boy. It was incredibly embarrassing and reminded me just how much I hated my hair and how I couldn’t wait for it to grow back.

It’s funny now to think back on that moment. I must have had boobs, but I guess they were just a normal size and probably strapped in by a bra. I was probably wearing jeans and a T-shirt and I’m quite certain I didn’t carry a purse or wear any makeup. I didn’t even have my ears pierced. Maybe I really did look like a boy.

There is no way anyone would mistake me for a male today. No matter what I do to my hair or what I wear, my boobs are just too obvious; the dead giveaway that I am a woman.

I remember someone, I think a friend’s mother, once told me that she couldn’t remember her life before she met her husband; she claimed her life changed so dramatically when she got married and later had kids that her former life was unrecognizable. I thought the story was ridiculous (and actually a bit sad) but thinking about it now in the context of breasts, it kind of makes sense. My breasts are what make me female and I enjoy being female. My femininity informs so much of what I do and think and say and I can’t imagine a time when I didn’t feel this way or look this way. I can’t imagine a time when someone wouldn’t have picked that up about me.

For all the grief my breasts sometimes give me, I love that they are the outward representation of the person I am inside.

-3D

As it turns out, your breasts are a threat to national security

Remember last month when I blogged about how my bra set off the metal detector at a Los Angeles airport? Well, it seems I was lucky that I was only wanded up and down by a female TSA agent before being allowed to proceed through the terminal.

According to the Associated Press, an Idaho woman named Lori Plato wasn’t so lucky. When she and her husband entered a federal courthouse in Coeur d’Alene, her bra also set off the security alarm. Plato claims the U.S. Marshals Service then asked her to remove her bra before entering the building! And not only that, she says they gave her no viable options for doing so with any measure of privacy. Plato said, “I asked if I could go into the bathroom because they didn’t have a privacy screen and no women security officers were available. They said, ‘No.’” She also claimed that when she placed her bra on the security conveyor belt, “One of the officers said, ‘It’s a girl.’”

via Salon

-3D

Coincidence? Or the mark of a good bra?

I wore a fairly new Chantelle bra to work today. I’ve blogged about this one before; it’s the one that set off the metal detector at a Los Angeles airport last month. I thought nothing of it when I got dressed this morning but later in the afternoon someone I work with (but don’t know very well) passed my desk and commented “3D, you look lovely today. Is this a new look for you?”

I was struck by his compliment; it caught me by surprise as I’m not used to older men in the office taking notice of what I’m wearing. Also, there was absolutely nothing new to my look. . .except for the fact that under my layers of officewear was a super supportive new piece of lingerie!

I let out a nervous laugh because I wasn’t sure what to say. He laughed (less nervously) with me and then walked off. I was left to wonder, was it my new bra or did he just like my sweater?

-3D

Nipple as fingerprint?

Back in high school, a friend painted a portrait of me for her art class. It was based on a photo she had taken of me where I’m dramatically posed with my arms flung outward. The portrait was hung on a wall in our high school, along with other paintings by her fellow students in A.P. Studio Art. She was a pretty good artist, and I thought it looked like me, but the girl in the portrait had rosier cheeks and slightly rounder facial features. On one side of the portrait was a card that said the name of the artist, and on the other side, a card read, “Portrait of DeeDee.”

After the portrait went up (I didn’t really mind, because it didn’t look too much like me, and anyway, I came out looking okay), I asked another friend — “Mitch” — what he thought of my portrait. Did he think it looked like me? He replied that as soon as he saw that my friend had painted it, he immediately knew it was me because he recognized the nipple that was poking through my shirt.

A point of clarification: Mitch had never seen me topless, nor had he ever felt my breasts, so he shouldn’t have been too familiar with my boobs, but I guess, unbeknownst to me, he stared at them a lot.

I was kind of weirded out that he was so familiar with my nipples. I also feared that after realizing that it was a portrait of me, horny teenage boys would point and nudge, and bitchy (and perhaps jealous) teenage girls would poke fun at my exhibitionism. In a very watered-down way, it was the equivalent of showing up to school naked.

Because Mitch was really a generally freaky person to begin with, I decided to try out someone else. “Kevin,” I asked, “did you notice the portrait Michelle painted of me hanging in the corridor, the one where I’m posed like this,” flinging out my arms to demonstrate.

“Uh, yeah, I think so.”

“Could you tell it was me, because Mitch said he was able to recognize it based on something really weird. . . . It’s kind of embarrassing. Never mind, I shouldn’t tell you.”

“Did he mean your breast?”

In fairness, I basically led Kevin to the right answer, and he didn’t really even give the right answer anyway. But, still, it got me thinking. Do all nipples have a distinct shape such that they can be used as a means of identification, or are mine just particularly distinctive? In a criminal trial, could the key witness say, “I recognize the defendant by her nipple?” Or is the point of the story that Mitch, and all teenage guys, are really just a bunch of horny freaks?

-DeeDee

BBG’s dress dilemma

I recently bought a dress with a “criss-cross” top. It’s sort of like a V-neck and is created by crossing two pieces of fabric over the other. It’s a great dress but my boobs make it difficult to wear the dress as it was intended.

Here is a photo of the flat chested model in the dress:

Here is me:

As you can see, I’m either forced to wear a low cut bra and decide that this is going to be a “sexy” dress, or I have to wear a camisole under it which in some ways kind of ruins it. I suppose a Bosom Button could fix this problem but I don’t like the way they look.

-3D

Nippleitis and Shame

So I thought I’d weigh in on the nippleitis wars.

Unlike 3D, I never enjoy nippleitis. Well, scratch that. I don’t think much of it if I am around good friends/people I am intimate with. But in any public or semi-public situation, and certainly in a professional situation, I’m always embarrassed when I discover that I am poking through my shirt.

It’s funny — it’s not so much that I notice people looking at me. In fact, I never notice people checking out my breasts. Never. I’m kind of oblivious to things like that. It’s more that I feel like nippleitis means that something is wrong, that a wardrobe malfunction has occurred and that I am being unprofessional/messy/gross.

I think my shame in nippleitis stems from the fact that as a kid, I was always kinda messy and my parents always gave me grief for not being put together. Although I have pretty much moved passed that, even now, I often feel that my clothes aren’t fitting right. For example, my boobs are not only large, but they are particularly large for my frame and so often my tops fall off my shoulders, revealing a bit too much cleavage and sometimes some bra as well. When that occurs, my first reaction is to be hard on myself for buying clothes that don’t fit properly or for not standing up straight or for wearing the wrong bra. Likewise, I tend to think my nippleitis also reflects my inability to appear put together — perhaps I could have avoided it with a better bra, a camisole or maybe I should never have bought the top to begin with. And so I get embarrassed and subsequently angry with myself for being so sloppy.

As I’m writing this, I realize that sometimes it just can’t be avoided and my nippleitis-induced self-wrath is a bit ridiculous. But no, I don’t think I will ever revel in my nipples.

-DeeDee

Nippleitis take two

Ok, so I think I was a little too confident in my last post about nippleitis. While I do like to use it to my advantage sometimes, yesterday reminded me that I don’t always love to be stared at.

For whatever reason, I had nippleitis pretty much all day yesterday. I went to the bathroom before a one-on-one meeting with a guy in my office whom I’m not attracted to and don’t feel the need to assert any power over.  I quickly realized that my nippleitis wasn’t going to go away and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. At that point, my nippleitis wasn’t sexy or flirty, it was just embarrassing. I didn’t want to be looked at as a sexual being, or even female. I just wanted to be a normal co-worker. Unfortunately, my breasts had their own agenda.

It was also embarrassing, (or maybe annoying is the better word), later that day when I caught one of the cleaning crew staff staring at my erect nipples and smiling. While I like to use my nippleitis to my advantage sometimes, I like to get to control it. When I can’t, I feel objectified and gross.

-3D