My friends don’t always have things in common with each other, despite sharing things in common with me. But Dee and Ell stand united in their endless quest to rid my closet of sports bras.

 

 

There you go, the bane of the trendy, feminine woman. Unless of course she’s wearing them in trendy combination with matching sweats and pedalling away on a stationary bike at the gym, glowing.

I happen to wear them quite often, despite my aversion to gyms and despite Dee’s and Ell’s aversion to my wearing them.

“Where are your boobs?!”

“Resting.”

“You look like a twelve year old boy!”

“Would a twelve year old boy dress like this?”

“Don’t you have any push-up bras?”

“Of course. But underwire is the devil.”

“I’m going to burn all your sports bras.”

Faced with a threat like that, I quivered.

Underwire can be a bitch sometimes: it sticks you, it restricts you. It puts your girls on promenade for the whole world to ogle. It sells the masculine fantasy of the ultimate woman. It’s God’s gift to post-menopausal sagging mammary adipose.

But it has its place, I won’t deny that. Women’s clothing is designed to fit over uplifted pairs of breasts, not ones that hang as Cooper’s ligament sees fit. Ours is a shallow world, but we have to play by its rules.

So on days when I don’t have to look the proper lady, I don my ultra-comfy, anti-flirty sport bra and I give a nod to the Bra Burners of the sixties. ¡Viva la Revolución!