Tater tot nipples and other titty tales

When going braless doesn't feel like an option.

In December 2013, I was seven months pregnant with my youngest son. So pregnant the thick underwire in the only bra that could still fasten somewhat comfortably around my ever-thickening torso had begun to dig angry, red trenches into the top of a belly so round Santa himself couldn’t compete.

Because I worked from home as a freelance writer, I bid a dispassionate farewell to the bothersome bra, figuring my burgeoning belly was more supportive than any underwire could ever be.

I allowed my unwieldy triple-D’s to lounge atop my straining stomach like twin sumo wrestlers flopped onto a couch after a hard-fought match and both they and I basked in our liberation from elastic straps, angry underwire, and social convention.

Ridding myself of the annoying bra was a pleasurable, yet anxious experience. I’ve always been fairly well-endowed. I developed early and fast. I wore two T-shirts in elementary school and by junior high, because my mom wasn’t around to buy me a proper bra nor was she the kind of mom with whom you’d want to go bra shopping, I stole an extra small sports bra from my friend, Missy. It became my young life’s mission to disguise my growing boobs.

Contorting myself into that extra small purple bit of fabric was a chore but I loved it precisely because it was so tight. Like armor before battle, I put that dear bra on every morning before I put on the correctly-sized sports bra I bought on my own from Kmart.

I wore both bras simultaneously throughout junior high to smash my boobs as flat against my chest as possible, especially after a group of 7th grade boys passed around a page torn from a notebook that listed a bunch of girls and rated their physical features. I was singled out for my boob size.

Attention from my peers was embarrassing but, as most girls who develop early know all too well, attention from men far older than you is wholly unwanted and horrifying. Those early teen experiences of grown men ogling my chest combined with a Mormon upbringing that trained me to believe my body is a beacon of explosive sexuality I must restrain at all costs lest I trick righteous men into behaving badly spawned an innate need to hide my chest. A reflex that has never fully left me even after using my salacious titty traps to keep my three beautiful babies alive for the first weeks and months after they were born.

About a week before Christmas my husband and I strapped Blake and Henry into their carseats for the short ride down the street to our landlord’s house to deliver a few neighborly gifts. Figuring my stretchy, pajama-like maternity shirt was fine for a two-minute, front porch, gift handoff I did not trouble myself with the hassle of strapping on my giant, Walmart bra.

Serge parked in their driveway and left the Honda running while I lumbered to the front door and pressed the doorbell. Stephen, who, incidentally, was also the chief of police in a nearby town, opened the door, and I could see his wife, Stephanie, approaching us from the family room in the back of their home.

I said hello and handed over the gifts along with the obligatory holiday well wishes. As I turned to leave Stephen made the typical dumbass pregnancy comment about the size of my basketball belly then said something I will never forget.

In a friendly but leering tone, he mentioned the “tater tot nipples” he could see straining my shirt and elaborated how his friend, a plumber he had recommended who had been in our home repairing a leak a few days prior, had also noticed my “tater tits.”

He said this in front of his wife as if the three of us were in on the joke of “tater tot nipples” or “tater tits” —a phrase I had never heard but have since googled and understand is A Thing.

The comment was a stinging slap to the face. Not only was he commenting on my nipples to my face as I stood awkwardly on his porch, but I also realized the man, the plumber, who I had allowed in my home for hours, had been ogling my body as I was in my own home and telling my landlord about it.

I froze, stunned as blood rushed to my head, the sound filling my ears as I denied the impulse to look down at my nipples. I don’t remember what I said. Knowing me I probably barked a people please-y courtesy laugh as I backed away from the door, away from Stephen and Stephanie, and turned to waddle quickly back to my waiting family.

Christmas cheer crumbling like a dead January poinsettia, my insides felt hollow and brittle. I felt dirty. Violated. As if I had invited the observations on the size and shape of my nipples by choosing not to strap my enormous chest into a bra. It was my fault.

We only lived in that rental home for a few more months because my husband and I separated soon after Christmas. But for even that short period of time it was difficult to exist in the company of people you know are taking notes on the size of your nipples and apparently discussing them with each other, not to mention continuing to interact with said people in a somewhat friendly manner because they own the home you live in and you really need to get your rental deposit back.

In the grand scheme of female injustice, this is nothing, I know. Who among us has not had similar experiences in offices, on streets, in bars, beaches, banks, delis, grocery stores, parking garages, malls, our own homes, even, as clueless husbands make gross comments? But I should have said something. I could have said something. I did not. I was not the kind of woman who has a response to an offensive remark made by a man I perceived to be in a position of authority.

I am now.

But I wasn’t then and would not become one for many years.

Several years after the good ol’ chief of police/landlord’s tater tot remarks, I was living in a new home in a different town as a single woman, a solo mom. The house was four doors down from my ex-husband’s new home, my backyard opening onto a shared parking lot that various people from the town would pass through on their way to or from the main street. My ex-husband, his brother and many others would routinely stop by to say hello if they saw me in my backyard as they walked through the parking lot.

On a sweltering summer day I was doing yard work wearing cutoff jeans and a white-ribbed tank top, sans bra, because I was in my own backyard, alone. My brother-in-law dropped by with a friend of his with whom I was somewhat acquainted. They had some questions about my brother-in-law’s band’s website, which I had designed. At some point the friend raised his eyebrows and, staring pointedly at my chest, said something along the lines of “interesting that you’re cold on such a hot day.”

My body wilted like the flowers drooping in the heat on my back porch. Shoulders immediately hunching, I physically and mentally receded into myself.

And still, I said nothing.

As I have been trained to do I awkwardly smiled away the asinine words of another stupid man reducing a woman to her body parts and feeling entitled enough to share his dumb, sexist opinion.

I was in my own backyard doing my thing and this motherfucker rolls up unexpectedly and proceeds to comment on my nipples.

Unfathomable.

But totally fathomable.

Can you imagine casually mentioning the size of a dick bulge to an acquaintance?

I always take off my bra the second I get home for the day. Socks too. The less material covering my body the better. My skin longs to breathe fresh air at all times. The older I get the less I want to wear a bra anywhere, especially during the summer. But, most of the time it simply doesn’t feel like an option.

The mental workload of dealing with the extra attention from men and women (men are lewd, women are judgmental) is an added stressor I just don’t want to experience throughout my day. With every leer or judgmental stare I instinctively slouch, cross my arms over my chest and feel embarrassed, ashamed even. Transported back to the police chief’s porch, the attention feeling like my fault for opting no to wear a bra.

The abysmal sexualization of women’s nipples is relentless. Men have nipples, women have nipples, we all have nipples! But women’s nipples, which have a function essential to life, have been so sexualized by society that it’s impossible to go braless without feeling like I’m a moving target, not to mention the lascivious intent we ascribe to women who opt out of bras. She wants the attention. The larger the chest, the more obscene braless-ness is considered, increasing the social obligation to wear a bra yet I regularly see men with bigger tits than me roaming shirtless, carefree and fancy fucking free.

It’s easy to tell someone not to give a shit. Who cares what people think! Do your thing! Fuck them! I tell it to myself every time I brave being braless in public. But I don’t do it often, because going against social expectations is exhausting, especially when you have a perception disorder that makes you feel like everyone is already judging you.

Borderline Personality Disorder is one of the most stigmatized and misunderstood mental disorders in existence. But that’s an essay for another time. For our purposes today I’m referencing how BPD affects one’s perception of reality. BPD colors the way you interpret information; you may magnify emotional slights, see neutral statements as highly critical, view minor roadblocks as catastrophic, suffer from distorted, negative self-image, and assume that others view you in the same light. Your ability to perceive situations in a normal way can be fractured until you understand your brain’s tendencies and learn to account for them.

Suffice it to say, going braless and not giving a fuck what anyone thinks is a challenge. But I think I’m up for it. It helps that I’m middle-aged now and, as we all know, as much as our society sexualizes women’s nipples, it desexualizes and disappears women of a certain age.

Regardless, I want to be a badass. I want to push myself through the discomfort and develop immunity to the stares, judgmental, lewd or otherwise, but often I just don’t have the energy for feeling more uncomfortable and unsafe than I already do and that pisses me off even more than the unwanted stares.

I should not be the one to change. It’s the perception of my body that needs to change.

This is my body and despite what most men seem to think, being braless does not mean I aspire to your gaze.

IWNDWYT - Day 44