Jaskiran
Does the figurine closest to you have a barrier above her breasts, something to prop them up, make them appear more lifted, or are they simply hanging naturally, without constraint?
The statue is already an object, no flesh, probably not arousable inducing; therefore it may not evoke further objectification, but women, on the other hand, seem to since 1914 although the mentality must have settled in and rooted itself far before then.
Am I triggered?
Maybe slightly.
I walked out of my house in a tank top and another layer of support underneath that wasn’t a bra, and the first comment I got was from another fellow woman. “That’s trashy, your boobs are bouncing around too much.”
Somehow me being free and oblivious of my girls, which are no larger than 34B, suddenly felt shameful. Am I not allowed to dress as I please and carry myself the way I naturally feel to? At this point, liberation is not even part of the equation. It is my divine right to embrace what I have been given, rather than flatten them out or boost them up with a wiry $100 lace bralette. The effect of gravity on my gifts is not exactly any of your concern anyway.
I am not blind-sighted. The nature of men and women are such that perhaps a couple approaching you while you are exploring your liberation and bra-less freedom may feel unsettled, probably rush past in haste, and speak about you negatively.
I would not let that shackle you if others want to be bound by the ego-mind. It shall have no effect on your free spirit. I can see what issues might arise and how being out in public could stir some unwanted or unnecessary perusing. But at the same time if, in this moment, I am dressed the way I know is authentic to me, it would be more unethical of someone to ban me from the grocery store then it would be me walking in the way I was crafted to. I believe in the articulation of our Creator. I think as a woman, spiritual or not, our bodies are radical, and perhaps to stop the constant inhibition of our inner goddess we might have to literally strip the parts of ourselves that are being contorted and made only to appeal to others in a way that feels unfair to ourselves.
That which has been taught to be seen as wrong could actually just be a way of a masochist, patriarchal, narcissistic diseased society to control you and demean your spirit, and in this half-functioning society, you will always be wrong anyway. What and who exactly are you wearing this bra for, and what made you feel like it was not your choice? If you truly want to wear a bra then I would urge you to ask yourself, do you want to because you may be considered unacceptable if you do not?
The idea I am raving about is to shift the limitations and uproot the conditioning that society has drilled into our psyches. We make up this society too, so why not play a wiser role and take a leading part. A carnally driven world has to step up to the challenge. Why we react with repulsion or disdain if hardened nipples show through a shirt seems childish to me. Are we not just oversexualizing a completely natural body aspect, and why have we not beautified and glorified this instead? In the fight to feel that we belong and to become equals, we are ironically subjecting ourselves to the opposite.
We are not discussing athletes who run professionally or gymnasts who wear a bra so that the attention of their audience can be more so directed to their artform. We are talking about outside of this world of theirs. Going braless does not mean you ought to forget to wear all of your undergarments and intentionally flaunt something that no one would like to see (at least the majority). It means that the boundaries you have placed on yourself as a result of the outsider perspective can be done away with. Sometimes I wonder if it is the fact that as you venture into the spiritual world you gain this sense of unconditional love and respect for yourself and that all the suggestions and fortifications of self from religion, culture, government, social media injected into your mind begin to become absurdities.
Women and men, there is a discrepancy here. Start looking beyond the cleavage.
Jaskiran is the creator of the podcast, Seek in Sight: rEVOlution of Self. Listen to the latest episode on “relationship with self” below.
