Friday, September 2, 2011

Sexy Nursing Bras



I saw this interesting article in the NY Times Fashion and Style section, about The Rise of Sexy Nursing Bras. My personal experience has included ZERO sexy nursing bras - I just headed to Boing Boing and bought the most run-of-the-mill Bravado bras they had, and I thought THOSE were so pricey I only bought two - one in black and one in beige. Mighty unattractive, those were. Not that it deterred David in the slightest - after six weeks of post-partum abstinence, I could've worn a spit-up stained potato sack as lingerie and he would've thought it was Agent Provacateur.

I've blogged about HOTMilk here before and I think the whole trend is pretty fantastic. Its time we got over the Madonna/ whore complex and I think purple demi cups that can unsnap for lactation purposes are a step in the right direction. The bounty of a mother - in the emotional and physical sense - is, I think, the hottest thing around. Dude, we're giving life, from gestating it in our wombs to expressing it out our breasts to every bowl of Cheerios we pour, every bedtime song we sing, every night we spend taking temperatures and administering Tylenol. OK, cleaning up kid vomit isn't hot exactly, but you get the idea. Go with it.

I thought this was an interesting point, from the article:

Elisabeth Dale, the founder of the Web site The Breast Life, which has bra reviews and health information, says she thinks this was because functionality and sex appeal can seem incompatible.

When your breasts “are in work mode, they don’t get to wear nice fabrics,” she said wryly, adding that you’re “sterilizing” your breasts “by putting them in a boring white milk curtain.”


Its true, I think, and also exactly what I wanted when I was a nursing mother -- at least for the first 6-9 months or so. My breasts were workhorses, on-duty all the time, and I didn't want them to be available for anything else. I liked covering them with an industrial-looking milk curtain, to (try and) send the message to David, "Bugger off. These need a damn break." But there were many months that I kept breastfeeding after the baby started eating real food and I wasn't nursing so much -- when my boobs were only working part-time -- and for those months, I would've loved a lacey, sexy getup. So, bring it on, I say, and if you want the nursing bra which you could mistake for your grandmother's brasserie, that'll always be available to you. But, as with everything, its nice to have a choice.

Happy nursing!