Dear other bra-free women,

I'm new! I actually started not wearing a bra about two years ago, especially during the winter, because of my eczema. But now I can't even really bring myself to wear one even when my skin is real clear. They HURT my poor breasts. They make them go numb; fall asleep, and when I take the nasty thing off, my poor breasts get that awful pins-and-needles feeling. I used to feel more comfortable about not wearing a bra but recently I went from an A cup to a B cup and now it feels almost like I'm too big to not wear a bra anymore. :( However I've found that corsets are comfortable, more so than bras, so I wear one when my skin allows, but alas.

I've updated the profile with some banner images. I'm going to try promoting the community soon; if anyone else is interested in putting the banners up somewhere, leave a comment in this entry for the html. Tell your friends!

Icons will be next!

Hello everyone! This is the first post to brafree, so I decided that I'd start off by introducing myself and telling my story.

I'm Sara, I'm 19 years old and I decided to stop wearing a bra about two years ago when I moved to a new city for college. I was living in the dorms on my own and I think I just got out of the habit of putting one on as part of the general laziness of the college atmosphere combined with a very relaxed dress code- if there were people wandering around on campus in pajama pants, I thought, why not go without a bra?

At first it felt kind of weird, but eventually I got used to it and decided that not wearing a bra was much more comfortable than wearing one. I know that most of the time when people complain about pain from bras, the answer is to go get fitted by a professional, but that never worked for me. People at different stores told me different things (32 C, 34 B, 36 A!) but none of those sizes worked. What did work was not wearing one at all! My breasts, back and shoulders were all less sore.

Later on in the semester, though, I began to volunteer with Junior Achievement as part of a school program. It involved going into elementary schools and interacting with students, and unlike college in general, the dress code was strict. Bras weren't explicitly required, but I got the impression that they were implied, and I might be considered 'indecent' if I went without. Rather than ask or risk making waves, I decided to just put one on for those couple of hours a week. It was hell! I wondered how I had worn one nearly every day for the last six years without realizing how uncomfortable it was.

For a while I worked as a balloon animal artist in restaurants, and again I decided to wear a bra without even asking if I had to. I suppose I was nervous about talking to my boss about it (he was obnoxious and sexist, which is why I eventually quit) but now I wish I had spoken up instead of assuming and suffering silently. Now my job allows me to work from home, so it isn't an issue, but I'm worried about my future career. I plan to go to grad school... what will be expected of me then, especially if I work as a TA? What about when I become a professor? At some point, I think, I'll have to summon the courage to challenge the bra-wearing norm, and that's where the idea of a community comes in. I don't think that I'm alone in wanting to choose what kind of underwear I wear!

This community is also a project for my women's studies class, but I hope that knowing that this is a school project won't diminish anyone's interest in the community. I intend to maintain for as long as I'm on LiveJournal and believe that it serves a purpose... so, welcome! I look forward to hearing about other peoples' experiences, and I hope that people find my own to be helpful.

In the next couple of weeks I hope to post about exercising without a bra, breast health and the way breasts look under clothes, with and without a bra.