Great post, Melissa and wonderful reply, Lindsey! I would like to also call attention to your concluding line, Melissa, in which you assert: “Until you’ve worked for years navigating the absolutely bizarre brazier world both personally and professionally, get your hands off my breasts.” While you are using this end comment jokingly, you are also alluding to the fact that you know more than this man about breasts but that if he DID have this knowledge then his hands might have more of a right to touch your breasts. I just want to reinforce what you’ve said earlier in this post and again emphasize that knowledge/intelligence/capital/penises are all things that do not grant someone the power to touch a woman’s (or anyone’s) body. It’s not just a male thing (straight, gay, or otherwise). I don’t care who you are–and whether or not you’ve spent years navigating the world of bras personally and/or professionally–your hands don’t belong on my body without my permission (this goes back to Lindsey’s comment about pregnant bellies).

Particularly, I’m really interested in the idea that women’s breasts are supposed to be “up here.” This assumption that women’s breasts (and I say women’s breasts because men also have breasts — it just isn’t something we often talk about) need to be, or at least appear to be, perky is based on an assumption that women should always appear as youthful and fit as they can. Women’s breasts must be displayed to maximum effect — they must be pushed up, shaped, and augmented to attract attention and inspire sexual desire. They need to be “up here” because women should, according to our culture, always look as sexually available and pleasing to the heteronormative male eye as possible.

(Aside: Yes, there are arguments that say that the “right bra” will be tight enough around the band to redistribute some of the breast weight so that the lower back isn’t as stressed, but there are also exercises that can strengthen the lower back to reduce and/or eliminate back strain from heavy breasts. It is also in this “right bra” rhetoric that the majority of bra retailers show their true cards, because salespeople at certain stores (I’m sure Lane Bryant doesn’t do this) will often measure and then use ratios to adjust the numbers to fit bras they actually sell [for example, a Victoria’s Secret salesperson taking the numbers that would place someone in a 30G, a size VS does not sell, and converting them into a 38DD, a band size that will not actually provide the support advertised and a cup size that will likely result in the dreaded “muffin” look].)

The discourse of the “right bra” and the need for women’s breasts to be “up here,” more than serving the real needs of women, primarily serves to forward and perpetuate heteronormative and capitalist agendas of postfeminism, wherein women can (and should) consume goods they are told they need in order to “empower” themselves to look as sexually desirable and available to heteronormative heterosexual males as possible.

So, for me, what is most interesting about your anecdote is that not only is this man mansplaining but he is actively perpetuating heteronormative cultural standards of beauty. Not to mention perpetuating the idea that women’s bodies must always be physically and visually accessible (available for touching, whether it is sexual or not, and available to be scrutinized and judged in order to be further disciplined). You see this sort of disrespect for women’s physical boundaries all the time — whether a stranger is asking to “touch them” or people are pawing at a pregnant woman’s stomach without permission (especially because to say no, to refuse to allow permission to be touched, is to be labeled a bitch).