queerbychoice | Various Things

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Various Things

I'm apparently being interviewed about Queer by Choice issues on The Derek & Romaine Show on SiriusOutQ radio this Friday, June 20th, during their 9:00-10:00 Eastern Time hour. You can listen to it online if you feel like it. I just hope my voice isn't as shaky as it was in the last radio interview I gave.

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wyntergyrl has traumatized me just now by encouraging me to search google for studies claiming that bras cause breast cancer. Please, someone assure me absolutely positively that these studies are discredited. I don't have enough time on my lunch break to do anything but frighten myself.

. . .

I am attempting to arrange for Mikie to visit me in August, but I have to obtain the necessary vacation time from work first, and the person who's normally in charge of granting vacation requests is never at work anymore (she recently had a baby, and only comes to work twice a month or so these days) and the slowness of the process in her absence is severely provoking my impatience.

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Okay, the studies I've found on the breast cancer-bra link say that wearing a bra /can/ contribute to breast cancer. The idea is that bras which don't fit well and constrict the breast tissue prevent proper lymph circulation and thus proper drainage of toxins. On the other hand, the high incidence of breast cancer is, they think, linked to a combination of bras, poor nutrition, increased toxins in the environment, and so forth. So, much like the other things you encounter in your day-to-day living, your bra may increase risk, but you can probably do a significant amount of risk reduction by taking care of yourself in other ways, eating properly, wearing bras that fit properly and don't compress breast tissue, and taking your bra off at night.

But but but that means . . . my options are . . . to wear a cancer-causing item of clothing every day . . . or else walk around with everybody gaping at and making scary assumptions about me because of my nipples poking through my shirt every day and most likely I'd lose my job in no time flat if I refused to return to wearing one.

Neither of these options is acceptable. Excuse me while I go shoot up every bra factory I can find.

The way my breasts sag without a bra, I'd probably get arrested for indecent exposure after someone spotted them hanging out the bottom of my shirt.

Hmm. Cancer vs. jail. I think I'll take my chances with cancer, thanks.

There's option #3, which involves the following:

- get a loose comfortable bra that involves a minimum of constriction; a bra that really really fits well.
- wear only as necessary, i.e. at work or when working out
- minimize risk in other ways, like taking care of yourself with good nutrition, doing cardio work to improve circulation, making sure that you're adequately hydrated
- when you take the bra off, massage your breast tissue to increase circulation and encourage flushing out of toxins - may be worth doing this at intervals throughout the day on bathroom breaks

may be worth doing this at intervals throughout the day

Or, hell, whenever you damn well want to. Because, hey! Boobies! ;)

No bra ever fits me at all. It isn't an option.

I think the real third option is probably to dress in four layers of shirts at all times. But it gets awfully hot in Sacramento in the summertime to be doing that.

At least in jail you'd still be alive, though . . .

You can put band-aids over your nipples to avoid the indecency problem. Lots of models do it.

Personally, I don't understand why nipples are considered indecent when seen through clothing. My nipples are regularly visible, whether I'm wearing a bra or not. The only person who ever commented was my gay friend who thinks he can say such things because he's gay. Actually, he's just a prude.

P.S. everyone has nipples. I see guys' nipples all the time. Why don't they have to wear bras?

Mine are visible too, but I look for extra-thick bras to make them *less* visible than they would otherwise be. I mean, there's "visible" and then there's "screaming out for attention form 20 miles away."

That's an excellent question, but I don't know the answer. Ask them.

I'd check out the methodology of the study before getting too worried.

Unfortunately I can't find any really detailed description of the methodology, and the general impression I get from what little I have found is that there's still plenty of room for debate. However, the argument being presented is that bras' restrictiveness on lymphatic flow within the breats contributes to both breast cancer and breast cysts (and it's long been accepted as fact that women with breast cysts are more likely to get breast cancer later), and since I personally have breast cysts, including one about one and a half cubic inches around, I fit uncomfortably well into their textbook examples.

here you go, this is the study I read: http://www.femail.com.au/bra.htm

I find it painful not to wear a bra for a day... my boobs are pretty darn big and have been boosted for the last 8 or 9 years, so I'm not going to be giving up my bra any time soon :P but I will be stepping up my self-examination and all that stuff, maybe getting an aluminum free deoderant... and I'm glad I get exercise and eat well :P meh.

and yeah, bras never EVER fit me right either! Grrrrr!

Sorry to stress you out *smooch*

Well, I'd rather be stressed out than dead . . . but wait, aluminum deodorants are bad too? Because um, I can't really give up those. I'm severely painfully allergic to about 99 different brands of deodorant and there's only one brand in the whole world that I've ever discovered that I'm actually not allergic to, which is Suave, and it's aluminum-based. But my experiences with allergies to all the others were way too painful for me to ever dare experimenting with any other brands ever again.

Pretty much everything is bad, either in theory or in large quantities. You can't prevent exposure to tiny little risks, and your risk of dying in a car wreck or something is a lot higher than your risk of getting cancer, let alone dying from cancer, because you used the wrong deodorant or wore the wrong bra. There's a point where worrying over obscure possibilities stops helping you protect yourself and starts causing stress-related problems all on its own, and I think you've hit it. Make sure your bra isn't too small, do those goofy self-examinations regularly (you seem plenty paranoid for them), and follow basic common sense. Worrying will lower your immune system, and then you'll be like Helen, who can quite literally give herself a cold by staying up stressed over something or other.

Honestly, I find it hard to fear the effects of a constrictive bra now that I have a 14 gauge steel barbell through the tip of one of my breasts. I'm not dying anytime soon, and neither are you!

I'm having a high paranoia day. I do not have them often, but when I do have them they are severe. :p

eeeek, sorry to tell you horrible things! Most antiperspirants contain metals and such like aluminum, which can interfere with the function of the lymph nodes in your armpits and contribute to breast cancer....

Don't worry about the deoderant (http://www.cancer.org/docroot/NWS/content/NWS_3_1x_Antiperspirant_Use_Does_Not_Increase_Risk_Of_Breast_Cancer.asp)

I don't see anything either way on the bra issue on the American Cancer Society website, though. I have no choice about wearing a bra, so if it increases risk, I'll have to have an increased risk. The amount of pain I get from not wearing a bra is too silly to contemplate chosing to have.

I found something from the American Cancer Society yesterday that said there is insufficient evidence to conclude that bra wearing contributes to breast cancer. There was no study to indicate it necessarily didn't contribute either though; it just said the studies supporting such a link were insufficient to draw conclusions. The deodorant thing you found is more reassuring.

As for the pain of not wearing a bra, I know what you mean - but the anti-bra websites claim that the reason it's painful is that wearing a bra has caused the ligaments holding up your breasts to atrophy from lack of weight-bearing.

I refused to wear bras until my mother made me start in 9th grade - for the preceding two years I had breasts but just wore camisoles. I know that back in middle school it never seemed painful to walk around without a bra all the time, whereas now it does, and my breasts are not significantly larger than in 8th grade. This seems to give some credence to the atrophied ligaments idea.

Interesting. Atrophied ligaments does sound like it would make sense.

On the other hand, I never had any breast pain until I was . . . ummmmm . . . 21, I think. I started taking "the pill," and my breasts grew at an alarming rate and they were unbearably painful. Ever since then, I can't go without a bra without pain. Even at night.

But then again, maybe it does all still go back to the ligaments. My ligaments weren't conditioned to hold up the new monster breasts, so there was all that pain. And with wearing the bras (and even increasing the amount of time in them) they were never given a chance to strengthen.

Interesting.

But can we do anything to strengthen these ligaments?

They get strengthened by being used, just like muscles. You have to put up with the pain first, though.

NOooooOOOooOooOoooooooOOOOooooo.

No more pain.

**throws a hissy fit**

*nods*

Given the choice between prison and death, I'd have to think on it extensively, but the more I learn about the US prison system, the more I'm thinking death would be a preferential option.

And outside of prison, if I got cancer, I would be able to get medical treatment. In prison, if I got it despite not wearing a bra, there's a good chance I'd be ignored and remain untreated.

Point taken.

also to lymph node cancer as well as new studies which link aluminum to alzheimers and other forms of dimensia.

I know. it's bloody scary.... especially since antiperspirant is one of those things I am dependant upon :P I have a real aversion to feeling sweaty. it bothers me like almost nothing else.... le sigh....

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