Feminist Pornographer

Background: I have a story to tell. It’s a story about body image, porn, sexuality and relationships. Its main characters are myself; my aunt; the internet; its technological cohorts; and D, J, and M – three men I have, for lack of a better term, dated – in that order. Stories told in chronological order are nice, but I don’t want to tell this story starting from the beginning and proceeding to the present. I need to tell it in bits and pieces, not necessarily in order, with breaks in-between for essays on related topics that aren’t at the heart of my (our?) story, yet are topics that also compel me to write. Hopefully, the collection of these vignettes about my lovers, cybersex/porn and the deceased aunt I miss – hopefully, they will form some sort of coherent whole.

Bras are incredible works of fashion technology, aren’t they? I really love them. I love the way a pretty bra looks, decked out in lace and ribbon, or eyelets and scalloped edging, or simple satin. I love the way a good-fitting bra feels, too. Tight around my torso, lifting and cradling my breasts in one place, holding them still and close, and then, the feeling of release and relaxation when I take it off after a long day. In 7th or 8th grade, my boobs were perky for about five minutes before they gave under the pressure of their size and decided to hang a good five pencils below the passing grade for the you-don’t-need-a-bra test. They still hang like that today:

Since I’ve failed the pencil test ever since I got breasts, I have taken full advantage of the wonders of bra engineering. I have to say that I am quite satisfied with the comfort and support they have provided me for the past 20 years. Bras have allowed me to live an active life – running to catch buses, dancing for hours on end, hiking up mountains, jumping up and down in triumph and glee, doing somersaults and cartwheels on green lawns well past my flat-chested childhood. These things would be painful without a good bra keeping things from bouncing too much.

The bra I burned for my Feminist Pornographer header is my favorite of all time. It’s pretty. It’s comfortable. It gives me great support. My boobs look hot in it under a variety of tops and dresses. I originally owned three of them, but now, I’m down to one because the one I burned for my header is the second one that’s gone up in flames. I’d like to write about Dan Savage burning the first one for me sometime. But I figure if George Lucas could release the 4th episode in the Star Wars series first, I should be able to write about Bra Burning II before I write about Bra Burning I.

The bra in my Feminist Pornographer header didn’t actually go up in flames completely—I stopped about here:

I would have liked to display this charred and half-burned bra somewhere in my house. But I was already concerned about having inhaled too many dioxins during the burn itself, and the half-destroyed bra still smelled like burnt plastic, even after sitting outside to air out for a couple days. So it went into the trash.

My burnt bras were Warner’s Sheer Heavan Underwire Bras – Style #1502 – size 34D. I know these details because I wrote them down to be able to order more of them. Alas, the style was discontinued in February of 2007, and I didn’t figure that out until after I burned them. I have to confess that if I had known I wouldn’t be able to buy more to replace the ones that went up in flames, I might have thought twice about destroying two of them. A good bra is hard to find, and this bra has additional merits that my other styles don’t possess. Because it is see-through and nude-colored, wearing it may be the closest approximation of the classical nude breast I can create on my own body, without surgery. I like that. I like that I can enjoy a mimic of the perky look without destroying my natural shape or risking loss of sensation. I like the way I can use it to show off and present my nipples to a lover if I so choose – if I feel safe with a guy – if I am confident his gaze and his hands enjoy my unsupported naked breast, too.

But the useful qualities of this bra for sex and fun and fashion have also made it a symbol of pain for me. You see, this bra was one of several that I bought specifically for the purposes of wearing in bed with D. Our arguments about the attractiveness of my breasts led to me wearing bras during sex, and his ultimate refusal to take my bra off, even when I wanted him to, was … how should I put it? … fucked up. I like erotic humiliation, but my earnest shopping for bras and tops in order to please him but also, somewhat subconsciously, deny him the privilege of the tits he had insulted; my focus on choosing styles and fabrics I thought he, in particular, would like; my hope that he would back down, that he would change his mind and get me completely naked because he wanted me as I was; my hope that he would understand how much I needed to be naked with him; his consistently and contentedly taking off every other stitch of clothing on my body besides my bra, over and over again – that wasn’t erotically humiliating – it was just plain humiliating. But this particular bra gets even better as a symbol of pain and male gaze assholery for me – it’s the same bra I was wearing when J – having been enthusiastic about my boobs for months and having known my history with D – did an about face and, like D, wanted me to keep my bra on during sex.

Just as I want to post about my first bra burning some other Sunday, I also want to write about these experiences with D and J in more detail, in the future. There are nuances in the he-said-she-said of our arguments and actions I want to explore at length, but for now … this week … I am distracted by writing about something else … the glow of flames, the heat of combustion, the discovery of my inner pyromaniac.

It was fun to burn this bra.

Really. Fun.

I’ve never been particularly into fires. I’ve enjoyed plenty of nice ones that someone else has built in a fireplace or campground, but I’ve never desired fire enough to make one myself, or prioritize living in a house with a fireplace. I was never tempted to play with matches as a kid. And although I liked fireworks on the 4th of July at times, more often than not, they scared me. I took adult warnings about the dangers of fire very seriously. But I’m an adult now, and I really … really … enjoyed setting my bra ablaze.

To get the shot of me in the bra, the shots of the bra in flames, and the post-burn braless shot, I set up my digital camera on its tripod, planning to shoot in its movie mode and then extract still shots from the movies on my computer. During the shoot, I had my blinds open to get good light. I live on a busy street, so I was counting on the glare from the sun on the windows to prevent people from seeing in. I’d estimate that 100 people drove or walked by, while I was standing nude and able to see them clearly and head on, outside the window I was standing opposite of. There were plenty of times that I ducked down worried that they’d see through the glare and I’d offend someone with my blatant nakedness, but no one seemed to notice me from what I could tell. I played around a lot with the placement and angle of the camera. I did a bunch of practice shots, holding the bra out at different distances and angles from my body. I had to strike a balance – framing the bra within the shot and framing my body with the bra, on the one hand – and on the other hand, maintaining what felt like a safe distance between my body and a fabric whose flammable properties were unknown to me. If I held it too close, I feared burning myself, especially if the burning bra got out of control. But if I held it out too far, part of the bra would be cut off in the shot.

When I thought I had the angles right … when I had practiced holding still in my protester’s pose, and keeping my face plain and serious, and covering my pussy with my hands to emphasize the nudity of my breasts, and holding the bra out so it was fully in the shot and not blocking the view of my breasts and not twisted or folded … when I was finally ready to light it on fire, I put 3 big pans and tupperwares full of water on the floor, underneath where I would be holding the blazing bra. I envisioned lowering the bra into the water to put out the flames if they got too big, and having the water right there to squelch the flames was, in fact, useful and necessary. But I didn’t anticipate the other purpose the pans of water served in protecting me and my house from fire – it surprised me when pieces of the bra, still aflame, fell off of it, hit the water, and hissed as the water extinguished them:

It was all thrilling. It was hard to keep my face plain and serious for the protester look I was going for. The movies caught giddy smiles on my face each time the flames got too big and I relaxed from my pose in order to lower the bra to the water.

When I first put up Feminist Pornographer, I had a different version of the bra burning header – a more extended version, filling the width of my blog. At least it filled the width when I viewed it on my computer. This was before I figured out how to code the layout in my header the way I really wanted it. I like the simplicity of the three-panel header and how it draws more attention to the statement I intend it to make (which is something like: You want ‘em perky? Fuck that. I’m staying saggy). But the extended version has its merits, too – more variety of flames, a display of the progression of the burn. It was hard to choose the winning bra-on-fire picture to go in the three-panel version. I like each of the pictures in the more extended version:

Does my header picture communicate? It probably does most of the time, but I rejected an anonymous comment on my “Feminist Posing” collage from a few weeks ago because the commenter really didn’t get it. The comment was: “on this pictures you look much more better as on the ‘blog headline picture’. keep it up” … Dude doesn’t get it – dude gets his comment rejected. Although today, that’s changed to dude doesn’t get it – dude gets his comment written about. Perhaps the anonymous commenter is not a native English speaker. At any rate, I presume he has not read anything I’ve written on here, just as I presume he’s a guy. Or perhaps he has, and he doesn’t understand it. Or maaaybe, the dude totally gets it – maybe his comment was intended to get under my skin – that would … impress me. At any rate, I realize – in fact, I even hope for – the irony and pathetic-ness in my putting up pictures and essays intended to counter and comment on his type of attitude and then finding myself the object of his type of attitude – perhaps he or others will post more comments describing exactly why I look much more better posing with the backlighting: because it minimizes my cellulite? because I look thinner? I also realize the backlit pictures of me posing in the mirror with sex appeal in mind are more likely to be beaten off to – and that’s fine – I intended them to be presenting my body for sex … for consumption. And although it wouldn’t surprise me if they’ve inspired some beating off, too, I intended the header pictures to present my body for a different kind of admiration – thought, art, principle, independence. So don’t get me wrong – I like the backlighting and the posing, too – and I appreciate compliments on the sex appeal of any of my pictures. But really, I look much more better in the header – straight on, in full daylight, plain and simple; wearing nothing but my painful, comfortable bra – an icon of femininity, a false presentation of my most feminine features; and then taking it off and letting it burn, admiring the glow of its symbolism … the slight upturn in my mouth. I could barely keep that smile off my face because I felt free.