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The Great Internet Bra Debate
How dirty is your bra?

Someone sent a letter to Dear Prudence asking if his girlfriend was normal because she's worn the same bra every day for two weeks. Prudie gives her usual inadequate and perplexing answer, starting with:

Perhaps your worries about hygiene arise from watching too much soft-core porn in which women get in the shower and soap their breasts for extended periods.

Reader comments range everywhere from ick:

I always wear a clean bra each day, just like I wear clean underwear EACH DAY. I've never heard of such a thing in my life as wearing the same clothes every day for weeks on end, especially not undergarments. And no, I'm not "filthy" rich. I grew up in a single wide trailer with extremely poor, hardworking parents, who taught me the value of SOAP and daily bathing.

to double standard!

Am I the only perosn who sees the endless gender-based double standard in society today? If this question was posed by a woman with a boyfriend who wore the same boxers for a week, the response would have centered around the boyfriend's level of evolution.

to several comments about how bras are expensive and wear out in the wash, bras don't get as dirty as undies, several comments asking how the guy knows she doesn't wash it, maybe she has several bras that look exactly the same, and there's even an informal poll asking how long people wear bras between washings. One of the best answers to the poll:

15 minutes. i have to take it off before me wife comes back

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	snarkhunter 2009-08-29 04:26 pm UTC (link)
	Same. I wash my bras when they start to smell like me. Otherwise? Pfft. They're fine. (Jeans are much the same way. I wear my jeans for a week if I didn't spill anything on them. Of course, I don't wear jeans very often anymore, being more of a skirt person.) (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

evilsqueakers
2009-08-30 02:28 am UTC (link)

I wear both for a week...because it depends on how often I leave the house. If I think they're a little funky like two days later, I febreeze them and keep going. Because the range from wearing a bra (and pants, since equal time) can range from an hour to ten. If it's been ten, I retire the bra and jeans for the week. Then I take them to my godmom for her to wash them. I have...I wanna say 5 bras and I'll change how often I wear them depending on the color of the shirt too. I'm not going to wear my black one with a shirt anymore than I'd wear a white one with a see-through black shirt. So they get various uses depending on what I feel like wearing that day.

Of course, I have seven pairs of jeans since Lane Bryant had a half-price sale a couple weeks ago. Yay for no more threadbare thighs. I had eight until I realized I was about one washing from popped seams.

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moosecharmer
2009-08-30 06:02 am UTC (link)

I wear jeans 3 days, maybe 4, and I spill stuff on them all the time. But I'm a baker, so it seems like a waste to put clean pants on every day if they're just gonna get dirty again. Though it does get embarrassing if I have to stop for groceries on the way home from work; sometimes there's a LINE of flour dusted where the bottom of my apron was. Also dogs like to lick my feet.

/grossness

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	gold_bluepoint 2009-08-30 07:49 pm UTC (link)
	Also dogs like to lick my feet. You're not alone - I have a ten-year-old pair of sandals that I still wear that apparently just taste divine to every dog I meet. At least, I hope it's the sandals. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	aliaras 2009-09-16 01:32 am UTC (link)
	Yeah, I'm a lot like this too. I tend to wear 'em until they a) look dirty, or b) smell. Or it's laundry day, because fitting an extra bra or three into the load isn't hard. This policy is causing problems in the jeans/skirts department, though, because I'm in a bunch of art classes at the moment and so my pants will be charcoal-covered in one day :( (Reply to this)(Parent)

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