There’s More to Nipple Coverage than Bandaids?

Photo by @bencehalmosi

“Just wear those nipple things,” my friend says to one of her teenage daughters on the phone who has called for outfit advice before an awards event.

When she hangs up, I am bursting with enthusiasm.

“I LOVE that you have these conversations with the girls!” I exclaim as she sits across from me. “I never talked about this with my mom. I learned all of this on my own!”

She laughs.

“I wish I had talked about this with my mom when I was in high school. I ended up putting band-aids on my boobs because I didn’t know any other option,” I continue.

Appropriate nipple care under various shirts and dresses was not a conversation I had with my mom in my teen years. We didn’t explore the wide world of pasties or various styles of brassieres.

“I didn’t talk about this stuff either,” my friend replies. “And I don’t think they had pasties when we were in high school. I think everyone was using band-aids.”

This comforts me a little until I google when boob pasties were invented (the descriptor word important here because the internet thought I was talking about some bread product) and learned from a Forbes article that “the earliest examples of pasties date back to the 1920s.”

“But, even if your mom didn’t tell you, you had sorority sisters and now you’re a flight attendant,” I continue. “You all talk about everything as flight attendants,” I tell her, a little envious of the sisterhoods she has been a part of, sisterhoods where they talk about how to hide your nipples.

I wish I had known about pasties on the eve of my friend’s wedding in 1998 when I donned the bridesmaid’s dress and realized my over-the-shoulder bra would be hanging out from under the halter neckline.

Yes, it was the night before the wedding and yes, I was learning this a little too late for much of a solution. My only option was to ditch the bra and find some band-aids to hide any view of the nipple.

Incidentally, this has become an interesting conversation topic in my Gender Communication classes where we explore the cultural messaging around seeing nipples under clothes, how it is deemed inappropriate or titillating. Why is there such an issue with seeing the shape of a nipple in the first place?

I think about this pretty frequently because a picture of me in the bridesmaid’s dress sits on my dresser and I sometimes believe I can see the outline of the band-aids.

Not only did I not have the bra, boob, or nipple conversation with my mother in high school, but I also wasn’t having it with any of my friends. I thought all of this was better kept to myself to navigate in private.

I also wish I had known about the vast array of bra styles when I was getting dressed in a large white ball gown to ride on the back of a convertible T-Bird down Constitution Avenue in Washington, DC for the 1994 Cherry Blossom parade.

I quickly realized the simple cotton t-shirt bra I brought to wear underneath the dress showed conspicuously above the neckline. As my mom and I attempted to safety pin the dress above the bra, I wondered why I hadn’t considered other options like a strapless bra, which I had heard of but had never actually seen. Why didn’t I possess the helpful bra knowledge the other Cherry Blossom Princesses seemed to have?

Now, on the eve of 50, I celebrate with my friend at her dining room table the nipple guidance she is offering her daughters. I’m glad they might have less nipple confusion because their mom is showing them the way, guiding them through the cultural expectations around hiding nipples.

While I continue to explore this philosophically, I’m still conforming to social norms and interested in covering them up. What’s nice is that while my friend is showing her daughters the way, she’s teaching me as well.

I’ll remember this the next time I find myself in a nipple bind. I will call my friend to ask about those nipple things she was talking about with her teen.