The Pushup Bra Is Uplifting for All

Call me sexist if you want, but I thank Gossard, or perhaps God, for reviving good old-fashioned captivating cleavage (“Tempest in a B Cup,” April 20). If pushup bras help to uplift women, and in the process men, I am all for them.

Just because women have been tough enough to take their rightful places as equals to men in the workplace doesn’t mean they need to give up their femininity. The torso, whether enhanced or not, is one way to tell the girls from the boys.

As a footnote I am glad to report that the Japanese are bringing breasts out of the closet.

On a recent trip to Tokyo, I saw a large billboard on the side of a building showing an attractive model wearing what apparently was one of those uplifting new bras. The picture was captioned, in English, “Good Up.”

WILLIAM A. HARPER

La Jolla

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I tried one of those things once, one of those pushup bras. I put it on in the dressing room and was stunned. The transformation was instantaneous. I became buxom, a veritable figurehead jutting proudly from the bow of a pirate ship.

Quite the fantasy. I bought it on the spot.

However, it is one of those pesky immutable laws that fantasy rarely survives within the confines of the real world (and outside the overly perfumed sanctuaries of swank lingerie shops).

The first and only time I wore the bra, one of the pads slipped--and so did I. I resembled nothing so much as a woman as defined by Picasso in one of his more fragmented periods.

The bra was hastened to the Goodwill, along with my fleeting regrets and my realization that there are some harnesses in life that can only evoke unbridled hilarity.

WENDY SCHRAMM

Vista