/ 2 October 2008

Push up, and then some more

I went to the Menlyn shopping mall in Pretoria two Saturdays ago. I felt I had wandered on to the movie set for Marie Antoinette or The Other Boleyn Girl — a feast of plunging décolletés and push-up bras. Every other young woman was showing pneumatic cleavage.

Very pneumatic. The latest fashion among teen girls is to wear two bras. Push up, and then some more. What apparel company thought up this clever marketing gimmick? It creates some unlikely figures. A bit like Salma Hayek in the Campari ads — boobs out of proportion with the rest of her body. Were her curves digitally manipulated or did she have implants? Whatever the reason, it is not natural. But then, natural is so passé.

I hear that teenage girls sleep with their Wonderbras on because they fear losing elasticity if they let their body hang naturally. This borders on obsession. A bit of anti-gravity architecture is nice and welcome, but 24/7? Always corseted except in the shower? There is something Wonder-wrong here.

Boob-pushup-mania is prescribed for all ages. You can’t escape it. I have spent many hours in shops, upmarket and downmarket, looking for the Holy Grail of lingerie, with little luck. Am I the only woman in the world who craves a sexy, lacy bra without padding and underwire?

Yes, there are unwired, unpadded bras on sale: practical, all cotton, no frills, in boring white, black or flesh colour only, styled for marathon runners, pre-teen girls and nuns.

Once, when I moved to South Africa in 2001, I spotted some sexy, lacy, unwired little numbers at Woollies. I bought three, in black, purple and cream. I wish I had bought 10 of each because I never saw them again. Ever since, when I travel to the backwaters of Africa where Woollies dumps its old stuff, I search the racks in vain.

Mothers are also shortchanged in the lingerie department: nursing­ bras come only in white. Boring! Could we have flowers, polka dots, something to stimulate baby visually as well as gastronomically? Perhaps stimulate baby’s father as well? Mothers are not only milking machines. There is sex after baby. Well, actually, a lot less of it, until baby sleeps through the night and learns to fix its own breakfast. But eventually there is a sex life again. And you can encase your bust in rubbery polyurethane for it.

These days you can choose between water-and silicone-filled padding for your swimwear and for your child’s underwear — padded bras for eight year-olds are on the racks.

Would you want to wear one of those rigid corsets, say, during a 20-hour transatlantic flight? I wouldn’t. Even if I were flying Virgin first-class and Sir Richard Branson was seated next to me, watching the red sun kiss Kilimanjaro or the great, grey-green greasy Limpopo snaking below.

I would take the opportunity, though. Once the sun set or the Limpopo disappeared, I would give Sir Richard a piece of my mind. He, his gyms, his airline, his credit card and his cellphone are cool. But pages 14 and 15 of the otherwise very cool Scoop magazine to launch Virgin mobile a while ago were not cool at all.

A young, sexy, sultry beauty, with thick red lips, long dark hair and a plunging black dress, sits intimately close to a tanned, wrinkled man, so old that he would need five of the magical blue pills to get it up. His parched hand rests on her thigh. She looks bored; he looks pleased.

”Rewards” is written on the mustard­coloured piano next to them. Is his money the reward for her beauty? Or vice versa?

To glamorise intergenerational and transactional sex in a country where sex between older men and young women drives the Aids epidemic to shockingly high rates (28% of those between the ages of 20 and 24 are HIV-positive) is corporate social irresponsibility.

Meanwhile, on TV the Scrutinize campaign alerts young people to the risks of such relationships — the ”communication minister” who supplies a cellphone or airtime, the ”transport minister” who pays bus fare or petrol — they can also give you the virus.

The Make your Move ads by loveLife show young people conquering limited opportunities, negotiating the contradictions between who you think you can be, who society thinks you should be, and who society lets you be. And you can be something other than the Reward for a Sugar Daddy.

Teens are bombarded with contradictory media messages. Why are we then surprised if they are confused? Beware of sugar daddies — but one can reward you with a cellphone. Study and develop your brain — but boobs are your strongest asset. Exercise and be fit — but your natural shape will never match the photo­shopped models in the ads, so buy more push-up bras at the mall.