I know, right?! SO MANY kids' stories fed me that lie.

I also wish I'd been in the position to do something more about it (like write an email to the Nicoles and Mallory, or maybe even pitch an article of some sort). TBH it took me a long time to figure out what was even bugging me. I did write a smattering of "this is how it's done in my country" comments, which you can probably see if you click on my username (not that they're super interesting).

I'm sure the fact that this is an English language site means you don't expect a lot of readers from Southern Europe, where English is notoriously not common. But I think the issue is also a cultural one -- every country has its points of reference, places and cultures it considers more "relevant" than others. I'm fairly sure we get more about the US in our national news than Americans get about Italy, for instance (and by contrast, we barely ever hear anything about Northern or Eastern European countries, to say nothing of what happens outside the Western world).

For some last-minute compensation, here is an article about the possible reactions to Brexit on the part of European countries that are generally less prominent in the news. (It was written pre-referendum so Brexit is still referred to as just a possibility.) http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexitvote/2016/04/21/prep...

Yes, to the mods! *clinks glass*

I'd like to take the time here, since this is active thread, to do two things.

The first is to thank and appreciate The Toast for everything it's given me: lovely writing, thoughtful and thought-provoking pieces on social justice, an education on issues I (as a person living in a country that's just beginning to grapple with immigration and with what "diversity" means) hardly knew about because my country's public discourse is too often still stuck at the "we're all white, right?" phase. Thank you. Oh, and thank you for the misandrist moments, too, because sometimes you just need to be angry about the patriarchy and it was nice that this was a place to go.

The second thing is... talk about my feelings, I guess?, about a thing I've seen here, especially in the commentariat, which is a bit of a tendency to address everyone here as if we all came either from the US, the UK, or Australia/New Zealand.

I'm hesitant to say this, because it probably is true that the vast majority of readers here are from English-speaking countries, or live there, and my very-recently-moved-to-the-UK Italian ass is part of a tiny minority. So maybe my role here is to accept that no matter how well-intentioned and noble a person is, they will still have practical limitations -- it's impossible to address yourself to everyone, everywhere, all the time, especially when all you're writing is an Internet comment and you're on your lunch break.

Still -- it sounds like most of the folks here want to be as inclusive as possible, so I thought they might want to know that when they write "we have X problem", where "we" seems to be "the Western world", and the problem is actually exclusive to the United States, or the US+Canada+UK, there is at least one person (me) who feels excluded from the conversation. (This comes up a lot when people write about schools and college. I am appalled and deeply saddened by the issues that schools and colleges in the US are dealing with. Italian schools and universities have entirely different problems, and it weirds me out to see people talking like we all have the same problems.)

I realize this is almost literally the last possible moment to point this out, so I'll clarify: I'm not asking anyone to do anything right here, right now. But I'd appreciate it if you thought about this while moving towards your future endeavors.

I meant to add some more examples to this so people don't feel vaguely attacked, but I'm running out of time. Will try to return later. In any case: if you read this, thank you for reading.

Hey, we (in Italy) still teach Latin in public high schools to this day (although not if you choose to go to the Italian equivalent of a trade school). Some types of high school also add five years of ancient Greek.

Funnily enough, I never heard of anyone who used Greek or Latin as a secret language when I was in school. I think it was partly because plenty of teachers and parents would understand us, and partly because we were never taught to speak the language, just to translate text, so becoming somewhat fluent would have been too much of an effort. Also they were languages The System imposed upon us, man.

After I wrote this I saw you already posted another comment with the answer to my question. It makes sense, and is very demoralizing.

But there are so many seamed padded bras, too! And I don't live in the US!

(Feel free to ignore me, I'm clearly just whining by now)

No shame in ordering something just to try it on! I'm sure online stores take it into account.

I live on the EU side of the pond, so I don't have access to a Nordstrom, alas! But I'm sure I can find Chantelle somewhere else. I used to have a Chantelle bra when I was a smaller-bodied person and loved it, thanks for reminding me! The Merci and Idole look like they could work for me.

Three-piece bras are the way to go for me, for sure, except for this magical bra I found once called the Ballet Rose which managed to be super supportive despite being two-piece and made entirely out of lace (it also gave me Super Pointy Boobs which I personally love, but YMMV). It felt like wearing a piece of armor, seriously, nothing moved from its place in there. The company closed shortly after I found out about it, but you can still find some pieces on eBay. Anyway, my boobs sound like they're the same shape as yours, except they have some extra poofiness on top that makes low-cut bras (like balconettes) a bad choice.

This is all very useful, thank you!

Re: breast shape, I tried looking at some tutorials online, but the ones I found tended to be very... normative, I guess? Like, "this is a NORMAL/GOOD breast. It will look good with any kind of bra. Other, DEFECTIVE types of breasts have to wear X kind of bra otherwise they'll look like crap." Plus it's harder to figure out shape when your boobs are very droopy (especially since the diagrams are more on the rounded side). Do you have any suggestions for tutorials that just talk about shape, without attaching judgments to the way your boobs look?

I don't think Elomi covers my size range, sadly! (I currently wear a 32G.)