Purrrrrrr……

Dear Friend & Reader:

I bought a new bra the other day. Not the kind you would imagine your mother buying, even though for some of you, I am old enough to be your mother and perhaps even your grandmother. This was no white 18-hour wide-strapped built-for-heavy-artillery Playtex special.

This bra came with a set of clear straps and brown satin ones, to match the bra. It can be strapless, or one strap for asymmetrical cut tops, cross-back, halter and regular plain Jane two-strap. It holds up my breasts, both proud D-cups upright and perky. It is a bra ready to go anywhere anytime and any place my fashion sense determines. And I thank the goddess I found it, because it lifts me and my fifty-plus body upward, helping draw attention to my best assets–my chest and my head, providing proportion to my round sensuous hips.

My mother would have been proud.

I have often wondered about and yet am still to fully understandВ my mother’s amazing sexual vitality.В  I grewВ up in a family where sexuality was overt, where the women of my mother’s side of the family had no inhibitions rejoicing in it and talking about it in front of us kids. ThisВ has had an effect on me I have yet to fully gauge.

The conversations at the table during my youth between my mom, her sister Rosario and their aunt, Antonia were all-night, smoke-filledВ marathons of filthy jokes and ribald gossip about themselves, their men and the men of our family — only a quarter of which I could get given my limited understanding of Ilocano, spoken on purpose to try to keep me and the other kiddies lost while in earshot.В However,В I was intuitive enough to understand their arcane code disclosed some pretty rowdy history.

My parents closed their bedroom door, so I never saw them in the act of lovemaking. I was aware in my childhood that my parents enjoyed each other sexually, and those touches and expressions of their love while we were growing up, even though I didn’t know exactly where they originated from, provided a wordless safety net of emotional security, even as we were becoming a two-language household. There were three languages in our house: Ilocano, English and physicality.

OneВ night, Mama had just finished giving me and my sisterВ our baths, and with our little red muumuus on, we stood over the floor heater to warm usВ and dry our skin and hair while she took her bath.В Dad came home from work with a funny smile. He had purchased one of those ballpoint pens with women in swimsuits that when turned upside down, the colored water inside fell and the bathing suit beauties would expose their nudity. Mama would have none of that in her house, so in protest, she tore off her clothes and paraded around the house naked. My father, my sister and I all fell down laughing so hard we all almost peed ourselves.

That was my first introduction to my mother’s perspective on her body and sexuality.

Mama’s sister Rosario was no less forward in expressing her delight in sex. After a few years of widowhood, she found herself a lover, slightly younger, who was with her until her mid-seventies.В On our visit to the Philippines, the first words out of my eighty-year old Auntie Rosario’s mouth after not seeing her for years was that if I didn’t get “on the move” and find a lover, my uterus would shrivel and turn to dust.В She regaled us with her days as a high school student residing in a small town near their home town of Santiago, where her roommate at the time would have weekly furniture-breaking assignations with the local priest. One night my aunt was called in to go across town to bring a doctor to break the two apart after a particularly perilous bout of coition. We didn’t need to ask for further details. I’m sure dear departed Auntie Rosario savored those memories.

When IВ entered my forties, I began to more fully empathize with my mother being a woman as well as being my mother.В Mama married two more times after Dad died and was as live a wire as when I remembered her as a kid. My mother’s need for the closeness that sex provided and getting it grounded her in a way that was magical–it produced a variety of joys aside from her physical satisfaction.В Her cooking blossomed. Her garden was glorious, she danced on the weekends with her partner, palled around with her women friends, and empty nest be damned, her life was full and boisterous enough for me to wonder whether she still remembered I was her child.

Sex brings life, no matter your age. It is a joy of this world across cultures and time. So when I read about mature women as cougars, (aka MILFs) like I was called the other day at work when I first wore my new bra, I bristled silently. В I am fifty-four, a child of the Pluto in Leo generation and I love my body and the possibilities it holds — the potential it has for dancing, cooking, gardening, giving and receiving love as I walk through my own life. I learned from masters that none of it is over at my age, but getting deeper and better as time goes on.

My own sensuality was ingrained in meВ by the tenderest of handsВ from women who loved me and respected themselves. They saw sex and physical passion as their right to enjoy when they chose to. They were no cougars. They were lovers who loved men older and younger than they were. I bring that selfhood with me into my mature years with the same sense of wonderment of the mystery that lay behind my parents’ bedroom door. The joys, the moans, the laughter and the feeling of being loved for a moment or a lifetime. Now does that make me predatory?

I am a sensual person who is neither a kitten, a pussycat or a predatory cougar as the Salon article suggests. I concur with the author that cougar is a term coined to objectify and pigeonhole mature women who take control of their own sexual experiences.В If I rule this body and I revel in it, which I do, that doesn’t make meВ a cougar.

If I’m going to be feline,В I choose to beВ a lioness. That’s what I choose to be with the people I want to love for as long as I can, whoever they are. It’s important that I have the ability to love well into my later years and far beyond the limited scope of those whose imagination is limited to making me a product or a projection.В Loving is living proof of the miracle of being fully alive. And that is why we love in the first place.

Yours & truly,

Fe Bongolan
San Francisco

14 thoughts on “Purrrrrrr……”

  1. I’ve exclusively breastfed five children, the last two twins; I absolutely love my breasts for a myriad of reasons…a beautiful bra is a wonderful way to celebrate them! Maybe I should splurge on a “birthday” bra every year (in addition to the utilitarian ones)!

  2. Ah, this brings up an interesting memory.

    I grew up in a very Catholic, very conservative household where sex was NEVER mentioned. However, one day, I noticed my mom wasn’t wearing any underwear under her nightgown… and I asked her why. I don’t remember the answer… but I understood later.

    Had my special-order L cups reduced earlier this year, to a manageable, comfortable C. Wish I’d done it 10 years ago.

    I hadn’t gone out braless in public since I was about 12 years old. Until now. I wear tight shirts, and shirts with plunging V’s.

    I feel sexy. Still.

  3. Ds do take some concious awareness. Like I show up at work and there is dirt all over my shirt. Need to employ kitty whisker lessons. And I did the forward roll when I high jumped: got to remember the breasts. Especially when size fluctuates with hormones. Only takes the slightest contact with the bar before it goes down. The ballet mastress told me I couldn’t perform until I got “those things” under control. All the work on my form would outshadowed by the bounce. I did the old smash with the ballet tights remodel.

    I am fairly masculine looking, so winter is always fun when I am bundled up and sexless.

    I worked a job with a young buxom gal, she was far beyond the D. And I liked her. She made sense to me and was fun. One day we hugged, it was an interesting thing to feel. We laughed and laughed about that one.

  4. Pan:

    Agreed. A beautiful well-built bra is a luxury well worth the expense. You don’t have to have a closet full of expensive bras, just one or two good ones will do. Its all about the feel and the knowing that matters.

    By the way, as a cook, I wouldn’t mind a few variations on the term “French Kiss the Cook”!

  5. Thanks Fe, for speaking up about passionate sexuality, no matter what the age. I’m heading towards 60 and I say there is nothing like having an adventurous and passionate lover. Or being one. Age means very little. The favorite part of my kitchen is a framed magazine ad I found that says “French Kiss the Cook.”

    As far as bras go, I love seeing my breasts in expensive, sexy ones– the more colorful, the more fun. Here is a tip ladies– I go to a store that sells them, try them on, note the size and style &etc… and go to EBay.

    Pan

  6. My D-cup friends loooooove my A-cups and I return the favor.
    Girl fun is fun!
    Now; It’s Sat night, so off to that sex-toy party.

  7. WOO HOO!!!
    🙂 fe, you rock. i love you.

    i wish we all could have grown up with women like yours in our families. the message i got from my mother was more along the lines of sex being something to stand guard against, something to be saved for marriage, something sure to lead to “losing” some part of me to someone else, sure to bring irrevocable heartbreak, and possibly the ruin of my entire future if an unintended pregnancy occurred. happy to say that never made sense to me, and in recent years i’ve been shedding more and more of her fears. it feels good.

    i’ll be sharing your essay with a shitload of my friends!

    a man my age (mid-30s) recently mentioned he thought the term “cougar” just referred to a woman 6 – 10 years her lover’s senior. 6 – 10 years?? are you shitting me? that’s nothing. we connect with who we connect with. besides, when it’s an older man, the world just winks and chuckles and wants to be in his shoes. so tired of the double standards.

    anyway, good for you for loving your big, beautiful breasts! mine are a smallish B, but truly fantastic.

  8. They only call powerful women over 40 cougars because they’re scared of anyone who doesn’t bow to whatever authoritarian bullshit they had spanked, yelled, and beaten into them when they were to young to realize that they didn’t deserve it. Thank you for having the audacity to stand in your power. If more people did that the authoritarian abuser culture would shrivel up and die that much faster.

  9. I am reminded of my friend Rhodessa describing walking the streets of Rome, where mature Italian women wore tight dresses, bras that fit them right and used their high heels like sneakers – they ran around in them everywhere, and comfortably.

    Those are glories of the Anna Magnani kind of lioness. When I think of them, I have to bow and worship at the feet of the goddesses!!! They make me feel at home with our family’s sensuous past at a global level.

  10. Fe,

    I want to be like you when I grow up…..

    I’m convinced I have small breasts due to that Tammy doll being my example of a “woman” – No, seriously, our erotic play as kids was with our 12″ dolls….better to have a living role model, not our childish imaginations and some molded plastic effigies.

    xo

  11. Fe, I cannot thank you enough for this luscious and sensual post! My 49 year old breasts are in need of a new bra too and I am inspired! Your mother and her sister and aunt sounded so vital and FUN.

    I have suffered a lot of mixed messages about sex in my upbringing and am slowly emerging from heavy repression. Early in 2008 I visited a shamanic healer who choose a lion as my spirit guide, to give me courage, so when you wrote here of being a lioness, I burst into tears as I have waited for my “leo” energy to speak to me. Also this week whilst riding on the subway I read a poem (which i have to go to a bookstore to find a copy of) and the last line was about a lion inspiring courage!

    So twice this week I have felt a shift around me inviting me to be braver and to choose life with more sensual experiences.

    Off to the bra store I go with my lioness unleashed.
    Meeoow!

  12. Fe, wonderful post. Thank you.

    I always love to read or hear about others’ experiences that are so positive, and usually so different from my own. I hope that by doing this, by feeling your experience that you describe around sex and sexuality as a child for example, it will help transform my own and create something better. I can sometimes, not always, actually feel a sense of joy in my heartspace – which is happiness for someone else’s happiness, that I myself didn’t have or receive early in life.

    That practice has been life-altering and definitely has helped me shift away from focusing on my own misery, which I did for quite a long time.

    So thank you for your post!

    I, for one, dislike bras to the nth degree and have been working on allowing myself to go braless (and I’m also a C or D cup, depending)… it’s been a slow trail but I’m making progress. Mostly for me it’s been about working on not worrying about what someone else thinks… and what’s “socially acceptable”. The more I do it, the easier it gets, of course, and I still “feel” there are certain scenarios where I “have to” wear a bra, or I don’t and then cheat by wearing something very loose and large on me. I’m working towards wearing one only if I want to and not hiding inside large garments when I don’t wear one. It’s a process. I used to wish that I was flat or flatter-chested… but I see now, where would the growth/work have been with that?!!

    I have had the experience of a fantastic bra though, a few years ago. I went to an upper scale department store and the woman in the lingerie department took my measurements and left the fitting room to return with a handful of bras for me to try. One of them was so sexy and soooooo comfortable at the same time, that I paid an exorbitant amount of money for it… but oh how that bra felt and made me feel! I walked out with another bra in hand, in multiple shades, for everyday wear, and also very comfy, but more reasonably priced. That was the best ever bra shopping experience I’ve ever had, hands-down. The bras don’t fit now but the experience remains.

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