Photo : Rachel Mandel

Hello, my name is Autumn and I have been bra-free for 5 months.  

My addiction to bras began when I was in fifth grade. I remember the exact moment. My friend Ashley brought a Britney Spears poster to class.  Britney was wearing bellbottom pants and and a shirt basically made up of a bra with bellbottom sleeves.  This isn’t necessarily anything different than what we see in media today (except for the excessive amount of bellbottom clothing), but for a 5th grader, it was a lot to handle in one picture.  I realized that Britney was attractive and popular and to me, the way her boobs were being showcased meant that she was attractive and popular.

By the time middle school rolled around, like many girls, I started to focus on how I looked.  I…