Selects: How Bras Work

Josh Clark (0:00)

Hey, everybody, it's Josh. And yeah, we did an episode on bras. What of it? Yeah, we're two dudes. But we're carrying on a longstanding tradition, we found out, because it turns out that just about every bra in history, and then go back pretty far, was invented by a man. And that includes the guy who filed the patent for the first modern bra.

This also explains why until very recently, bras were profoundly uncomfortable, and usually had some sort of lace or something. And maybe we're see-through.

That's neither here nor there, though. Because in this episode, we cover everything there is to know about bras, and I feel like we came out of it as better people. I'll leave it to you to decide how we did. Either way, enjoy this episode from 2020 on bras.

SPEAKER_2 (0:49)

Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

Josh Clark (0:59)

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and it's just us again.

Just us. We've lost Jerry.

Charles "Chuck" W. Bryant (1:12)

I'm in the studio like I was on the last one, but it's still a ghost studio. There's no one here.

Josh Clark (1:17)

Sure, except for Tommy Chong and the record player, right?

Charles "Chuck" W. Bryant (1:25)

Sure.

Josh Clark (1:26)

Good.

SPEAKER_2 (1:27)

Did I get that joke?

Josh Clark (1:29)

We said that we have somebody poised to like scratch the needle off the record several episodes ago.

Charles "Chuck" W. Bryant (1:38)

Yeah, I remember that.

Josh Clark (1:39)

And that it was Tommy Chong whose job it was to do that now.

Charles "Chuck" W. Bryant (1:42)

That's right. Good callback.

Josh Clark (1:44)

Thank you.

Charles "Chuck" W. Bryant (1:45)

Should we talk bras?

Josh Clark (1:46)

Yeah, we're talking bras, man, which I appreciate it when we do stuff like this, episodes like this, because we have to try harder because we're men, you know?

Charles "Chuck" W. Bryant (1:56)

Sure.

Josh Clark (1:57)

The usual.

Charles "Chuck" W. Bryant (1:58)

It's the only time we have to try harder in life.

Josh Clark (2:00)

Sadly, that is kind of true.

But we haven't shied away from topics that have very little to do with us, like corsets. We did one on how corsets work. Did we? Totally did. A whole episode on corsets. Geez. We did one on female puberty. Yeah.

Charles "Chuck" W. Bryant (2:22)

Foot binding.

Josh Clark (2:23)

Yeah. We've done a lot of them. So this is just one in the same.

A three is a lot when it comes to this kind of stuff.

Charles "Chuck" W. Bryant (2:32)

Yeah. No, I'm just kidding. And we did mention doing one on menstruation not too long ago, and we got a bunch of supportive e-mails saying, like, yes, guys, please do that. Like, there's no reason why you shouldn't.

Josh Clark (2:42)

I've been menstruating for 50 years, and I still don't understand it. Please explain.

Charles "Chuck" W. Bryant (2:47)

Yeah, exactly.

Josh Clark (2:49)

So actually, we have not gotten that e-mail, although we wouldn't know if we had, you know?

Charles "Chuck" W. Bryant (2:56)

Yeah, because our e-mail server's down. Sorry if you've been bounced, everyone.

Josh Clark (2:59)

Yeah, we're working on it.

Charles "Chuck" W. Bryant (3:01)

Yep.

Josh Clark (3:02)

So we're talking bras, which is short for brassiere, which doesn't have a definite origin as far as we know. We think that it came about in the 20th century, early 20th century. I think it first appeared in print in 1907 or something like that. And that in French, it means one of two things. It means either arm covering, which is I think derived from like medieval armor, French medieval armor, don't know. And then the other thing I saw was a child's vest, which that to me is just lovely. If that's what they're trying to say with the bra, that it's like a child-sized vest that you wear over your breasts, I love that idea.

Charles "Chuck" W. Bryant (3:45)

You want to know something funny?

Josh Clark (3:46)

Yes.

Charles "Chuck" W. Bryant (3:47)

For the first 10 minutes researching this, this was put together by our pal Dave Rouse. I kept thinking, why is Rouse, why does he keep talking about brasseries? Why does he keep talking about quaint little French restaurants?

Josh Clark (4:00)

That's funny.

Charles "Chuck" W. Bryant (4:01)

It's very close. It looks like brassiere.

Josh Clark (4:03)

It does. Well, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it does. I think if that I was just a little further toward the end, we would be talking about casual French restaurants. The TGI Fridays of France. Well, that's better than my experience. For the first 30 minutes, I was researching nothing but car bras.