Free your ta-tas with National No Bra Day

Ladies, free your knockers with National No Bra Day! Today, Oct. 13, is the most wonderful day of the year.

This is your time to let yourself go loose and free while wearing those oversized sweaters or tight shirts. Do whatever makes YOU happy.

This day only comes once a year, but for some ladies it is National No Bra Day every day. I sat down with Stella Reneke, a sophomore philosophy major from Gainesville, Florida, and talked to her about her decision to stop wearing bras.

“I’m just not a big fan of them in general,” she said. “It took me a little bit to recognize that bras were uncomfortable.”

She said she viewed bras differently in middle school.

“It’s a coming-of-age thing, and it comes in so many designs and fun variations that it’s exciting at first,” she said. “But I kind of realized at some point, no matter what type it was, it became uncomfortable.”

Last year, during her first year of college, she decided to stop wearing them.

“I got to the end of the day always looking forward to taking it off and to me, it made no sense to me to spend money on things that were uncomfortable,” she said.

As many women can agree, one of the best parts of the day is taking off your bra and just hanging out (literally) in the comfort of your home.

Zoe, a first-year from Illinois who didn’t want her last name to be used, said she feels the same way.

“I love not wearing a bra,” she said. “I only wear one about half of the time and that’s only when I feel like I have to for when I’m working out.”

Over the course of the year that Reneke has been bra-free, she developed strong feelings against the public opinion.

“I think it shouldn’t be something the public gets to comment on. It’s a personal decision, and it shouldn’t be as big of a deal as it has been made into,” she said. ”(Women’s bodies) don’t need to be sexualized as much as they have been, and people should be comfortable with themselves.”

Reneke has advice for other women thinking about going braless year-round.

“The most important thing is to do what is comfortable to you, what feels natural to you, empowering to you,” she said. “People say you should wear bras for modesty, that ‘Nobody wants to see those things,’ and I think all that stuff is unfounded, and I feel like for people who don’t want to wear them shouldn’t have to wear them.”

And with that, I agree. Freedom in college is not only about being able to wake up at noon if you want to every day of the week.

Go enjoy National No Bra Day, and do not forget to strut proudly and celebrate!

swerve@dailytarheel.com