In case the title hasn't scared you away: my male readers are hereby excused from this post. Proceed at your own risk.

Okay, ladies,

You know those bra-sizing guidelines that you come across in, say, the catalogs of major national department stores, or of major national lingerie chains, or, if you're an evangelical pre-teen like I was, in Focus on the Family's magazine for adolescent girls? The ones that tell you where to measure and what to add or subtract or round up or compare to get your proper band and cup size?

Bullshit.

I'm talking NOT EVEN REMOTELY CLOSE. As in never in a million years would it dawn on me ever to try on the bra in the right size if I went to a department store armed with the information I got from that tape measure.

No freakin' wonder 80% of American women wear the wrong bra size. If the lingerie industry has been promoting such disinformation...

You've probably heard from Oprah and a dozen other sources of conventional wisdom that it's a good idea to get yourself fitted for a bra by someone who knows what they're doing. I'm here to tell you, for once, they're right. Don't try this at home.

And if you're held back by any discomfort over the idea of some stranger looking at or handling your boobies, don't be. The woman who fitted me took a couple of quick measurements on each side of me while I was fully clothed, and was back with a correct-fitting bra for me to try on before I had even noticed she had started. Not only was it modest and professional, it was fast. My poor mother's been nagging me for nigh-on a decade about my posture. Less than five minutes in a real lingerie store, and the problem disappears like that.

I'm still reeling from the discovery. It messes with a woman's sense of personal identity to learn she's been so far wrong about something so foundational.