Vanity sizing absolutely is a thing but bra size is somewhat immune to it because getting it wrong means pain and discomfort.
A 36DD is pretty large, a 28DD is not in absolute terms. But in terms of appearance, a true 28DD will look quite large on a small frame.
I would bet a lot of money that many folks would prefer to think of themselves as a 34B vs a 36A for both reasons - you might feel like you're more ideally proportioned with a smaller band size and you have a bigger cup size to boot.
Nope. 36DD isn't really that large, and a 28DD doesn't look very large at all even accounting for the small frame. I'm a bra fitter at a specialty boutique (I also do their IT - my life is weird) and I see a lot of breasts. I'm also personally a 28GG/H and most people would consider me on the larger size of average; nobody would consider me 'large chested'. A 28DD is still going to look tiny. They just probably think they're a 34A, but in general at that size women who are fed up with bras just stop wearing them.
> I think you overestimate how many women care about the letter associated with their cup size.
I would have thought women cared at least as much about the circumference number. That's what they worry about in every other item of clothing; that's why the same clothes are a smaller size at high-priced stores than they are at low-priced stores. The letter is a measurement of whether you have a flat chest, but the number is a measurement of whether you're fat!
You can go the other way more easily and in my understanding/experience that's typically what happens (i.e. someone who's true size is 32DD wearing a 40A due to a limited set of options available in many brick-and-mortar stores).
Picture trying to fit an orange into a cup that's too small — there will be space between the orange and the cup, which could make it seem like the cup is too big. If you can't get a cup that's big enough for the orange to fit in, a flat plate (i.e. 40A) is the second-best option since at least it won't have weird gaps. This leads to women underestimating their true cup size.
I'm not saying this is a good idea, but it seems like that space between the orange and the too-small cup depends on the orange being rigid, and the analogy runs into trouble there.
In the midcentury the cone or "bullet bra" was really in vogue. Besides lifting the profile to an unnaturally perky shape, it did succeed at providing comfort. It was high tech fashion, for the time. But this look was unmistakably of an era. From the 60's on, perceptually natural shapes became more popular. And this trend towards a natural look probably wasn't just an isolated cultural trend or down to technical changes in bras themselves, since it came along with the growing popularity of surgical breast implants; implants disguise themselves much better.
And yet, sometimes one will come across horny art where naked women are drawn with an unnatural, torpedo shaped bust, as if they were wearing an invisible bullet bra. Is it simple ignorance of the difference? Is it the artist projecting the shape they want onto the figure? This kind of art, being a private fantasy, suggests thoughts that ordinarily wouldn't be spoken.
These questions occur rather independent of the actual size of a natural bustline. It could easily be the case that more men enjoy pointy chests and don't have the background needed to ask for it, so they ask for "large" instead, but are in turn influenced by media into a form of "large" that is unbelievable(much as how standards for muscularity and fitness have become driven by drug usage, and so imagery of "powerful" characters in fiction now often tends towards monstrous cartoon proportions and near-fainting leanness). And on the woman's side, there's a question of "do I want to stand out" that leads towards staying within the trend of natural, and therefore towards considering surgical enhancements that disguise the true intent.
Meanwhile, practical matters of naturally large chests are clouded by all of this. The bell curves of physique are certainly full of unwanted remarks and suppositions.
1.) Not wanting to be 'fat'.
2.) What you said, where they don't want the unwanted attention. In the case of women who are over 40, a lot of them also lived most of their lives in a culture where a woman with large breasts was considered to be 'asking' to be sexualized. Books, TV, movies, etc. In addition, if they're from more conservative communities there's a focus on not 'tempting' men and the knowledge that if they're harassed their communities will just be like 'well you didn't hide that you have large breasts well enough, of course that happened.'
3.) A desire to be 'normal'. This group calms down when I mention that the current sizes that are carried in most stores were determined back in the 60s-70s and that their size is normal, the major American companies just like to coast on bad and outdated data. (Because why change if people still buy them?)
But sure, the women with very large breasts are probably far more concerned with not being painfully uncomfortable constantly.
In general, it's my experience that some (maybe even many?) women are far more concerned about these sort of things than men are, just many men are insecure/worried about penis size, but women in general don't actually care all that much (in both cases, some do, but the majority don't).
Gen X women are not okay with their bodies. I feel bad.
Boomer and Silent Generation women are either very gracious and don't care OR are very mad that 80-something boobs, shoulders, and bodies don't work like 20-something boobs, shoulders, and bodies.
(I work as a bra fitter, so take this with a grain of salt as my information is going to be limited to a single geographical location.)
I was talking with my coworker about this today actually: Gen X women are in an uncomfortable position of being raised in an era of mass media and unattainable ideals without the ability to talk to one another openly and anonymously that Millennials/Gen Z/Alpha have. For example, Gen X women are (generally) way more concerned about the fat squeezing out of their bra bands than Millennial or Zoomer women even though they all have it. Likewise, most of the 'oh I can't be X size because it's 'vulgar'/'I have to minimize'/'I have to be a certain shape' comes from Gen X and older. There are very clear social messages which have changed with generation that are fascinating to watch. This is even more pronounced in the language/approach our male customers have. The older crossdressers or trans women are way different than our younger ones.
Boomers and older genuinely aren't dealing well with their aging when it comes to things like mobility, medical conditions, etc. For example, front closure bras are really useful for older women who have lost shoulder/arm mobility but there are physics trade-offs that have to be made. Likewise, a lot of them can't stand the pressure that's needed for a good fitting wired bra as their muscles/bones/etc. are less resilient so they need wirefree options but can't accept that it means they will not get the shape they're used to. I just want to grab them by their fragile boned shoulders and shake them. You're 75! It's okay! Nobody cares if you don't have the breast shape under clothes of a 22 year old!
I hope this does get better as we age. Watching older women hate themselves is so sad.
How?
Essentially, existing as an obvious female is no longer seen as an acceptable reason to sexualize them.
I'm sure the boys will still do it because part of being an adolescent is doing what adults tell you not to, but the girls might get less horrified by their breasts if the adults around them view comments on them poorly/support them.