Hey - a question was asked and I answered it. I’m all about fighting the ignorance.
Yep - there are lots of Ds, DDs, DDDs and probably a few Es in that group - the small ribcages help to increase the cup size, FWIW. (i.e. a woman with the same size of boob but a bigger ribcage will wear a smaller cup size).
I’d never given the “pencil test” much thought until this thread (though I think I’d heard of it), but I have to say it seems backwards to me. Wouldn’t saggier breasts do better on the pencil test? For instance, if the old lady in the coffee-and-oatmeal joke stood up straight (and isn’t that the requirement?), then wouldn’t her sagging breast be able to trap a pencil, or more than one, quite easily because the weight of the boob would be against the ribcage/chest? If the “pencil test” is a measure of sag, then I think you pass if the pencil drops, because your boobs are so perky (like all the playboy models posted) and fail if it stays put. (FTR, I’m a C-cup in my late thirties, and the pencil stays put for me.)
Yes, the only way to ‘pass’ the pencil test is if you can’t hold the pencil in the fold between your breast and ribcage standing upright. Only women with a very small fold or just a crease can ‘pass’ (a large minority of women/girls I would guess, from the breasts I have seen in my life).
I had to look it up, and the internet claims that the pencil test is where you can trap a pencil between your boob and your chest, not where you can’t. This reminds me of Judy Blume books.
Anyway, I’m only a C, but I can definitely pass the pencil test in the way that you define it. I’ve known quite a lot of larger-breasted women who could, too, as well as many who couldn’t (including two quite young, quite small-breasted women). It’s just about breast shape - they’re not all the same (I know other people have said this too, but the OP was looking for reassurance, so here’s some more :)).
This thread has made my browsing history look bad. 
But it has also meant that I looked at a few pictures of Kim Cattrall’s boobs. 
You ‘pass’ the test if the pencil drops, as far as going braless goes.
You ‘pass’ the test if the pencil stays put as far as having an acceptable amount of boobage for your junior high rivals.
And the pictures proved the point in question. If it weren’t for those two implants hanging under her skin, I’d say okay, an elderly woman at the beach, very nearly nude. She looks her age, she’s not hung up about her ageing body. Good for her, and so what, says I. If not for those implants.
.
Wow - it’s Alyson Hannigan as a sixties Playboy bunny!
I have seen the future, my friend. The lady in question was in her 60s, and it looked like someone had shoved a pair of grapefruit into the bottom of knee socks. The sight left me mildly horrified and reinforced my resolve never to get implants, but I imagine she’s scarred some young men for life.
Three of the women were no more than a B cup, but the rest probably were Cs and one D.
I haven’t been able to pass the pencil test since I was 17 - that’s the year the bossom fairy revisited and granted me a C cup. It was nice of her.
She. My bad.
These are the only two that are contenders. The first look fake; I don’t buy that just because it’s from 1958 it’s real. The second might be a small C, but it also might be able to hold a pencil. I’m looking at the background tit (the left one) and it looks like a pencil may drop from there, but it’s hard to tell. I’ll consider giving you the second one. How about half my hat and $250?
I’ll join the “my browsing history is making me look like a perv” club now.
If any of those women are wearing a B cup, they’re wearing the wrong sized bra.
I wear a 32 E or F. The gal that CatWhisperer pointed out has MUCH bigger boobs than I do - as in, more boob flesh, particularly given how small her ribcage is.
I would say almost all of them are Ds or large Cs.
Also, add me to the perv list as well. I keep calling my husband over for his assessment. He’s bemused.
Okay, children. The pencil test came about in the late '60s/early '70s, which was the first time since the invention of the brassiere that women who could afford to buy a brassiere went braless by choice. (Heh, a little redundant, but oh well.)
If you passed the pencil test–i.e., if the pencil fell out–you were considered OK to go braless. Otherwise, put on a bra, or get some flesh-colored tape.
If “the internet” claims you passed the test by trapping the pencil, then, horror of horrors, the internet is wrong.
Well, I’m happy to go by either definition, because it’s not like it’s important, but it’s obviously not obvious what pencil test means - different people have different definitions.
Good. Go with the right definition. The person passes if the pencil falls. Because test are kind of supposed to be a challenge. And it is very easy for most women, no matter how small the boobage, to trap that pencil.
I realize that some people have different definitions for different things, but some definitions are incorrect. I know a ton of people who call a monitor a computer. They are incorrect, no matter how many times the internet says otherwise.
As for me, I can’t pass the electric pencil sharpener test. A damn shame.
If a woman has very small boobs and she can trap a pencil under them, then she probably is sagging.
I am so not going to google electric pencil sharpener test even though I know you made it up; my browsing history today is bad enough without some rule 34 added to it.
FWIW, like I said in my post, I was going by the definition where the boob does not trap the pencil because that was the MOL was using. This test, I pass. Go me! IME that’s not unusual in women with C-cups - not like I’ve stuck pencils under their boobs or anything (rule 34 again!), but you know what I mean.
I’m sure I do remember a Judy Blume, or possibly Jean Ure, book where the girls (aged about 13) do the pencil test and are disappointed when they fail. Anyone know which story I’m talking about?
Having seen your cleavage pics, a damn shame my butt. While the girls probably benefit from the application of a bra (if only for comfort), they are spectacular, period.
Now, see, I’ve been grumpy-posting today, because it is 95 degrees in Rochester, NY today, and the AC is on the fritz. But you had to go and make me smile. Thanks.
Just callin’ them like I see them.
And 95 degrees is just gross.
Right. Before we got into this pron-laden hijack, complete with offers of hat consumption, that was my entire point: that the pencil test is complete bullshit as a litmus test for boob perkiness. There are many happy, super perky, young boobs on the planet that can trap a pencil. It is not hard to trap a pencil… at all. On top of which, at a certain size, it becomes just about impossible to pass the test, because even in all your very young, glorious, high-chestedness, there is enough boob skin against your rib cage that a tiny, little pencil could wedge itself into the fold.
But back to the point, Kim Cattrall’s boobs look fine. No, they’re not 19-year-old boobs, yes they have lost some firmness over the years, but I don’t look at that and go “Hey grandma! Why don’t you try covering up?”
They still look mighty perky today.
NSFW - old lady boobs. 