Hello Everyone,
I’m sure this has been asked before, but my search skills are weak. In societies where women go about their business bare chested do the breast become sexualized during romantic "operations” or are they seen as completely non-sexual?
Completely non-sexual? Is that even possible for human beings?
We consider pleasing facial features a sex characteristic and expose those all the time (COVID notwithstanding). Faces are hardly non-sexual but we understand context matters.
Good point, let me rephrase. Are breasts actively used during sex as they are in Western societies?
I think I get what you’re trying to ask here, but I think your premise is misguided. Exposure or non-exposure has little to do with what body parts are sexualized. Literally any body part is eligible. Hands, feet, ears, stomachs, armpits, whatever; if you’ve got it, someone somewhere is turned on by it.
If the internet has taught us anything, any time you might think you have a unique, weird fetish, I promise you there’s a long-running magazine and/or website dedicated to exactly that, with hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
Well, if we’re speaking strictly in “Darwinian” terms, the breast mimic the buttocks. Which is meant to attract the male.
That said, I don’t think tribal communities are as titillated by the breast as Westerners are.
Have you been to a nude beach? Nobody has a stitch on, yet the situation is not sexual or titillating. And yet the same people presumably go home and do what they normally do.
I gather, though, that you are looking for some kind of worldwide Kinsey Report.
What does it have to do with tribes? It would be interesting if there are some sexual behaviours occurring among all sorts of tribes but not nation-states.
Enlarged breasts are innately considered a female secondary sexual characteristic, akin to male facial hair. Secondary meaning they develop during puberty. I would imagine they are part of sexual arousal across human society since there are evolutionary factors at play with the secondary sexual characteristics. But human beings are thinking-apes and have very varied tastes, maybe more so than other animals which (at least based on my observations) seem far less discriminating.
I think just “seeing” a breast as reason to get excited is far less of a thing in societies where female toplessness is common place.
What other communities go around topless on a daily basis?
Anywhere it’s hot and Western or Islamic dress has not been an influence?
cf Wikipedia
I acknowledge what you accomplished there.
mmm
Only if you already think that. In evolutionary terms, the breast is for feeding babies.
When I took anthropology in about 1957, the professor was himself from a primitive community in Argentina and we (anyway the male we’s) asked him this very question. He said that no, men did not especially notice the naked breasts. He did not address the question of whether it became an attraction during sex and we did not press him on that question. But that is probably as close to a definitive answer as we are likely to get.
I recall reading decades ago some biologist describing a field trip to, I think it was, somewhere in rural Central America. He was introduced to the mayor’s family and everyone was dressed in normal western clothes, despite their indigenous heritage. A day or so later, they were passing by the local small river where some of the locals were bathing, and the mayor’s wife and daughter were among the nude bathers. Nobody fussed about out or ran or covered up; and the mayor who was accompanying him didn’t see it as out of the ordinary either, that a stranger saw the women nude.
Presumably, situation and context is the biggest driver of behaviour -
There are contexts here where a skimpy bikini is perfectly acceptable and others where the same amount of cover-up with the same amount of clothing is “sexy lingerie”.
I recall seeing women sunbathing topless in a less exposed area of a Paris park (Vincennes) and nobody bats an eye, and the same applies in numerous European beaches. Yet to[less is still considered sexy in some European porn, I assume - same as legs which are on view and can be viewed sexually in the right setting.
But consistently enlarged breasts are not necessary to feed babies. It’s absolutely a secondary sexual characteristic in humans specifically.
Lips and fingers and ears are all commonly used during sex in my experience, despite being on display every day.
And no, i don’t get turned on when i see a guy’s lips or fingers or ears in a non-context.
I would assume it’s similar with breasts.
Previous thread from 2015:
I didn’t say they weren’t. I was commenting on the “fact” that they evolutionarily they mimic the ass. Why can’t they be a thing all by themselves? If we are talking about what attracts mates, large breasts might just mean she can feed babies. Just as wide hips supposedly indicate she would have easier birth. Both things are important if you are looking to successfully birth and raise children.
I think there’s a part of our lizard brain that recognizes the cues for good genes and suitability for breeding, and this is what we find attractive - for men, they see breasts that are for feeding children (who need that for at least a year) wider hips for childbirth, symmetry and lack of blemishes indicate health now and while growing up (i.e. resistant to diseases, no congenital defects). Not overly thin or significantly overweight (which can indicate glandular issues). For men, too, they recognize youth, which indicates a woman has a longer reproductive life left (which is why millionaires tend to prefer 20yo’s when it’s time to re-marry, and why the beauty industry for women tries to mimic “I’m still young”); There was discussion on a previous thread how blonde for Caucasians is a trait that mimics youth, as for many people their lighter childhood hair gets darker as they get older. Similarly, while pubic hair indicates “mature enough for reproduction”, as do breasts, less body hair elsewhere signals “still young” so a desirable trait for women.
Women, OTOH, are evolved more so to look for “good provider” not “still a young man” but will still recognize the other indicators of “good genes”.
For those who care, Jared Diamond has a book “Why Is Sex Fun” which discusses reproductive strategies of assorted species and especially the strategy humans have evolved with, which is hidden fertility.
One suggestion is that the breasts are not “mimicking buttocks” but rather humans have evolved the process of hidden fertility and pleasurable sex to keep the male (or, a male) around to help provide for their offspring (usually); unlike many other species where the male comes and goes and does nothing more. Displaying breasts that appear eminently ready for breastfeeding is also a means of signaling the female is mature and able to carry and nurture children (Unlike many other species where breast are prominent only when needed)
The theory that breasts mimic buttocks to visually attract males was presented by Desmond Morris in the book “The Naked Ape” (1967), although I don’t know if the idea was original with him.
This was part of the larger point that humans have largely lost their sense of smell (compared to many other mammal species), thus can no longer rely on pheromones as a sexual attractant; thus, humans have come to rely much more on visual indications for attraction.
So far as I know, Morris is the only one to take that hypothesis seriously, and it has a number of faults. Foremost of which, of course, is that human breasts don’t particularly resemble buttocks.