This is NOT trolling, I really want to know if there is some substance to the following.
I remember reading an article some ten years ago about the breasts. It claimed that some anthropologist thought that breast have developed to entice men.
Now, you might say: “Whoa! What sexist bull**** is that?!” but the scientists said that women are the only fems of any species who have breasts, even when they’re not producing milk. Other animals just have nipples, till it’s time to breastfeed.
He (I’m sure it was a man) claimed that when man got up and started walking on two legs, the…. uhm… vagina got hidden between the legs, and women needed something else to entice men.
So the conclusion, why men are so fixated with breasts, is that we’re programmed to be just that. And that you gals have them to please us.
Now, I would gladly use this “fact,” when I get smacked over the head for checking out hooters. But I wonder if it’s just bull****?
I remember reading an article (I think it was more of a sidebar) somewhere claiming that men are attracted to a large chestular region because it is a sign of fertility. Now you and I both know that fertility has nothing to do with cup size but I can imagine way back when some Australopithecine guy thinking bigger rack = more food for the kids.
Of course maybe men are attracted to breasts because we don’t have them. Well most men don’t anyway…
CT, try this line after you’ve been smacked: “Sorry, miss, but I couldn’t help but notice your tremendous fertility”
Alphagene
Women who have breasts that produce milk have more children that survive; men who prefer women who have breasts that produce milk father more children that survive. The evolutionary focus is on what is best for the child.
Yes, but breast size is not in any way an indicator of milk capacity. When not in use, the milk glands of women are no larger than the milk glands (yes, they’re there, and can even be coaxed into functioning) of men.
The human female breast does indeed appear to be pure sexual decoration, like a peacock’s tail; it is relatively unusual for such things to appear in the female, rather than the male, but not by any means unique.
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
Once again, PBS “science of sex” shows come in handy…
I believe one current theory about prominent, permanent breasts is that they resemble the gluteus (bum, for anyone who needs to run for a dictionary). You’ll also notice that humans are the only animals that have sex in a face-to-face position; the gluteus gets males excited when facing one side, the breasts (which do look kind of similar) get men excited on the other side. I guess it’s a round and squishy = good thing. In a scrounge-for-survival world, any excess flesh on a body would have been attractive.
This trait would have been selected for because humans have no clear estrus cycle, so females who retained their breasts while not nursing would attract more men than those who didn’t and thus produce more offspring to carry on the “breast retention” gene. I don’t see this as sexist drivel at all - it’s so far back in antiquity that WHY breasts evolved has no bearing at all on how we view them today. I will say, however, that I see absolutely NOTHING wrong with men being attracted to breasts, as long as it’s not the only thing they’re attracted to. Breasts are part of being female, and I see no reason why we can’t all enjoy that.
It was Desmond Morris,who has many funny ideas on sex and reproduction who stated that breasts are there to attract men,and the rear to attract them from behind.I forgot the name of his book;you can find it in any library.I think only men would know the answer to this;I can’t imagine anyone being attracted to breasts.
I have a copy of Manwatching - A Field Guide to Human Behavior by Desmond Morris here, but this book deals almost exclusively with body language and other forms of nonverbal communication.
The volume you seek is The Naked Ape, a compendium of theories that was considered quite revolutionary about 30 years ago when it first came out. I think many of his ideas are quite valid, in spite of the scathing reviews Cecil tends to give the man.
Oh - Morris’ theory is pretty much as Eris stated it. Boobs are a butt for the front, so to speak. They supposedly developed as Man was transforming into bipedalism and the sexual display of the female (on all fours with butt in the air) became less frequent.
Females needed a sexual attractant they could use while walking upright and facing their prospective mate.
That sounds suspiciously like a Beavis and Butthead theory on boob origins.
I always imagined men found breasts attractive because they were an easy way to distinguish men from women. The same reason most men find beards unattractive on women.
But the again, that assumes the breasts came first, and the attraction came second.
So which came first? The breast or the breast-man?
If the theory of “breasts as sexual attractant” holds, then the breasts must have come first. The breast man then ensured that the trait was passed on to subsequent generations.
Morris even went so far as to say the color and fullness of the female’s lips mimics the genital labia of the all fours sexual display - hence the tendency to accentuate them with ochre formerly and lipstick recently. (I wonder if this hypothesis did not take root in the mind of a imaginative, randy 16-year-old Morris).
On a similar note, I read somewhere that men find women’s shoulders attractive because they remind them of the curve of the breasts… Make sense I s’pose.
Many of Morris’s theories seem off the wall to me, but at least some of his grounding observations, such as that female human breasts appear to have no practical purpose, seem solid. Also, have you ever gotten a good look at a female chimp in estrus?
As to “finding breasts attractive”, I’m not sure. Some men do seem to find them attractive, per se, but I don’t. What I find sexy (in that department) is a pretty woman showing off her breasts, which isn’t quite the same thing. Indeed, I think it matters to me that you can see a woman’s face and her breasts in one single close-up field of view.
But I really don’t know how typical I am. Most men, no matter how otherwise intellectual, seem to feel an obligation to break into a locker-room va-va-voom mentality when discussing such things.
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
Seems the theory is getting a support here. Mostly from men, I note.
Yes breasts are interesting, not alone, but as part of the package. Implants are gross, though (IMO).
Seriously guys: We’ve heard enough of the “stop staringat /talking to my cheast” from women. After all, they (for some reason that totally escapes me) enjoy loooking at men’s butts.
So why can’t we just say: The titties are there for us to look at, quit bitching.
Some one mentioned the butt is to breasts, and same with the shoulder and I remember that Desmond also mentiond the knees having similar curveature.
To get back to the original question I, being a strong beliver in evoultion and “survival of the fittest”, would have to say that at one point women may have been just as flat as men but then some women who had slightly enlarged breasts turned out to be more attractive to the male (what ever the reason is, is proabably another thread of it’s own) therefore more attractive=more sex which means that if these larger breasted women are having more sex they are going to give birth to females that will also have larger breastes (genetics) and the cycle will continue beucase society decided that enlarged breasts are more attractive and the women that didn’t have enlarged breasts slowly died off. (BTW I’m not trying to offend any women with small breasts but rather drawing a distict line between women with breasts that are NOT enlarged at all (such as a male) and women with enlarged breasts)
PS I hope this all makes sense I kinda started to ramble from the ritalin I just took before I started reading my book
