# Has there been research into the shape of modern female breasts? & Are they contrary to nature **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 30, 2010, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-research-into-the-shape-of-modern-female-breasts-are-they-contrary-to-nature/562397 "2010-11-30T10:24:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-research-into-the-shape-of-modern-female-breasts-are-they-contrary-to-nature/562397/41 "2010-12-01T15:46:10Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > I don’t know if buttocks are seen as a sign of fertility, but buttocks in human females could be breast-mimics. It doesn’t seem likely though. If I understand correctly our buttocks are a result of our upright posture and as that is the first(?) trait that started our separation from the other apes, who don’t have big breasts, it doesn’t seem likely at all to me. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-research-into-the-shape-of-modern-female-breasts-are-they-contrary-to-nature/562397/42 "2010-12-01T18:34:30Z")
> [@Floater](#): > > If I understand correctly our buttocks are a result of our upright posture and as that is the first(?) trait that started our separation from the other apes, who don’t have big breasts, it doesn’t seem likely at all to me. Quadrapeds have buttocks too (maybe they have a different name). I couldn’t convince myself that buttocks are breast mimics though. I think **SmartAlecCat** is onto the right answer though. Wide hips and big breasts would be signs of fertility, an indirect route to pure sexual attraction. Why mimicry though? It would only help women with big boobs and a bony ass. If baby got back, she doesn’t need to mimic it in the front. Maybe early humans didn’t have great looking butts, and breasts took over the job. ---
**Author:** ![rhubarbarin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eb9ed0/32.png) [@rhubarbarin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhubarbarin)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-research-into-the-shape-of-modern-female-breasts-are-they-contrary-to-nature/562397/43 "2010-12-01T20:28:36Z")
Humans are just obessed with fleshy roundness, that’s all. We’re fatty and curvy compared to apes and monkeys (even human men in good shape). Compared to other primates we have larger and more fleshy and rounded: heads, faces, cheeks, arm and leg muscles, hips, buttocks most of all, and of course in the case of women exaggeratedly large, curvy, fleshy breasts, hips, thighs, and asses. Most of the things we find most attractive about the bodies of opposite sex are rounded curves and tapering (more fat distribution and skeletal for women, muscular and skeletal in men). The more exaggerated these traits, the more obviously feminine/masculine a person is, and often the more attractive they are considered. ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-research-into-the-shape-of-modern-female-breasts-are-they-contrary-to-nature/562397/44 "2010-12-01T20:33:11Z")
> [@rhubarbarin](#): > > Americans (and Brits) wear a much larger bra _size_ on average than much of the world, but that’s mostly due to the fact that we are bigger all over. A women who usually wears a 36DD looks very different from one who wears a 32DD (who often gets called ‘small’), but proportionate to their body size they have the same amount of boob. > > . A 32DD woman certainly has more boobage proportionate to her body size (in most cases) versus a 36DD woman. ---
**Author:** ![Pyper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Pyper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pyper)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-research-into-the-shape-of-modern-female-breasts-are-they-contrary-to-nature/562397/45 "2010-12-01T21:03:45Z")
Gillian Bentley has put forth the theory that human breasts are rounder to allow flat-faced human babies to suckle without suffocating. > **[Breastfeeding](https://www.thebump.com/topics/parenting-breastfeeding)** > > The information you need to know now when it comes to breastfeeding baby. get tips on prepping, pumping, managing feedings while traveling with your little one and much more. ---
**Author:** ![rhubarbarin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eb9ed0/32.png) [@rhubarbarin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhubarbarin)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-research-into-the-shape-of-modern-female-breasts-are-they-contrary-to-nature/562397/46 "2010-12-01T21:39:49Z")
> [@Philster](#): > > A 32DD woman certainly has more boobage proportionate to her body size (in most cases) versus a 36DD woman. Untrue. This is not how bra sizing works. ---
**Author:** ![dickdomin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dickdomin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dickdomin)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2014, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-research-into-the-shape-of-modern-female-breasts-are-they-contrary-to-nature/562397/47 "2014-07-02T18:40:03Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Not that I’m aware of. In fact one of the “great” debates on the topic is whether bras make breast more or less droopy. The counter-argument to yours is that by using synthetic support, the muscles and tendons never develop properly leading to sagging. > > There has been research done on this, and the results I’ve seen all show that wearing a bra makes no difference at all. If they;re gonna droop they’re gonna droop. When I was 22 my lover was a French woman who was 62 in fact she was 40 years and 14 days older than I was. She had firm breast any 18 year old would envy. She also showed me pictures of herself at 42 with sagging pancake flat breasts. What did SHE do? She ice them and slapped and massaged them. Icing was done by kneeling over a plastic tub (seh built a rest for both her hips-belly and upperchest-head. Tub contained a mixture of crushed ice, salt and water. She had started with 5 minutes 2x a day and worked up to 2x 10 minutes with 5 minutes of massage, sometimes slapping, sometimes having them mildly whipped with both a horsetail whip and a miniature cat-o-nine tails. She also ate a very careful diet, omnivorous but lots of raw vegetables, everything lightly cooked and lightly dressed, drank a bit of wine rarely ate dessert, sugar etc. She said she had learned the idea from a yogi and even went so far as to immerse her face using a snorkle to breathe, to keep the skin of her face young and soft. She looked younger at 62 than she did in her photograph and her breasts were quite amazing. As to standing and humans having backpain, I know of a man who has helped thousands. He cures back pain permanently and has always offered a money back guarantee. He cured my mother’s back when she was in her 60s. She’d suffered from back pain for more than 30 years. He does this by teaching your brain in some way. I am not exactly sure how. But my mother said it was so easy, when she started she thought, This is never going to work! and when we visited the cabin that summer, she was bouncing around like it was nothing. So, I would say wearing a bra likely is a bad idea because the lower half of the breast gets its blood supply from the ribcage area below (go check Grey’s Anatomy) and the support would make the skin above weak because it would not be pulled and worked, just like if someone carried you around all the time and you never used your legs your legs would get weak. But from the woman I knew and the other women I have known, the icing works. Most women will not do it, but it works. and as to peacock tails, they get more hens when they have a larger tail… or is that they get more tail with a larger tail! (duck flying pun at 10 o’clock!) ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2014, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-research-into-the-shape-of-modern-female-breasts-are-they-contrary-to-nature/562397/48 "2014-07-02T18:45:58Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > I’m [hardly complaining](http://tastefulcelebs.com/wp-content/photos/Playing_poker_with_Jennifer_Tilly_isn__t_fair3.jpg), but the sort of orb shape of your typical C or D cup among modern women would hardly seem practical on the Serengeti plain, and from what I’ve heard they can get uncomfortable without proper support. And though I’m not going to go Googling for images here at work, I have the impression that in societies where women typically go bare-breasted, their mammary accoutrements tend to be (sorry) rather more droopy or dangly and generally smaller. Would all women be like that if they didn’t sport bras? > > So is there an evolutionary effect here, where we can thank the modern brassiere for the gloriousness that is Jennifery Tilly? Has there been any real research into the question? Assuming you’re only talking about non-surgically enhanced breasts, saying that any woman’s normally forms breasts are “contrary” is ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2014, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-research-into-the-shape-of-modern-female-breasts-are-they-contrary-to-nature/562397/49 "2014-07-02T18:47:33Z")
Men apparently don’t like saggy baggy breasts so what use to fly freely on the Serengeti Plain has been slowly bred into perky Playboy misrepresentations of usefulness. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2014, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-research-into-the-shape-of-modern-female-breasts-are-they-contrary-to-nature/562397/50 "2014-07-02T19:55:11Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > You miss the point – I’m not arguing from authority. I’m arguing that Morris’ ideas have the stature of a theory – he’s a qualified expert in his field (Phil. D. from Oxford University) who has done work in the subject and provides arguments to support\* his thesis. **John Mace** suggests that his ideas aren’t worth the dignity. . Essentially, if Morris were Chinese a century and a half ago, he’d argue that foot binding has an evolutionary origin. Also, his argument assumes he’s never actually seen a naked female. Few women have buttocks-like cleavage unless they’re wearing a bra. Finally, cleavage is far more a sexual sign in the UK; in the US, it’s nipples. In some societies, it’s been hips and legs. If this had some sort of evolutionary basis, it would be the same over all cultures over all times. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2014, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-research-into-the-shape-of-modern-female-breasts-are-they-contrary-to-nature/562397/51 "2014-07-02T20:27:05Z")
Humans are the only mammals (?) whose females don’t advertise ovulation. In other mammals breasts swell only when when they’re full of milk. Without other signs of fertility to work with, primitive males may have ignorantly associated large breasts with the ability to provide for potential offspring. Of course once it gets going, it’s self-perpetuating. Like a peacock’s feathers, it may serve no purpose other than attracting mates, but since that is an evolution purpose itself, it works, and the trait gets carried on. ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2014, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-research-into-the-shape-of-modern-female-breasts-are-they-contrary-to-nature/562397/52 "2014-07-02T21:25:06Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Also, his argument assumes he’s never actually seen a naked female. Few women have buttocks-like cleavage unless they’re wearing a bra. Not to put too much credence in the “breasts as buttocks surrogate” hypothesis, but for sexual selection like that, the body part doing the mimicking does not necessarily have to perfectly or even greatly resemble the mimicked part. From [here](http://redlimemagazine.com/FEBRUARY%20ISSUE%20INTERFACE/articles/NeuroAesthetics.html): > [@](#): > > Experiments by ethologists in the 1950’s showed that as soon as seagull chicks are born, they look at their mom, who has a long beak with a red point at the end of it, and instinctively peck at their mothers’ beak and open their mouths expecting to be fed. The researchers found that if the mother was replaced with another dead bird, that had a painted red dot on its beak, the baby seagulls behaved in the same manner. Interestingly, if the researchers replaced the dead bird with a human hand, at the end of which was placed a long and thin yellow stick that did not resemble a beak at all but had three red stripes at the end of it, the seagulls would literally go “berserk” pecking and seeking food from the long stick. > > As Ramachandran explains, what may be happening is that the seagull chicks have specialized neurons in the brain that are selectively wired to respond to the perception of this red dot. If the red dot is amplified, by using three red stripes, the neurons will amplify their response, thereby accentuating the seagull chick behavior. Ramachandran argues that if these seagull chicks had an art gallery, they would hang the three red stripes on the wall, worship them and probably pay millions of dollars for them, just like humans do for a Picasso. Accordingly, this is what may be happening with people and abstract art. For some reason, specific abstract representations may trigger neuronal activation that in turn would lead to a heightened affective and emotional response that would draw the individual to the specific artistic creation. Similarly, a neural apparatus that translates “see buttocks” to “get horny” could also react to “see breasts” with only a vague similarity between the two. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2014, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-research-into-the-shape-of-modern-female-breasts-are-they-contrary-to-nature/562397/53 "2014-07-03T01:44:42Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Essentially, if Morris were Chinese a century and a half ago, he’d argue that foot binding has an evolutionary origin. > > Also, his argument assumes he’s never actually seen a naked female. Few women have buttocks-like cleavage unless they’re wearing a bra. > > Finally, cleavage is far more a sexual sign in the UK; in the US, it’s nipples. In some societies, it’s been hips and legs. If this had some sort of evolutionary basis, it would be the same over all cultures over all times. You seem to be conflating two things here. On the one hand there is the idea that human breasts developed as sexual signals because they resemble human buttocks, which I will agree is highly speculative and perhaps impossible to test. On the other hand, however, is the more basic claim that human female breasts evolved the shape they have because they function as sexual signals (much like the peacock’s tail, or, indeed, many other features of sexually dimorphic animals). Although some modern feminists are ideologically opposed to the idea that _anything_ about the human female might have evolved to please men, it seems to me that, once you realize that only a tiny proportion of breast tissue is actually glandular tissue, this is pretty hard to deny, and I believe it is very widely accepted by scientists in the relevant fields. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2014, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-research-into-the-shape-of-modern-female-breasts-are-they-contrary-to-nature/562397/54 "2014-07-03T02:10:32Z")
You’re also conflating the idea of a general sexual signal of attraction with an immediate trigger for sexual arousal in preparation for immediate copulation. Breasts, like many other physical features of both men and women, operate as signals that the individual is a desirable sexual partner, and act as initial attraction or initial interest signals. They do not act as a signal for immediate sex. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2014, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-research-into-the-shape-of-modern-female-breasts-are-they-contrary-to-nature/562397/55 "2014-07-03T03:01:06Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > You’re also conflating the idea of a general sexual signal of attraction with an immediate trigger for sexual arousal in preparation for immediate copulation. Who is? I’m not, and I didn’t notice anyone else doing it either. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2014, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-research-into-the-shape-of-modern-female-breasts-are-they-contrary-to-nature/562397/56 "2014-07-03T03:23:41Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Who is? I’m not, and I didn’t notice anyone else doing it either. I was adding to your statement. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Colossus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.colossus/32/9423_2.png) [@Dr.Colossus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Colossus)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2014, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-research-into-the-shape-of-modern-female-breasts-are-they-contrary-to-nature/562397/57 "2014-07-03T07:26:34Z")
i can’t contribute anything except man, boobs are sure great, and god bless them. i mean why not elbows? or eyebrows? it’s part of the magic of reality, boobs. let’s not over think them. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2014, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-research-into-the-shape-of-modern-female-breasts-are-they-contrary-to-nature/562397/58 "2014-07-03T12:49:41Z")
I read the last poster’s username as **dontbesolumpy**. :dubious: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-research-into-the-shape-of-modern-female-breasts-are-they-contrary-to-nature/562397.md?page=2)