In terms of evolutionary purpose, why is a woman's butt attractive to men?

Factual Questions
21

You may say that the shape of the butt is irrelevant, or that it has no appeal to males, but you’re contradicted by a great deal of evidence that cuts across cultural lines. From the prehistoric Venus figures to the Callipygian Venus to Australian rock paintings, Indian carvings, and an enormous amount of contemporary art and porn, it’s clear that men find female butts attractive.

There’s little doubt in my mind that it is certainly an intended sexual signal. Similar undeniable signals are present in our simian ancestors. The aforementioned gelada “rings” around the female rear. Female chimps experience an impressive swelling and deepening of the color of the rear when sexually receptive. And so forth.

Part of the shape of the female buttocks is due to mechanics – that large gluteus maximus I mentioned earlier. Part is probably due to the necessities of birth – we need a larger birth canal for our infants’ oversized heads (even though they do deform slightly for the purpose), which also differentiates female from male. But even with those provisos, female buttocks are shaped differently from male buttocks, and it seems perverse not to see in both the shape and the attractiveness to males the actions of sexual selection at work.

This doesn’t mean that EVERY female must have a particular shape or she won’t re[produce, or that males are attracted only to one shape. This is all statistical. But it seems to me that the evidence for the shaping of the female buttocks and the male response being for such sexual stimulus is as strong as evidence for insect penes being shaped for the purpose of removing the sperm of rivals, or for lightning bugs glowing being used as a way to find mates.

22

To determine if… (choose one)

a) If there’s enough cushion for the pushin’.

b) If it must be jelly, cuz jam don’t shake like that.

c) If if it’s jammed, jam-packed or justin need of jammin’.

d) If it’s a double dutch butt or a barely there derriere.

23

Listen, it’s OK for me to say it about myself, but when you say it…

24

Either you’re misinterpreting me or I haven’t made myself clear.

I’m starting with two premises, 1) that not everything has a evolutionary purpose. 2) that allocations of preferences cannot be fairly made.

There is no doubt that attractiveness is a consideration in mating, and therefore in selection.

After you’ve said that, the rest is storybook time. Attractiveness, as I said, has a number of components and these tend to be culture-based and vary across time. And even though attractiveness is a consideration in mating, we cannot separate it out from other considerations such as strength, intelligence, leadership, or demonstrated ability. There are no human societies in which we can find attractiveness as a whole to be demonstrably a barrier to mating. I know of no examples in which it can even be said that attractiveness leads to a demonstrable advantage so that a trait is selected for within the population.

As an example, it is estimated that the ability to drink milk as an adult gave about a 5% advantage to those with the mutation of lactose tolerance as an adult, and this was enough to take an isolated mutation and make it the norm in most northern European populations in less than 5000 years.

We know of nothing comparable in attractiveness. No feature has been selected for. We have no reason to believe that, given equal health and food, humans have become any more attractive on average in recorded history. The same range of features and beauty appear to be present across societies.

The body does have primary and secondary sexual characteristics. Given those, it would be surprising if they were not fetishized and idealized in art. But we have no way of knowing - and certainly no evidence - that any particular set of features increases mating potential to the point where they have been selected for.

Again, it’s possible that the selection of these features took place so long ago - that the very existence of visible breasts and rounded buttocks owe their existence to a selection advantage - that everything that has happened since has no further effect. But if so, we’re talking at least the 250,000 years of homo sapiens and possibly 1 million or more years for genus homo. Whatever pictorial representation we have would make no difference in those terms.

We simply don’t know. And none of the “evidence” presented is especially convincing to me as anything other than a secondary effect of the total package of the differences between men and women.

25

I would just like to add this cite

26

If Morris wants to argue this, then he needs to argue that Chinese foot binding has evolutionary aspects. Indeed, if Morris were Chinese in the 19th century, his mindset would come up with an evolutionary reasoning for it.

Also, Morris’s belief indicates he has never actually seen a naked woman: the breast only have buttocks-like cleavage if the woman is wearing a bra or some garment that pushes the breasts together. How would the similarity appear in a naked woman?

Morris also ignores the fact that over time, the part of a woman that was considered a sexual stimulus has changed. While the breasts are common (though oddly for Morris’s thesis, not with tribes where the women go habitually topless), legs, hips, butts, and other, more exotic (and downright bizarre to US eyes) parts have been considered sexy.

It is a fetish. Much like foot binding, the emphasis on the hips in classic art, the African tribe where the women wear lip plates, and the other where they stretch their neck with rings. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and if the breasts have an evolutionary purpose, then all these do, too.

27

That still leaves the question of why human women have permanent breasts in the first place. No other mammal does, so you have to conclude that we evolved them for some reason.

That nude women lack cleavage is a good point, but the curvature of a breast is similar enough to part of a woman’s butt that it could trigger the same recognition mechanism in the brain. That’s also been offered as an explanation for why women’s shoulders are considered attractive.

It’s also possible for secondary sex characteristics to be selected for even if they don’t have a specific evolutionary function. If a certain set of features indicates a female, and men are more attracted to more feminine women (which is probably reasonable), then women with those features will outbreed women without those features.

28

Pure speculation, but couldn’t this be attributed to a bit of crossover? I mean, whatever is in the male brain which causes men to like butts would also be in a woman’s brain, but probably subdued. I know women like men’s butts, but in my experience they don’t seem to be as fascinated and…driven…as men when it comes to this subject.

29

I’m not arguing for “attractiveness”, which seems to me ill-defined. My argument is that sexual selection favors the development of traits that elicit a sexual response. There are plenty of examples of this in the animal kingdom, and, as I point out, particularly similar ones in the case of apes. Why should we doubt that such things happen in the case of people? To throw up your hands and call any such theiories “storybook time” or “Just-So Stories” is to forestall any such discussion and denigrate the suggestions of others as of no moment,. I don’t buy that.

As forReality Chuck’s suggestions, not all fashion trends have evolutionary aspects. The sexual attraction of breasts, buttocks, legs, and hips is universal (and not changing through time or space. We can be attracted to more than one area, and are). Deformed feet aren’t – I defy you to find me one other time or place that had that particular fetish. It was the result of a unique srt of circumstances. Similarly, the extreme neck-stretching practiced by some African groups, or lip-stretching and ornamentation of others. Try and find the same thing elsewhere. But i can show you artwork emphasizing breasts, buttocks, hips, and general female shape from Polynesia, Australia, India, Mesopotamia, Africa, and Medieval Europe.

Nor is appreciation of Breasts, to give one concrete examp[le, limited to places where they’re not exposed. You haven’t seen enough Sub-Saharan African Art, or Minoan art.

Finally, Breasts as buttock-mimics doesn’t require that all women have Playmate-worthy bulging globes with well-defined cleavage. The similarity is there enough to suggest the signal even for unclothed breasts. No more is required.

30

This is reasonable, but pushes the issue back long before any possible recorded history.

People keep saying that breasts and buttocks are similar. Are they? Other than roundness, naked breasts have little in common with a set of buttocks. As I said earlier, it could be that roundness is part of the overall attributes that identify women and make them seem attractive to men. If so, fetishizing the roundness of the buttocks makes sense in art and artifice. But that also makes it an attribute independent of breasts. And then what part do the very similar buttocks of men play for women?

We’ve been studying humanity for quite some time. Is there any evidence that any particular set of features creates higher fecundness in any society or culture? Or are you saying that feminine women may once have had an evolutionary impact that has been destroyed by civilization offering non-genetic attractions like money, power, and status? If so, then how can any argument be made that has any chance of being proven or refuted, and thus be scientific?

31

CalMeacham’s post appeared while I was composing my long one. But my same points apply. You’re trying to construct a logic chain without any base evidence for it. There is no evidence that any physical attribute of humanity results in more children. None.

If you’re trying to guess why humanity took its current shape in the first place, you’re down to unprovable story-telling. Men do find women attractive. This is unarguable. But arguing evolutionary strategies from artwork is a game. And your particular game does a horrible job of explaining why women find men attractive and the theory has to work both ways or not at all.

32

While I don’t doubt that your point about the lack of evolutionary evidence, I disagree with this last point. It seems to me that you are presupposing that female attraction was, from an evolutionary perspective, significant. Does it not follow that a theory could account for attractive female derrières resulting in increased fecundity without a corresponding male attractiveness requirement?

33

Grabability.

34

You’re arguing false pretense. I never claimed that this results in more children. Sexual selection is the mechanism by which certain individuals succeed in passing on their genes by being more likely to be selected for mating. It has nothing to do with fecundity, or with having more kids. Read Stephen Jay Gould’s essays.

35

As with everything to do with sex, there are two sides to the equation. In order for reproduction to take place, women have to be attractive, and men have to be attracted. (Or perhaps there are four sides, because men have to be attractive, and women have to be attracted, too). So, generally men won’t reproduce if they find women unattractive generally, and women’s butts unattractive specifically; and women won’t reproduce is they and their butts don’t attract men. It’s so close to being a tautology that it seems to me to be hard to disprove.

36

Sideways. Seriously, your point about unclothed breasts generally showing no visible cleavage, unlike the buttocks, applies only if one is looking at the breasts directly from the front. Viewed obliquely, most women’s unclothed breasts can easily appear as a pair of rounded swellings with a deep cleft between them, just as the buttocks do.

37

[rap]We like big butts and we can not lie. Those other hominids can’t deny. That when a girl walks in with an itty bitty waist / And a round thing in your face / You get sprung / Wanna pull uptough / Cuz you notice that butt was stuffed…[/rap]

38

I believe it was Charles Darwin who first observed that our anacondas don’t want none unless she’s got buns, hon.

39

Actually Darwin was commenting on the very sexual selection issues that have surfaced in this thread when he said:

But referred them to his scientific colleague Sir Mix-a-Lot, who I hear was knighted for scientific achievement - pushing the boundaries of gluteal-mass evolutionary causality, no doubt…

40

I read about a psychological study done a while ago, that I haven’t been able to find no matter where I’ve looked.

The study showed short non-sexual movies to men. The study group had pictures of upturned bowls, balls, fruit, etc interlaced with the movie. The control group just got the movie. The results showed that all straight males in the study group experiences some level of sexual arousal, and couldn’t explain it. They were responding to the round objects shown on the screen. The conclusion said something about men being hardwired to respond to roundness.

Statistically, it always just made sense to me. When I notice a woman passing by, it generally the curviness that pulls me in.