Or rather, since none of you know me personally, maybe answer “Why do men like [female] breasts?” I can pretty much explain a lot of what I do and why I do it. But I can’t figure out why I like them as much as I do.
Seriously.
I recall reading that human female breasts developed through evolution as a substitute for that nice red baboon butt. See, when you walk upright, less focus is on the butt. So, breasts started immitating buns.
I’m sure the nearest biologist/evolutionist is going to slay me for my poor jargon, but that’s the general idea of it.
The ancient Tamil civilization believed that the great spiritual power in the world is a feminine force called aNanku. It is active throughout all nature, but is most especially concentrated in women’s bodies, and most of all their breasts.
For the ancient Tamils, to love and revere women’s breasts was a religious experience. In those days, women of South India normally went around bare-breasted. In some places, traditional Dravidian women continued to go bare-breasted until the mid-twentieth century; they were forced to cover up through the influence of Christian missionaries. This took place as late as the 1960s.
I’m very keen on breasts, myself.
Evolution needs us to reproduce. Men who aren’t driven nutso by some aspect of the female form won’t reproduce, thereby eliminating them (and their lack of fetish) from the gene pool. There’s nothing rational about it. Inded, it’s the very fact that it’s not rationale that’s so important.
I suppose the same principle applies to women. Frankly, I can’t “get” why a woman would be turned on by a man. Yeah, I can see the aesthetic appeal of some men, but it’s beyond me why women drool over a Brad Pitt or whatever.
But this raises an interesting problem with my theory above, suggesting that it’s incomplete: how come gays don’t drop out of the gene pool? My guess is that gays serve some evolutionary purpose at the group level, and humanity expends energy producing them for that reason. (Please note that the idea of group selection is still being hotly debated.)
Because they’re there.
Seriously, that’s about it. Animals of different species have different sexually-selected characteristics that have no purpose. Take lion manes, or peacock feathers, or babboon butts, or human head hair, or general lack of body hair, or possibly even the shape of noses/skin color/etc…
Basically, the feature starts to be developed, it’s passed on, then eventually the females/males start to get used to it, associate it with “good” mates, get interested in it, and it gets selected for, exaggerated, etc.
Never thought about it until this thread, but how common is it for women to be fascinated by breasts? Do many lesbians like big round breasts on women?
Note I’m not asking if any lesbians do, because I’m sure there are. Sexually speaking, if it can be imagined, I’m sure there are people who are into it. I’m just wondering how common or prevalent it is.
bserum, 1. not all men like female breasts. 2. some men like men breasts 3. were you breast fed? maybe that’s why you like them.
Im hoping it’ll be sent to IMHO where there the guys can tell you why they like them hooters.
I don’t think there is a solid ‘breast feeding’ connection. I wasn’t breast fed and I am always told be my wife to ‘…stop paying so much attention to them…’
I’ve been told by my friends that I have a ‘breast obsesion[sp]’. I don’t know if I’d go that far, but of all the ‘sexual’ parts a womans body, they are, by far, may favorite.
I don’t exactly know what I like about them, but:
1.) in the ‘heat of the moment’ I like to be able to please the one I am with but still be close enough to be able to look at her in the eyes.
2.) they can be stimulating to both parties with out being ‘messy’ like some of the other bits.
3.) They are soft. Soft usually means ‘comfort’. (For me anyway)
(Gawd, I can’t believe I wrote all that… =) Ah well…that’s the oppinion of one man for ya.)
Cultural conditioning.
There are societies where women’s breasts aren’t considered particularly erotic. (I suspect this occurs in places where women routinely go topless). And there are variations even among those that do. In America, for instance, bigger is usually considered better. Europeans weren’t as obsessed with size.
In fact, if you went back in time, today’s large-breasted “ideal” would be considered grotesque. In the 1920s, for instance, a flat-chested woman was considered sexy, and if you look at 1930s films, it’s the legs that are the focus of the camera’s attention.
Basically, people are taught by their culture what is sexy (look at cigarettes – in the 30s, smoking cigarette was considered very sexy; nowadays, it is not). These change over time and vary by location.
Before this gets moved to IMHO…
(N.B.: Men and women both have breats (pectoral muscles). Only women have teats. That’s pronounced “tits.” Next time a woman gets offended because you say “teats,” refer her to the OED).
It’s generally accetped that men like female teats because of evolution, as stated above. Basically, the human male brain interprets a set of large teats as “able to feed a baby more easily.” This is not neessarily the case–my GF has a larger-than average set, yet also has a condition running in her family that causes her not to produce much milk. But, on average, that’s how men think of it. We also like large buttocks–or, more specifically, large hips–which mean that the woman is less likely to have problems in birthing a child.
Men, evolutionarily speaking, are basically looking for a woman who will produce the most offspring for them. This is why large teats, large hips, and even carrying a baby (proof of fertility) can be turn-ons.
Women, OTOH, are looking for a provider–someone who can stick around and make sure that, once the kids are born, and after they’re weaned, they’ll still be fed, sheltered, and so forth. So, women, on average, look for muscular men (including large breasts, though presumably not man-teats). In today’s society, where money indicates ability to provide, women look for men who are well-dressed or showing other signs of affluence. (This presumably goes back rather far; affluence existed before the days of money).
A man carrying a baby indicates willingness to stick around and raise the kid and is therefore a turn-on for some women.
Now–all of these are generalizations. Some men don’t like large teats. Some women don’t care about money. These are products, in general, of having brains bigger than peanuts, and thus the ability to think for ourselves rather than letting instinct force our hands. You don’t see peahens who don’t watch the peacock strutting around (unless he’s scraggly–in which case none of them watch, and he’s not going to be reproducing). Our brains allow us to begin overcoming this sort of instinctual behavior.
But, hey, I still like large teats.
LL
Desmond Morris could be a frustrating individual (He NEVER cites his sources)but I think he was right about this one – breasts are echoic of the buttocks (as noted above). It is, I believe, NOT cultural – breast admiration seems to be pretty universal. Fashions may not emphasize the breast, but that’s not the same. I’ll allow that the degree of interest may vary, but again, that’s not to say that breast interest is cultural.
Female Chimps and other primates in heat (baboons included) have swollen, red buttocks. It’s undeniably a sexual signal. Human female buttocks are clearly such a sexual sign, as wee. Why not breasts?
There are those who claim that human breasts are not sexual symbols, but are the way they are so that children can easily hang onto them when wet (I’ve actually come across this in a couple of different places). All I can say is that they’ve never tried to hold onto a wet breast.
No, don’t. You’re not going to win the argument that way, you’ll just give her something heavy to hit you with.
Well, a partial answer to your question is that being gay is not caused by genes. Or to be more precise, it is not solely caused by genes.
There is very strong evidence that a genetic predisposition to homosexuality is heritable, in that twins raised together are likelier to be of the same orientation when they are identical than when they are fraternal.
Still, identical twins are often different in their sexual orientation; they will never be different in their eye color, which is a truly genetically determined trait. Therefore there is certainly a substantial non-genetic component to homosexuality (and to heterosexuality and bisexuality, for that matter).
Perhaps the genes that “predispose” people to homosexuality have some other adaptive purpose not yet known to science, which can be passed down when the genes do not result in homosexuality.
Another possibility is this: gays do reproduce in our culture, because they’ve often been forced to, or at least strongly pressured to do so. Hstorians generally believe that James I of Engand was queer as a three-dollar bill, but he had children anyway, because the king had to have an heir. We don’t really know how far back into prehistory the practice of forcing gays to behave like straights goes, but Old Testament scripture suggests that gays have been involuntarily required to breed in at least some cultures for many thousands of years. This practice may have had the ironic effect of increasing the incidence of homosexuality, the exact reverse of its intention.
Still, culture may not entirely explain why gays stay in the gene pool, because there is some evidence that homosexuality exists in other species too, and nobody’s forcing them to mate with the opposite sex. But personally, I’m not convinced that this isn’t just bisexuality; animals seem to be more flexible about sex, where we tend to be strongly oriented toward one sex or the other.
Whoops. Didn’t mean to speak for the entire male species. My mistake. I ALWAYS make a point to NEVER speak in absolutes. 
Everyone’s replies are interesting and informative. I’m reading a lot about how the appeal is a result of biology or maybe societal. It’s encouraging to think that the mysterious weight that tries to pull my eyes down from maintaining eye contact may be a result of something other than moral depravity.
A question to the ladies: How does it make you feel when men look at your breasts? Obviously there are appropriate and inappropriate times for everthing; and of course there is a difference between noticing, glancing, looking, staring and leering. I would assume in some instances it may be flattering and in other cases it would be uncomfortable.
BTW- Thanks to everyone for taking the question seriously and not some bait for gutter-talk.