Did someone prank your keyboard or something?
I prefer my own theory that they make convenient headrests when you are both lounging on a couch.
This book has a good explanation. It advertises to males that the woman will have enough milk to raise healthy offspring.
Do you have something against hippies, Chronos? :dubious:
Long hair is not an inherent sexual characteristic.
I’m not asking you in particular for a cite, but I would like to see some data on the correlation, if any, between breast size and the actual amoung of milk produced.
No, actually milk is produced at a fairly even rate all the time. It’s just not being removed when the child isn’t nursing, and so it collects in the ducts. There is foremilk and hindmilk in each duct, but the foremilk is literally in front and comes out first.
BUT, it doesn’t take much room to store the milk in the milk ducts and glands, and doesn’t (once you’re over engorgement) increase the size of the breast when you’re full. Large breasts do, however, tend to have a larger storage capacity, and babies of large breasted women tend to go longer between feedings, but eat the same net amount as from smaller capacity moms.
From kellymom
I no longer buy into the frequency of pumping/nursing increases milk theory. I personally produce about an ounce an hour right now. So If I go two hours between pumps, I’ll get two ounces; four hours between pumps will get me four ounces. It’s remarkably consistent, and does not increase with more frequent pumping or breastfeeds, all the LLL stuff to the contrary. Rather, it increases with time - as time has gone on and my baby has gotten bigger, my body makes more milk per hour. I find it amazing how my body, which for three months had no nipple contact with my daughter, could “know” when to increase production, but it did. The hospital would mention that she was eating more through her feeding tube, and sure enough, my pumping log would show an increase in the per hour production within a few days, even though I’d been pumping the same frequency and duration. :eek:
Grr. False advertising. Do you know how hard it was for this 38DDD to get lactation help for low milk production? Even the damn lactation nurses at the hospital laughed and said I *must *be producing enough! :mad:
Gah! forgot to put in the second quote, which makes my last paragraph much more coherent. Also from kellymom:
Post! Last POST!
sigh
Can you tell I’ve been up all night nursing and pumping?
Goin’ back to bed while the baby’s napping…
Any number of hair-care product commercials call that assumption into question.
It’s not a characteristic that differs really significantly between males and females. Long hair as a female characteristic is mostly cultural.
Do they really??
Note that what jake4 probably meant to say was that long hair is not an inherently distinctive sexual characteristic, since someone had mentioned it as an indication of female-ness. Whether long hair can be an indication of sexual health in both sexes, etcetea is a different question.
But what the hair-care products do really has nothing to do with the INHERENT nature of hair I think, so much as a whole bunch of things that we’ve socialized about long hair on women. (And which process of socialization the commercials, themselves, contribute to.)
Done.
If long hair on men was common, we’d undoubtedly see the same sorts of commercials for men.
I did misread jake4’s post, and I’m not arguing against what he did say.
Of course. But it’s uncommon because of culture, not inherently.
In other words human childhood is so long compaired to other primates (asumption) that a obvious indicator is needed to let human men know who is sexually mature.
[theory]If human childhood was not nearly as long then I don’t think it would matter that much if men had sex with sexually immature females, because they would mature fast enough and become mature and have babies soon enough. But since humans take so long to mature, it would be an increadable waste of energy to have sex with someone who won’t be able to have babies for years.
The visual indicator (boobies) is unmistakable a sign of maturity, and it suggests that a female is capable of rearing a child. [/theory]
Though the idea that is it a visually subsitute for the ass is also interesting, but early humans did not equate sex with babies, and big boobies and for that matter wide nipples sort of indicates baby support.
Who says it’s on the conscious level?
Many animals, regardless of the time it takes to maturity, undergo changes in appearance at the time of maturity to indicate they may be a suitable mating partner. This goes for animals whose life span may be measured in months, not just for those that have extended juvenile periods. In particular, many other primates show changes to indicate they have reached maturity. Really, the long period of immaturity in humans has nothing to do with this.
I sort of made the assumption only because it seems so obvious on a conscienous level.
1 - Baby takes milk from nipple
2 - Big Buffalo hold lots of meat, Big buffalo skin holds lots of water
2a Big = better
3 - Big boobies and nipples means lots of milk for babies (even if it’s not true)
Yes, and it seem like this is one such indicator. Men in general has to be hit over the head with an indicator to actually see it, and the boobie fits the bill nicely.
I think there are two fallacies afloat in this thread.
a) The ever-recurrent Desmond Morris fallacy. No, human wimmins aren’t breastacular in order to attract men, via reminiscence-of-asscheeks or otherwise. Men aren’t attracted to females because females gots titticles, men are attracted to titticles 'cuz womens has gots them. If the gals had funny little bony shoulder protruberances instead, we’d think they were sexy due to who it is that’s got 'em. Heck, I know males who are attracted to high heeled shoes and nylon underwears.
b) The also ever-recurrent purposeful evolution fallacy. Rather than assume human female breasts exist like that “for a purpose”, it’s probably more useful and accurate to think in terms of “some juxtaposition of variation and selection resulted in globular breasts being among general surviving traits of the species”. It could easily be nothing more than “females need a high bodyfat content to sustain pregnancy and nurse infants, and females who stored lots of extra bodyfat there did better survivalwise than those who didn’t”, and no particular reason for storing it there instead of somewhere else, just that it did happen that way…that sort of thing.
Gotta disagree with you on both counts.
I think you’re misunderstanding exactly what Morris is proposing. He’s not proposing that men are attracted to breasts because women have them. He’s proposing that men are attracted to breasts because men are attracted to the shape of the female buttocks and the breasts are shaped like the buttocks.
Given that a man can rate the attractiveness of a female cartoon character, I think it makes sense that there are certain forms that pique our interest.
There’s a subtle distinction here. Evolution on the whole doesn’t have a purpose in the sense of a grand design that it’s all working towards. However, individual traits can and definitely do have reasons to exist.
The reason why permanent breasts are so fascinating from an evolutionary standpoint is because none of our closest relatives have them. If it was just a matter of fat storage, why wouldn’t we look more like the other great apes?
Ahunter3, the thing about sexual selection is that it works as a feedback loop. Males or females are attracted to a particular trait, so that trait is passed on preferentially. But so is the tendancy to be attracted to that trait. And so we end up with peacock tails, moose antlers, and the whole panoply of primate mustaches, noses, beards, hair tufts, and various swellings in diverse parts of the body. Humans happen to have swollen breasts, it could have been swollen shoulderblades, sure, except it wasn’t. We’re attracted to swollen breasts because women have them, and women have them because we’re attracted to them. If women had swollen shoulderblades males would evolve to become attracted to swollen shoulderblades, and women would evolve even more swollen shoulderblades, and males would become even more attracted to them.