# Why does a nice female bosom get a man's attention? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 15, 2002, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-nice-female-bosom-get-a-mans-attention/136783 "2002-11-15T00:08:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2002, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-nice-female-bosom-get-a-mans-attention/136783/1 "2002-11-15T00:08:45Z")
Is it wired in or is it all environment? Is a nice rack sexually meaningless to cultures in the tropics where where women go topless? ---
**Author:** ![Eleusis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Eleusis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleusis)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2002, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-nice-female-bosom-get-a-mans-attention/136783/2 "2002-11-15T00:49:46Z")
It’s wired into us. IIRC only a small percentage of boobage is devoted to producing milk. The rest is there to attract men 😃 If women didn’t want us to stare at their tits, they wouldn’t _grow_ them ---
**Author:** ![NardoPolo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecae2f/32.png) [@NardoPolo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NardoPolo)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2002, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-nice-female-bosom-get-a-mans-attention/136783/3 "2002-11-15T00:59:15Z")
Because it’s different than us. That plus the hourglass figure. I could never understand guys that are attracted to legs. I mean, **I** have legs of my own and they don’t turn me on. ---
**Author:** ![samarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4da419/32.png) [@samarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samarm)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2002, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-nice-female-bosom-get-a-mans-attention/136783/4 "2002-11-15T01:46:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by NardoPolo \* > \*\*I could never understand guys that are attracted to legs. I mean, **I** have legs of my own and they don’t turn me on. \*\* This seems to be a non-sensical thing to say; If looking at your own legs turned you on then you’ve got a serious problem. Same as if looking at your own hairy ass in the mirror gave you a boner. Its only a turn on because its the _woman’s_ legs (or whatever) you’re looking at. ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2002, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-nice-female-bosom-get-a-mans-attention/136783/5 "2002-11-15T02:02:31Z")
Mr. S’s response: “It just DOES.” ---
**Author:** ![Pablito](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@Pablito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pablito)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2002, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-nice-female-bosom-get-a-mans-attention/136783/6 "2002-11-15T02:12:05Z")
I can think of two reasons that a nice bosom turns me on. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2002, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-nice-female-bosom-get-a-mans-attention/136783/7 "2002-11-15T04:50:21Z")
Yeah, like **NardoPolo** says. 'Cuz women gots 'em. If women had little green horns and feathery fairy wings, we’d find those sexy too. ---
**Author:** ![LolaBaby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d2c977/32.png) [@LolaBaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LolaBaby)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2002, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-nice-female-bosom-get-a-mans-attention/136783/8 "2002-11-15T08:32:04Z")
I find walking around stark naked turns a man’s head more than just having boobs. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2002, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-nice-female-bosom-get-a-mans-attention/136783/9 "2002-11-15T08:53:06Z")
A serious reply to the OP here. I think that big breasts are a turn on because it implies that the woman is well fed and healthy. Therefore if a man mates with a big breasted woman their child has a good chance of living which carries on the mans genes. My thoughts on this are based on evolution. It’s the idea that men and women look for the strongest mates to carry on their genes. At the same time I could be wrong. It could be that men just like to play with big breasts. Either way big breasts are nice 🙂 Slee ---
**Author:** ![Kendo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Kendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kendo)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2002, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-nice-female-bosom-get-a-mans-attention/136783/10 "2002-11-15T09:20:31Z")
Hmmm…I always used to think it was just something we get taught/programmed to like because it’s always ‘covered up’ and hidden. So if, in my life, women had always covered up a small patch of skin on their lower backs, perhaps that that would excite and entice me. Plus - maybe there’d be all kinds of kinky adult magazines devoted to that ‘back patch’. \ I agree with the idea that having a good sized boobage suggests a higher level of ‘healthyness’, and therefore we’re innately attracted to that person for procreation. But then lots of people are attractive to smaller, perkier type breasts. Do women find ‘man breasts’ exciting? ---
**Author:** ![Silentgoldfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@Silentgoldfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silentgoldfish)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2002, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-nice-female-bosom-get-a-mans-attention/136783/11 "2002-11-15T13:21:16Z")
I’d say it societal. Going to high-school in PNG I saw a large percentage of the graduating class topless whenever there was a culture day type event. It wasn’t very titilating the second time. ---
**Author:** ![Eleusis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Eleusis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleusis)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2002, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-nice-female-bosom-get-a-mans-attention/136783/12 "2002-11-15T13:33:37Z")
As a continuation of my first post, women _evolved large breasts to attract men_. It may be partially attributed to society, but they are indicators of health, fertility, and sexual maturity. It’s wired in, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2002, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-nice-female-bosom-get-a-mans-attention/136783/13 "2002-11-15T13:41:34Z")
There are hordes of men who are sexually attracted to women’s underpants, even when there are no women in them. Attraction by association and symbolism. When I was 21, I spend a summer in a clothing-optional commune in Topanga Canyon, California. Hitching back home, I came through Las Vegas, and all the signs proclaiming !!REAL LIVE GIRLS!! !!TOPLESS BOTTOMLESS!! struck me as alien and hilarious. ---
**Author:** ![kitarak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kitarak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitarak)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2002, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-nice-female-bosom-get-a-mans-attention/136783/14 "2002-11-15T13:42:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by AHunter3 \* > \*\*Yeah, like **NardoPolo** says. 'Cuz women gots 'em. If women had little green horns and feathery fairy wings, we’d find those sexy too. \*\* You mean you _don’t_ find green horns and feathery fair wings sexy? How odd. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2002, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-nice-female-bosom-get-a-mans-attention/136783/15 "2002-11-15T13:49:48Z")
Boy, have we covered this a lot of times. Look through the archives and use the search feature to dredge up previous encounters. For my money, as I’ve said before, I think that Desmond Morris was right about rounded breasts being a buttock-mimic. (Morris also holds that other rounded female parts exert the same effect – shoulders and knees) There’s an element of healthiness in there, too, in that round breasts indicate that the wearer can and does obtain food regularly and is in good health (It’s been suggested that the comb on a rooster’s head acts the same way). None of this is conscious, of course – it’s hard-wired in and engineering by evolution, which uses sexual selection as well as natural selection. I know a lot of folks have criticized the “buttock mimic” line of thought, but what clinches it for me is when you look at our ape relatives and look at how their sexual stimuli have evolved – mandrills have colors on their faces that match the genitals. Proboscis males have large noses. The real convincing case is the Gelada Baboon, in which the female sports a sort of ring of skin structures around her sexual parts. This is _exactly_ duplicated on her chest. Gelada baboons don’t have prominent buttocks or prominent breasts like humans, but the female chest is still a match for her sexual organs. The parallel is too exact to be coincidence. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2002, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-nice-female-bosom-get-a-mans-attention/136783/16 "2002-11-15T13:53:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CalMeacham \* > \*\*Boy, have we covered this a lot of times. Look through the archives and use the search feature to dredge up previous encounters. \*\* True, true Cal, but the fundamental questions of existence always deserve a little more discussion. ---
**Author:** ![kitarak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kitarak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitarak)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2002, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-nice-female-bosom-get-a-mans-attention/136783/17 "2002-11-15T14:01:04Z")
Anyway, so as to not have my presence in this thread be a complete hijack I’ll actually make a point. I think a distinction has to be drawn between being attractive and being sexually interesting. Just about any well formed part of the body can be attractive - breasts, legs, neck, whatever. Personally I think faces are the most attractive, but obviously everyone has a different opinion on that. To some degree even this is cultural bias - People from different cultures can have very different ideas of what a ‘well formed’ part of the body is, and what is attractive. However, I have to wonder if some of this may be a nature vs nurture thing - different ‘races’ (I don’t actually believe in race, but lets use it in a loose sense to mean ‘people of a similar genetic background’) find the combination of features which is favourable for the area they’ve developed in attractive. However I’m reasonably convinced that the bulk of it is a matter of society and cultural conditioning. Sexual interest is similarily a mix of cultural training and instinct. While some areas of the body have an obvious interest, most of it is I think by association - as has been suggested, breasts are sexual by association. Normally, in western culture at least (outside of naturist/nudist areas), you’re not going to see them unless you’re engaged in some form of sex act, so breasts are in some sense sexual. Or I could be wildly wrong. This is in IMHO so I’m free to speculate without citation. 🙂 ---
**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:** [November 15, 2002, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-nice-female-bosom-get-a-mans-attention/136783/18 "2002-11-15T14:18:46Z")
It has nothing to do with evolution; it’s purely cultural. The fixation on large breasts is a post-WWII phenomenon, based primarily in America. Take a look at pictures of attractive women in previous eras: in the 20s, the ideal women were supposed to be flat-chested, and if you look at women in Busby Berkeley movies in the 30s, you’ll notice that he concentrates on their legs, not their breasts (and the women he chose were not particularly large breasted). If you go further back, you can see via paintings of nudes that what was prized were medium-sized breasts. Something like Goya’s [The Naked Maja](http://www.usc.edu/schools/annenberg/asc/projects/comm544/library/images/633bg.jpg) (1800) shows a woman with about a C-Cup, and doesn’t show any clevage at all (and the Naked Maja was painted primarily to provide a sexual image). Or look at Botticelli’s [The Birth of Venus](http://www.tamos.net/~rhay/art/venus.jpg) or this [Seuralt](http://www.tamos.net/~rhay/art/seurat.jpg), or this [Rodin nude](http://www.ocaiw.com/galenug45.htm). Indeed, you can search [this site](http://www.ocaiw.com/galenud.htm) for quite some time to see any woman whose bodies look like the Playboy ideal. Throughout most of recorded history, large breasts were considered unattractive – a lower-class trait, good for a wetnurse, but not what you want in a lover. To assign evolutionary importance to a phenomenon that’s only about 60 years old is ludicrous. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2002, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-nice-female-bosom-get-a-mans-attention/136783/19 "2002-11-15T14:31:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RealityChuck \* > \*\*It has nothing to do with evolution; it’s purely cultural. > > … > > Throughout most of recorded history, large breasts were considered unattractive – a lower-class trait, good for a wetnurse, but not what you want in a lover. To assign evolutionary importance to a phenomenon that’s only about 60 years old is ludicrous. \*\* I don’t think you’ve demostrated to my satisfaction that the attraction is only sixty years old. Sorry, but 1. Saying women were “supposed to be flat chested” in the 1920s does not prove men were only attracted to flat chested women. Fashion =! attractiveness. 2. Citing a few paintings doesn’t prove it either. Art =! attractiveness. And a C cup is pretty big. 3. You cannot simply dismiss the mounds of anthropological evidence by saying a few paintings have women with small breasts. For one thing, nobody has suggested that men are attracted to HUGE boobs. They’re attracted to healthy-looking, proportional breasts. Beyond a certain size I think most men would find them freakish. ---
**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:** [November 15, 2002, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-nice-female-bosom-get-a-mans-attention/136783/20 "2002-11-15T14:55:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RickJay \* > > 1. Saying women were “supposed to be flat chested” in the 1920s does not prove men were only attracted to flat chested women. Fashion =! attractiveness. Sure it does. Look again at the women in Busby Berkeley films. These were supposed to be paragons of sexuality, yet they are nothing like the way a sexy woman is supposed to look nowadays. And, sure, men weren’t only attracted to flat-chested women in the 20s. But in the 20s, flat-chested women were considered the way an attractive women should ideally look. A man would be more likely to stare at a woman’s legs than her breasts. (Remember the old distinction between a “leg man” and a “breast man”?) > [@](#): > > 1. Citing a few paintings doesn’t prove it either. Art =! attractiveness. And a C cup is pretty big. But I’m not citing a few paintings. I’m citing an entire site of nudes, only a handful of which have Playboy-type figures. And most of those were primitive art – fertility figures. They were not an attempt to portray an attractive women. You’d be very hard-pressed to fine large-breasted nudes from any period prior to 1945. And certainly art=attractiveness (at least, it was in classical art). The artists were portraying what they thought was beautiful. The nudes they were painting were their idea of a female ideal. > [@](#): > > 1. You cannot simply dismiss the mounds of anthropological evidence by saying a few paintings have women with small breasts. For one thing, nobody has suggested that men are attracted to HUGE boobs. They’re attracted to healthy-looking, proportional breasts. Beyond a certain size I think most men would find them freakish. \*\* _Currently_ men are attracted to breasts. But they have also been attracted to rears (the nudes have quite a few that hide the breasts but show the butt), legs (again, see Busby Berkeley – films that were designed to appeal to males), hips, etc. _Nearly all_ classical paintings show women with small breasts. Again, since this was the ideal, you can’t dismiss this evidence, either. And nowadays the ideal breast size is larger than it usually has been throughout history. Too big can be freakish, but there are plenty of men who like them to be as big as possible. This is due to Howard Hughes and Hugh Heffner, not evolution. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-nice-female-bosom-get-a-mans-attention/136783.md?page=2)