If that title doesn't attract attention I don't know what will!
Why would I want to blog about such a subject? Well, for one thing, it's about one of my favourite topics! :) For another it might prompt more responses than my usual posts! I like stirring things up and hopefully making people think. I also like to argue :) Additionally, it is quite an important issue that causes heated debate over womens rights, exploitation, objectification, public breast-feeding and so on.
What prompted me to write this? Over the last couple of days I accidentally stumbled across a couple of on-line discussions around this topic. One was actually a discussion between Muslims debating the size of the breasts of the virgins they would be rewarded with in paradise!! Some women were commenting that breasts are for babies and so God and Muhammed wouldn't comment on breasts or breast size in the Koran, as it has nothing to do with men. In the other conversation concerning breast-feeding, some women were blaming the media, men and society for sexualising breasts which were created\developed for the feeding of babies.
These women were wrong. Breasts are not for feeding babies, although the milk producing tissue they contain obviously is. Organs that were developed for one purpose have expanded, literally and figuratively, to include a new function: to attract a mate. A little thought can show this to be the case:
If I see a woman walking away from me down the road I could, from her height, give you a very good estimate as to the size of her eyes, her heart, lungs, liver and so on. Not so breasts. Further more, even an assessment of her body fat percentage is no reliable indicator of breast size. Some skinny women have large breasts, some larger women have small breasts. Most other organs of the body are roughly in a fixed proportion in the average person - an exception is the penis (see below). Yes, there are extremes but these are unusual. Breast size varies enormously and unpredictably as the norm. If every other organ has a relatively fixed size commensurate with its function, why not breasts?
If breasts themselves are required for feeding babies, how do flat-chested women feed their off-spring? Many women do worry about that but it isn't a problem. Ask any mid-wife or check on-line. Breast size is irrelevant to the ability to feed a baby. Flat-chested women are perfectly able to feed their children and, unfortunately, the opposite is also true: many well endowed women have problems, through no fault of their own, in feeding their children.
Other animals don't have large breasts. Elephant babies need huge amounts of milk but elephants don't have huge udders. Those animals that do have large udders tend to be domesticated. We have made them that way to give us unnatural amounts of milk for our breakfast cereal!
One argument, put forward by a female researcher Gillian Bentley - who blamed sexist male academics for the 'myth' of breasts being primarily a sexual organ - was that the large, round breast shape evolved to avoid suffocation of human babies since, unlike our ape cousins, we have flat faces. Quite how potentially smothering a babies face with a big, squashy balloon avoids suffocating them, I don't know. But the argument is obviously flawed anyway: in addition to being perfectly able to feed their babies, flat-chested mothers don't have any problems at all in not suffocating their child!
I am fascinated by primates, having many books and wall posters full of our closest relatives. On my wall is a picture of a mother macaque feeding her baby. Scaled up to human size, her nipple would be about a foot long. Wouldn't that make more sense to avoid suffocation? A sort of external umbilical cord. Why the need for a large, costly body structure which is totally unnecessary?
Another of Bentleys arguments was that only in Western culture do we 'eroticise' breasts, whereas other cultures don't. Such as Japan, where they focus on feet, so she said. She obviously hasn't seen much Japanese porn... ummm,,, Don't ask..!!! A misspent youth....!
Henry Mackow PH.D argues again - in somewhat deranged fashion: he seems to actually hate breasts (describing them as ugly), the poor man - that again, only Western society sexualises breasts and that in other cultures, such as in Africa, women regularly expose their breasts without attracting constant unwanted male attention.... I like Tiramisu, but I don't lose control of myself in the chilled dessert aisle of the local supermarket, nor am I constantly hungry...! Similarly, just because some African women may have their breasts exposed doesn't mean the associated African men are going to be jumping on them all the time. Yes, exposure reduces stimulation but that applies to anything. I would tune out even my favourite music, if it was played too frequently in too short a period of time. Human needs wax and wane with availability and satiation. I find food appealing when I'm hungry not when I've just enjoyed a heavy meal.
Another counter argument is that, when we look at art, what is considered attractive in terms of breast size, changes over time, even in our own culture. But that ignores the very fact that the sexual nature of breasts means that they get... how can I say this without sounding perverted.. 'bound up' with other concepts. For example, religion. It isn't difficult to see how, during the Puritan period, breasts would be hidden and given less emphasis in art, but in the more liberal Restoration, breasts, as well as many other sensual, more earthly aspects of life would again become more obvious. Again: in times of shortage, those flaunting a fuller figure show wealth and access to resources which can attract jealousy and antipathy. Whatever, large or small, all the evidence points to men finding prominent breasts more attractive than no breasts.
What is one of the defining traits of humans that differentiates us from all other animals? Amongst the obvious others, a major one is: we walk upright. The fronts of our bodies are exposed for all to see to a greater or lesser degree, depending upon clothing. In the immortal words of Buck, the weasel, from Ice Age 3: "Why say 'I've got your back'? I'd prefer them to watch my front, that's where all the interesting stuff is!" Being hairless, upright, visually biased creatures, the fronts of our bodies are excellent for signalling. One of the things they signal is sexual status. In women, breasts signal age - indicating whether a woman is able to breed - and food reserve status. Being made of fat, breasts indicate a woman has food reserves available to feed a baby. This is both biologically available, in her body, and by implication, the means to obtain more.
Numerous studies have shown that on average, men prefer larger breasts:
"Womens bust size and men's courtship solicitation" Gueguen 2007
Beck, Ward-Hull, and McLear (1976)
Wildman and Wildman (1976)
Gitter, Lomranz, Saxe, and Bar-Tal (1983)
Although the world over, the largest percentage of women in most countries fall into the B bra cup size, those who take a C or D, in most western countries, equal or exceed that percentage. This is with the notable exception of Italy where 68% of women are cup size B!, and surprisingly, considering the incidence of obesity America where C and D cup combined percentages of 38% are less than B cup 44%. An interesting statistic to note is that the more well endowed women appear to come from Britain! Despite having a lower obesity rate than America, only 19% wear a B cup, 18% a C cup while a whopping 57% wear a D cup. Either there is something special in the water here or a lot of bras are being stuffed with socks! Statistics are from: Triumph Bra manufacturer survey 2007. An alternative explanation is, of course, that for some unknown reason, different nations have different preferences for different sizes of Triumph bra. Perhaps D cup sized women prefer a different brand in Italy, for example.
In one interesting experiment, a young woman who normally wore an A cup bra was used as a lure for men in a nightclub. For three, three hour sessions she wore exactly the same clothes and sat in exactly the same spot in the club. The exception was that with each subsequent session her bra size was increased a cup size, with appropriate padding. An observer counted how many times the woman was approached by a man in each session. The results were:
Cup size A 13 approaches.
Cup size B 19 approaches.
Cup size C 44 approaches.
It seems then, that because of the signals they convey, prominent breasts have been selected for by male choice. Surveys (including the Triumph survey above) have shown that less than 10% of women wear a cup size A. So, why don't all women have huge breasts? For one thing, they are costly to maintain in terms of energy and their physical presence would be a detriment to physical activity during most of our evolution. No use having an obvious but heavy fertility signal, carrying a large amount of fat, when trying to escape a hungry leopard... For another: mate choice. Assuming he isn't gay, Mr Mackow is an example that shows that although the average man prefers relatively (compared to our ape cousins) larger breasts, some are not bothered or are actively turned off by large breasts. Then there is the question of availability. Fact and nature aren't interested in what is nice or not. It is simply a fact that a flat chested mate is better than no mate. That is not 'nice' but then neither is the consideration of the fact that, despite numerous studies showing that women find intelligence highly attractive, many dim men are perfectly able to find a partner. Sometimes you settle for what you can get. Genes for smaller breast size are maintained within the human gene-pool, albeit at a low percentage.
The fact that larger breast sizes occur in Westernised, developed societies doesn't show that other societies have different preferences. Take Japan again. Traditionally, they are a people short of stature. As their diets have westernised, so their height - along with their ill-health - has increased. The same applies to breasts. Whatever your genes code for can only be expressed if the environment provides the resources required.
Failure to act on the sexual signal at all times doesn't negate the fact that breasts have a primarily sexual purpose. I would argue that, in western society, the natural sexual signal of breasts attracts more attention than in, say, some areas of Africa or the Amazonian Rain forest, precisely because breasts are less obvious. So we are less attenuated to the signal. When we do get the signal, i.e. seeing breasts or part thereof, we respond more strongly.
There are consequences to these facts: men are going to be fascinated with breasts. They are going to peek and, if rude, stare. A woman has the absolute right to wear whatever she wishes, but if she exposes flesh then she is going to get attention. It is the most natural thing in the world for a woman to breast-feed a baby but again, it is equally natural for nearby men to feel 'uncomfortable'. However, we are not animals. We do not have the right to touch or worse. We know what is right and wrong and we have no right to violate a woman's rights. But women also have to acknowledge that men are biologically programmed to check them out. It isn't society sexualising baby-feeding 'machinery' or men being perverts. It is nature and part of the reason we have existed, as one related species or another, for millions of years. It's instinct and we all do it automatically. It's only when it become staring or when we are consciously aware of it that it is unacceptable.
In case anyone thinks all this shows that men are shallow compared to women: Compared to other primates the human penis is proportionally far larger than it needs to be. The male gorilla, at about 510 pounds weight, in the natural environment, has a penis of two inches. The average human male (excluding obesity) weighs around 180 pounds and has a penis of six inches. Methinks there has been some preferential selection going on there too: by women! Those signals again. As Buck said: "... the front. That's where all the interesting stuff is!"
Studies have also shown that the average woman is initially interested in what material goods a man can provide for her and her off-spring:
Borgerhoff Mulder, 1988, 1990
Buss, 1996;
Irons,1983
Symons, 1979
Betzig, 1989
Buckle, Gallup, & Rodd, 1996
Campbell, 2002
Sensible from an evolutionary point of view but not exactly how we like to think of ourselves. So shallow.
But other studies have shown that this shallowness fades as we age and other, non physical, non materialistic attributes become more important.
