Why are men attracted to breasts?

[chatlack]

Is breast size related to the milk it has?? If it is , breast attraction is simply for children to have more milk...Genetically of course...

[Ophiolite]

To me personally it smells of fact free science.

Cheers.

Perhaps that's because you don't understand science.

I'll spell it out for you, step by step:

1. Our primate ancestors, as do the majority of mammals, mated with the female facing forwards and the male mounting from behind.

2. Most humans, most of the time adopt, preferentially a face to face position.

3. It is logical to assume (though not central to the argument) that the change was associated with the transition to an upright posture.

4. One of the triggers for male arousal was the condition of the female genetalia.

5. By association the sight of buttocks provided the same stimulus.

6. Now consider the move to frontal position: arousal is more likely to continue to the point of ejaculation if the male is presented with a continual arousal trigger.

7. Therefore females who have developed larger breasts through a genetic predisposition will tend to benefit from more succesfull matings and thus produce more offspring, which will include females with the same predisposition..

 

I do not know if this is how the preference evolved, but it is wholly plausible and reflective of the way evolution acts on small differences.

[Coral Rhedd]

When humans began to walk upright and adopted the so-called missionary position for intercourse the males required a reminder of their general target area. This is what Richard was referring to. The idea was discussed by Desmond Morris in his book The Naked Ape[/i'], but I don't recall if he was quoting research or putting it forward as an original idea.

 

Hmm. Read that book years ago.

 

Only now have I understood that Morris must have been saying our human ancestors were quite stupid.

[Martin]

Great post Ophiolite. dont be a sourpuss Red, it is just evolution. Peahens and peacocks should not be derogated for evolving signals to each other. it is just how creatures evolve. it is natural and nice, I think. (perhaps you were just joking about our ancestors being stupid, but it sounded a bit defensive to me)

 

Perhaps that's because you don't understand science.

I'll spell it out for you' date=' step by step:

1. Our primate ancestors, as do the majority of mammals, mated with the female facing forwards and the male mounting from behind.

2. Most humans, most of the time adopt, preferentially a face to face position.

3. It is logical to assume (though not central to the argument) that the change was associated with the transition to an upright posture.

4. One of the triggers for male arousal was the condition of the female genetalia.

5. By association the sight of buttocks provided the same stimulus.

6. Now consider the move to frontal position: arousal is more likely to continue to the point of ejaculation if the male is presented with a continual arousal trigger.

7. Therefore females who have developed larger breasts through a genetic predisposition will tend to benefit from more succesfull matings and thus produce more offspring, which will include females with the same predisposition..

 

I do not know if this is how the preference evolved, but it is wholly plausible and reflective of the way evolution acts on small differences.[/quote']

 

this sounds plausible. let me see if I understand---correct me if I misconstrue what you are saying. Ophiolite according to this I may suppose that at some deep layer of my brain I have some genetically hardwired code that says to go after a nice pair of round buttocks. that code was laid down back when we walked on all fours, because it made more babies happen.

 

but then we all became bipeds and changed posture.

so some lucky woman happened to develop mounds of fat in FRONT that reminded the guys of the buttocks they loved. and she had more babies, or better cared for, or whatever. she was more reproductively successful. and her daughters also had mounds of fat up front.

 

and then a new layer of code began to be laid down in the genetically determined part of the males brain which was even more specific and said to go after a pair of nice round boobs, because when the men were programmed that way it made more babies happen. the old code was probably modified some by evolution---but the visual clues didnt have to be modified very much. and there was still this very strong visual element of the CLEAVAGE which I think should be very easy to program automatic pattern recognition to cause alertness to cleavage----it is geometrically simple. so nature does it.

 

and evolution is very indiscriminate and always produces the same or analogous structures in males and females because it is EXPENSIVE TO ELIMINATE if something is useless but causes little or no extra trouble. So women have clits analogous to penises and men have nips analogous to real nipples (even tho useless, would just be too much trouble to select out because no advantage/disadvantage) and because female BRAIN only slightly modified version of male brain we find that the women ALSO have a genetic bit of hard-wiring in their heads that they are ALSO interested in boobs and cleavage, but not quite as much. Because strict dimorphism is to hard to evolve. so if something is advantageous to evolve in males there will be some analog of it that evolves in females and viceversa (like unfunctional nipples on men etc etc)

 

So we find women also even have instincting appreciation of BUTTOCKS. they call them buns and they like a nice pair of buns on a man. well what evolutionary advantage does that confer? none. but it is the analog structure to the very important appreciation by males of female buttocks that was programmed in the old days when we went on all fours.

 

I am spelling this out in great detail because it is so important, obviously. cheers

[Ophiolite]

Good description Martin. That's the hypothesis. I don't know whether it is fact: I'm not sure how one could test it. However, it is plausible, and it seems to me a more effective explanation than any other I have read (in this thread, or anywhere). I'll subscribe to it until either it is disproven, or a better one turns up.

(And, in passing, my (male) nipples are quite functional as erogenous items: during power failures or hard drive crashes this can be a great comfort.)

[Coral Rhedd]

Great post Ophiolite. dont be a sourpuss Red' date=' it is just evolution. Peahens and peacocks should not be derogated for evolving signals to each other. it is just how creatures evolve. it is natural and nice, I think. (perhaps you were just joking about our ancestors being stupid, but it sounded a bit defensive to me)

[/quote']

 

Martin, the view that Ophiolite outlined sounded rather strained to me. Men probably like breasts simply because women have them. We have moved from why men like breasts to why women have breasts. I think we may be overlooking nonsexual reasons for why women have breasts.

 

To me, (and I am by admission no scientist) it seems that women may have evolved breasts for one rather practical reason. The human infant is quite helpless. Puppies walk and follow their mothers in a very short time. Marsupials have pouches. Not only is the upright human female handicapped by an infant in tow, but she must constantly feed said infant. Consider the distance from the ground to breasts. Consider that the infant cannot clamor up her leg. Consider that she is busy gathering, if not hunting. Since she must often carry the infant, it only makes sense that breasts be near by and that they are, for the infant, a rather obvious target. I suspect that the invention of baby slings to carry the little critter came rather early. Not only is the infant comforted by the sound of his mother's heartbeat but the source of food is ever present.

 

I am not saying that breasts are not a sexual signal for men. Only that there may be more than one reason why women have breasts.

[Martin]

...

To me' date=' (and I am by admission no scientist) it seems that women may have evolved breasts for one rather practical reason. The human infant is quite helpless. Puppies walk and follow their mothers in a very short time. Marsupials have pouches. Not only is the upright human female handicapped by an infant in tow, but she must constantly feed said infant. Consider the distance from the ground to breasts. Consider that the infant cannot clamor up her leg. Consider that she is busy gathering, if not hunting. Since she must often carry the infant, it only makes sense that breasts be near by and that they are, for the infant, a rather obvious target. I suspect that the invention of baby slings to carry the little critter came rather early. Not only is the infant comforted by the sound of his mother's heartbeat but the source of food is ever present.

[/quote']

 

it is a possible theory of how the bulging breast evolved

 

however remember that we have been told that women with almost no visible breast at all can do a splendid job of nursing their infants

we have been told that the volume of the bulge is not strongly correlated to milk production

 

we have also been told that constantly swollen breasts (even when not nursing infants) has some practical disadvantages

 

so it is also plausible to me that IF IT WERE NOT ALSO A VISUAL SIGNAL that men are genetically programmed to receive, then nature may have found it easier to evolve human mammary apparatus differently, so that it is not permanently swelled up with lots of fat and connective tissue but just swells up during lactation, as needed (which you can see happening with dogs, which get big floppy teats when they nurse pups and which go away when they dont have a litter)

 

so if it were not working as a visual signal, then it might have evolved differently according to a different evolutionary "design"

 

but you are very right to try to analyze this objectively and think in practical terms about it.

 

I remember an amusing book from the 1970s which said that the POSITION of the human female milk glands came about because humans used to spend time standing in the water and the teats had to be high up so the baby would not drown. It was a woman anthropologist that wrote this book and I found it full of fascinating speculation about all kinds of mysterious things (like why we dont have much fur and only walk on two feet etc etc.) She was very imaginative to say the least!

[Ophiolite]

I remember an amusing book from the 1970s which said that the POSITION of the human female milk glands came about because humans used to spend time standing in the water and the teats had to be high up so the baby would not drown. It was a woman anthropologist that wrote this book and I found it full of fascinating speculation about all kinds of mysterious things (like why we dont have much fur and only walk on two feet etc etc.) She was very imaginative to say the least!

Aha.. The aquatic origin for humans. The problem was she was not an anthropologist - she had acquired her knowledge by independent study. The establishment employed Method II to deal with her upstart theories: they ignored them. (For Method I, google Velikovsky.)

[iglak]

Men are also attracted to women who need/want protection.

Breasts are sensitive, and hurt when struck. women with large breasts can't run as easily without bouncing, which i've been told hurts when the bounce is strong and quick. women with large breasts are more vulnerable to attack in that area. it's one possibility that men are attracted to the vulnerability large breats cause, rather than any evolutionary advantages they may have.

 

and i like Ophiolite's hypothesis also.

 

 

personally, i am not attracted to large breasts. i am attracted to breasts that are the right shape; the shape they are when in a bra (and not surgically altered). anything in the B to D range of sizes is attractive, and i find the C range slightly more attractive.

But, i'm a lot more attracted to curvature of the spine and the .7 ratio of hips to waist than i am to breasts. and size... i'm attracted to about 1 foot shorter than me.

[john5746]

When humans began to walk upright and adopted the so-called missionary position for intercourse the males required a reminder of their general target area. This is what Richard was referring to. The idea was discussed by Desmond Morris in his book The Naked Ape[/i'], but I don't recall if he was quoting research or putting it forward as an original idea.

 

I remember reading that and it sounds very plausible. I guess the question would be when women began developing larger breasts. I just can't imagine men, especially cave men turning down any women based on breast size. And once they start, they are going to finish regardless of breast size. Also, I would think most breasts would be round and symmetrical and firm which is quite often not the case.

 

I agree with Coral, I think it has more to do with suckling the baby. I would imagine that carrying a nursing baby upright while walking would be easier if you can hold your arms in a cradle position rather than always holding them up against your nipple.

 

So I would also think that breasts developed when women began walking upright for long distances, but for a different reason.

 

Sounds just as good to me.

[Cathy Pa]

Didn't this thread say large breasts in the beginning?

[Martin]

Didn't this thread say large[/b'] breasts in the beginning?

 

are you joking?

 

no

[Phi for All]

Didn't this thread say large[/b'] breasts in the beginning?

You have 5 minutes to edit your posts. After that, script will appear at the bottom of your post saying that it has been edited, by whom and at what time (you also have the option to give a reason for editing). After 6 hours, all editing abilities go away entirely and the post is locked.

 

So no, nothing was changed in the opening post.

[CanadaAotS]

wahoo? lol...

 

anyways, its not all about double d's or a's or w/e, its about relation to the rest of the body. there's some kind of golden ratio that universally attractive (I forget what it is... in general its an hour-glass figure).

[YT2095]

Why are men attracted to breasts?

 

it gives us something else to look at other than Engines and Beer adverts

[dr.syntax]

Why are men attracted to breasts?

 

REPLY: I recall reading somewhere that human female breasts evolved as a secondary sexual attractant to men because they resembled the female buttocks. The usual approach for all primates other than humans is from behind. So it makes a certain sort sense. ...DS

[kummarravelr]

It is cultural. If everyone in a culture covered up their hands, hands would become sexually attractive. Personally, I have never thought as breasts as attractive.

obviously breast is most attractive part in the woman

[KagakuOtaku]

Attraction to breasts is both nature and nurture. First, though humans have evolved and are taught to suppress most natural instincts, human males tend to be more attracted to women with large breasts because of instinct. The human mind works in quantities. People tend to want a large supply of something that they need. The same with breast size. The subconscious part of a human mind says that the larger the breast is, the more milk it can produce, thus increasing the survival chance of offspring. Second, humans tend to relate sensitive parts of the body to sex. For example, when someone of the opposite gender gives you a massage, don't you usually think of something intimate? That is because both the massage and sex are sensual. A man may associate breasts with sex because they are sensitive. Third, in modern times, a woman is usually taught to be modest and reserved, which means covering her breasts and privates. If a woman shows herself to a man in such ways, it may rouse emotions such as trust and friendship. Such emotions are important during sex, because you are entrusting your body to someone else, and so is your partner. Usually, two people (or more) who are engaging in sex more than likely were strong and loyal friends before doing so, and that is where friendly emotions have a role.

[Moontanman]

Um... why am I attracted to breasts? Because they are attached to women!?