Breast fetishism

As a paraphilia, breast fetishism (also known as mastofact, breast partialism, or mazophilia)[1] is the highly atypical sexual interest focused on female breasts (see partialism).[2] The term breast fetishism is also used in the non-paraphilic sense, to refer to cultural attention to female breasts and the sexuality they represent.

Scientists hypothesize that non-paraphilic sexual attraction to breasts is the result of their function as a secondary sex characteristic. The breasts play roles in both sexual pleasure and reproduction.[3]

Some authors have discussed the modern widespread fascination with breasts among heterosexual males in Western societies, especially in the United States, within the context of sexual fetishism.[4][5][6]

Scientific explanation

Scientists hypothesize that non-paraphilic sexual attraction to breasts is the result of their function as a secondary sex characteristic. The breasts play roles in both sexual pleasure and reproduction.[3] Men typically find female breasts attractive[7] and this holds true for a variety of cultures.[8][9][10]

Zoologist and ethologist Desmond Morris theorizes that cleavage is a sexual signal that imitates the image of the cleft between the buttocks, which according to Morris in The Naked Ape is also unique to humans, other primates as a rule having much flatter buttocks.[11] Evolutionary psychologists theorize that humans' permanently enlarged breasts, in contrast to other primates' breasts, which only enlarge during ovulation, allows human females to "solicit [human] male attention and investment even when they are not really fertile".[12]

Sexual attraction to breasts is considered normal unless it is highly atypical and is therefore a form of partialism.[2]

Society and culture

General

There is a widespread fascination with women's breasts, and especially their size.[13] Many people, both male and female, consider breasts an important female secondary sex characteristic.[14]

Modern female fashions which focus on tight clothing and the display of cleavage have been attributed to an increase in breast fetishism.[15] Display of cleavage with a low neckline is often regarded as a form of feminine flirting or seduction, as well as aesthetic or erotic. Most men derive erotic pleasure from seeing a woman's breasts,[16] and some people derive pleasure in their female partner exposing cleavage. When cleavage is enhanced with a push-up bra or exposed by a low neckline it may draw attention.[17] There are differences of opinion as to how much cleavage exposure is acceptable in public.[18] The extent to which a woman may expose her breasts depends on social and cultural context. Displaying cleavage or any part of female breast may be considered inappropriate or even prohibited by dress codes in some settings, such as workplaces, churches, and schools, while in some spaces showing as much cleavage as possible can be permissible or even encouraged. The exposure of nipples or areolae is almost always considered toplessness, considered by some to be immodest and in some instances as lewd or indecent behavior.[19] Art historian James Laver argued that the changing standards of revealing cleavage is more prominent in evening wear than in day wear in the Western world.[20]

Film producers such as Russ Meyer produced films which featured actresses with large breasts. Lorna (1964) was the first of his films where the main female part, played by Lorna Maitland, was selected on the basis of breast size. Other large breasted actresses used by Meyer include Kitten Natividad, Erica Gavin, Tura Satana, and Uschi Digard among many others. The majority of them were naturally large breasted and he occasionally cast women in their first trimesters of pregnancy to enhance their breast size even further.[21] Author and director William Rotsler said: "with Lorna Meyer established the formula that made him rich and famous, the formula of people filmed at top hate, top lust, top heavy."[22]

With regard to pornography, according to statistics from the websites Pornhub and YouPorn, preference for either breasts or the buttocks varies between countries and, on average, between world regions; the United States and most of Latin America and Africa is in the buttocks group, and most of Europe and much of Asia is in the breasts group.[23]

Alternative opinions

The term breast fetishism is also used within ethnographic and feminist contexts to describe a society with a culture devoted to breasts, usually as sexual objects.[15][24] Some feminists have argued that incidences of breast fetishism have been found going back to the neolithic era, with the goddess shrines of Catal Huyuk (in modern Turkey). The archaeological excavations of the town in c. 1960 revealed the walls of the shrine(s) adorned with disembodied pairs of breasts that appeared to have "an existence of their own". Elizabeth Gould Davis argues that breasts (along with phalluses) were revered by the women of Catal Huyuk as instruments of motherhood, but it was after what she describes as a patriarchal revolution – when men had appropriated both phallus worship and "the breast fetish" for themselves – that these organs "acquired the erotic significance with which they are now endowed".[25]

Some authors from the United States have discussed attraction to female breasts within the context of sexual fetishism, and have stated that it is the American fetish-object of choice,[4] or that breast fetishism is predominantly found in the United States.[26][27][28]

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See also

References
  1. Hickey, Eric W. (2003). Encyclopaedia of Murder and Violent Crime. Sage Publications Inc. ISBN 0-7619-2437-X
  2. Association, American Psychiatric (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders American Psychiatric Association - 5th edition (5th ed.). Arlington: American Psychiatric Publishing. ISBN 978-0890425558.
  3. Lehmiller, Justin (2018). The Psychology of Human Sexuality (Second ed.). John Wiley & Sons Ltd. p. 74–75. ISBN 9781119164739.
  4. Pornography and Sexual Representation: A Reference Guide (2000) by Slade, Joseph W. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-31520-6, p. 402.
  5. Miller, Laura. (2006). Beauty Up: Exploring Contemporary Japanese Body Aesthetics. p. 74. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-24509-9
  6. Latteier 1998
  7. Buss, David (2019). "Men's Long-Term Mating Strategies". Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind (Sixth ed.). Routledge. ISBN 9780429590061.
  8. Jan Havlíček, Vít Třebický, Jaroslava Varella Valentova, Karel Kleisner, Robert Mbe Akoko, Jitka Fialová, Rosina Jash, Tomáš Kočnar, Kamila Janaina Pereira, Zuzana Štěrbová, Marco Antonio Correa Varella, Jana Vokurková, Ernest Vunan, S Craig Roberts (2017). "Men's preferences for women's breast size and shape in four cultures" (PDF). Evolution and Human Behavior. 38 (2): 217–226. doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2016.10.002. hdl:1893/24421.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  9. Barnaby J Dixson, Paul L Vasey, Katayo Sagata, Nokuthaba Sibanda, Wayne L Linklater, Alan F Dixson (2011). "Men's preferences for women's breast morphology in New Zealand, Samoa, and Papua New Guinea". Archives of Sexual Behavior. 40 (6): 1271–1279. doi:10.1007/s10508-010-9680-6. PMID 20862533.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  10. Frank W. Marlowe (2004). "Mate preferences among Hadza hunter-gatherers" (PDF). Human Nature. 15 (4): 365–376. doi:10.1007/s12110-004-1014-8. PMID 26189412.
  11. Desmond Morris. Manwatching. A Field Guide to Human Behavior.. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1977. ISBN 0-8109-1310-0.
  12. Crawford, Charles; Krebs, Dennis (1998), "How Mate Choice Shaped Human Nature", Handbook of evolutionary psychology : ideas, issues, and applications, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, ISBN 9780805816662
  13. Yeung, Peter. "The female artists reclaiming their bodies". Dazed. Archived from the original on 10 August 2017. Retrieved 20 November 2014. The fetishisation of womens’ bodies and their regular reduction to breasts is something that New York artist Cindy Hinant is acutely aware of
  14. secondary sex characteristics Archived 2011-09-27 at the Wayback Machine
  15. Glazier & Flowerday 2003, p. 58
  16. Kinsey, Alfred C. et al. Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Saunders, 1948.
  17. Dr. Ted Eisenberg and Joyce K. Eisenberg, The Scoop on Breasts: A Plastic Surgeon Busts the Myths, Incompra Press, 2012, ISBN 9780985724931
  18. Salmansohn, Karen (October 29, 2007). "The Power of Cleavage". The Huffington Post.
  19. D. Leder, The Body in Medical Thought and Practice, page 223, Springer Science & Business Media, 1992, ISBN 9780792316572
  20. Carter, Michael Fashion classics from Carlyle to Barthes, page 732, Berg Publishers, 2003, ISBN 1-85973-606-8
  21. Meyer, Russ (2000). A Clean Breast: The Life and Loves of Russ Meyer (3 volume set). (Under the pseudonym "Adolph Albion Schwartz"). El Rio, TX: Hauck Pub Co. ISBN 978-0-9621797-2-3.
  22. McDonough, Jimmy (2005). Big bosoms and square jaws : the biography of Russ Meyer, king of the sex film. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 978-0-224-07250-2., p.138
  23. Dickson, E. J. "America prefers butts to boobs, says Pornhub study". thedailydot.com. The Daily Dot. Retrieved 17 October 2019.
  24. Evans, Phil. (1989). Motivation and Emotion. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-01475-1, p. 34.
  25. The First Sex: The Breast Fetish (1971) by Davis, Elizabeth Gould. Penguin Books, p. 105.
  26. Morrison, D. E., & Holden, C. P. (1971). "The Burning Bra: The American Breast Fetish and Women's Liberation". In Deviance and Change, Manning, P.K. ed., Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice Hall.
  27. Miller, Laura. (2006). Beauty Up: Exploring Contemporary Japanese Body Aesthetics. p. 74. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-24509-9
  28. Latteier 1998

Further reading
  • Block, Susan (2004). "Covering Justice: Ashcroft's Breast Fetish". In Cockburn, Alexander; St Clair, Jeffrey (eds.). Serpents in the garden : liaisons with culture & sex. CounterPunch. ISBN 9781902593944.
  • Carey, Kimberly (1997-05-25). "Breast Enlargement Fantasy a Big Burden to Bear". Chicago Tribune. p. 6. ProQuest 418377452.
  • Davis, Elizabeth Gould (1971). The First Sex: The Breast Fetish. New York, Putnam. OCLC 206443.
  • Draitser, Emil. (1999). Making war, not love: gender and sexuality in Russian humour. The Breast Fetish (pg. 29). Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0-312-22129-0.
  • Latteier, Carolyn (1998). Breasts: The Women's Perspective on an American Obsession. Haworth Press. ISBN 9780789004222.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Moreck, Curt. (1965). Breast fetishism. International Press of Sexology. ASIN B0007HAEES
  • Morrison, D. E., and C. P. Holden. (1971). The Burning Bra: The American Breast Fetish and Women's Liberation. In Deviance and Change, ed. P.K. Manning. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice Hall.
  • Slade, Joseph W. (2000). Pornography and Sexual Representation: A Reference Guide. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0-313-31520-5
  • Yalom, Marilyn. 1997. A History of the Breast. pub. Knopf. ISBN 0-679-43459-3.
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