Breast fetishism

As a paraphilia, breast fetishism (also known as mastofact, breast partialism, or mazophilia)[1] is a 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, with debate existing as to whether the modern widespread fascination with breasts among heterosexual males in western societies is a sexual fetish.[3]

Scientific explanation

Scientists have hypothesized that non-paraphilic sexual attraction to breasts is the result of their function as a secondary sex characteristic. For instance, 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.[4] 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".[5]

The reverence and theorizing shown to breasts also appears in the science of modern civilization. Breast fetishism is claimed to be an example of a contagious thought (or meme) spreading throughout society, and that breasts are features that have evolved to influence human sexuality rather than serve an exclusive maternal function.[6]

In clinical literature of the 19th century, the sexual focus on breasts was considered a form of paraphillia, but, in modern times, this attraction is considered normal unless it is highly atypical and is therefore a form of partialism.[2]

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.[7][8] 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".[9]

Some authors from the United States have made the statement that attraction to the female breast is a sexual fetish, that it is the American fetish-object of choice,[10] and that breast fetishism is predominantly found in the United States.[11][12][13]

Cultural and historical background

The Upper Paleolithic Venus figurines may have been forms of erotic art, or fertility icons. Shown here is the Venus of Willendorf, 28,000 B.C.E – 25,000 B.C.E.

There is a widespread fascination with women's breasts, and especially their size.[14] Modern female fashions which focus on tight clothing and the display of cleavage have been attributed to the increase in breast fetishism.[7] Many people in Western culture, both male and female, consider breasts an important female secondary sex characteristic,[15] an important aspect of femininity, and many women use décolletage or a low neckline that exposes cleavage as part of their physical and sexual attractiveness.

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] During adolescence, some girls become obsessed with body image including breast size and shape.[18] In South Africa, Wonderbra sponsors a National Cleavage Day during which women are encouraged to display their cleavage.[19]

In Western and some other societies, there are differences of opinion as to how much cleavage exposure is acceptable in public.[20] In contemporary Western society, 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.[21] 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.[22]

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 was selected on the basis of breast size. Other large breasted actresses used by Meyer include Kitten Natividad, Erica Gavin, Lorna Maitland, 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.[23] 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."[24] The practice of breast augmentation has become more common.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Hickey, Eric W. (2003). Encyclopaedia of Murder and Violent Crime. Sage Publications Inc. ISBN 0-7619-2437-X
  2. 1 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. ↑ Latteier 1998, p. 117
  4. ↑ Desmond Morris. Manwatching. A Field Guide to Human Behavior.. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1977. ISBN 0-8109-1310-0.
  5. ↑ Crawford, Charles; Krebs, Dennis (1998), "How Mate Choice Shaped Human Nature", Handbook of evolutionary psychology : ideas, issues, and applications, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, ISBN 9780805816662
  6. ↑ Marsden, Paul. (1999). Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation. Review of Thought Contagion: How Belief Spreads through Society. Retrieved 2007-10-05.
  7. 1 2 Glazier & Flowerday 2003, p. 58
  8. ↑ Evans, Phil. (1989). Motivation and Emotion. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-01475-1, p. 34.
  9. ↑ The First Sex: The Breast Fetish (1971) by Davis, Elizabeth Gould. Penguin Books, p. 105.
  10. ↑ Pornography and Sexual Representation: A Reference Guide (2000) by Slade, Joseph W. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-31520-6, p. 402.
  11. ↑ Miller, Laura. (2006). Beauty Up: Exploring Contemporary Japanese Body Aesthetics. p. 74. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-24509-9
  12. ↑ Latteier 1998
  13. ↑ 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.
  14. ↑ Yeung, Peter. "The female artists reclaiming their bodies". Dazed. 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
  15. ↑ secondary sex characteristics
  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. ↑ Ashlea Worrel, An Examination of Women's Body Image and Sexual Satisfaction, page 15, ProQuest, 2008, ISBN 9780549651444
  19. ↑ "National Cleavage Day" on Wonderbra.co.za
  20. ↑ Salmansohn, Karen (October 29, 2007). "The Power of Cleavage". The Huffington Post.
  21. ↑ D. Leder, The Body in Medical Thought and Practice, page 223, Springer Science & Business Media, 1992, ISBN 9780792316572
  22. ↑ Carter, Michael Fashion classics from Carlyle to Barthes, page 732, Berg Publishers, 2003, ISBN 1-85973-606-8
  23. ↑ 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 0-9621797-2-8.
  24. ↑ McDonough, Jimmy (2005). Big bosoms and square jaws : the biography of Russ Meyer, king of the sex film. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-224-07250-1., p.138

Further reading

Look up mastofact or mazophilia in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/7/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.