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+--- Thread: Research Is the sexualization of breasts a cultural artifact or a biological adaptation? (/thread-18305.html)
Is the sexualization of breasts a cultural artifact or a biological adaptation? - C C - Jul 3, 2025
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-therapy/202506/what-is-it-about-breasts-science-explores-the-big-question
EXCERPT: . . . These findings suggest that male sexual arousal at the sight of elicited female breasts might be an "innate mechanism rather than a cultural by-product of specific, sex-differentiating social norms.” The results contradict the idea that breast covering results from cultural sexualization of the female body and the high importance assigned by a culture to the female breast, common Western culture conventions, and that regularly seeing naked female breasts will remove the attendant curiosity and sexual charge. By showing that female breasts need not be usually concealed to provoke sexual connotations, this study, conducted with a non-Western sample, provides evidence for the claim that breast attractiveness is coded into our biology and is thus quite independent from social dress and sexuality norms.
The authors conclude that "this study offers preliminary support for the hypothesis that male sexual interest in female breasts is an evolutionarily based tendency and neither an effect of the Westernization of clothing habits (and thus, covering female breasts in public) nor the ‘sexualization of what is hidden.’”
At the same time, the fact that a certain tendency is coded genetically does not necessarily make it immune to social influences... (MORE - details)
RE: Is the sexualization of breasts a cultural artifact or a biological adaptation? - Syne - Jul 3, 2025
Another in a long list of "duh" research.
RE: Is the sexualization of breasts a cultural artifact or a biological adaptation? - Magical Realist - Jul 3, 2025
Quote:The authors conclude that "this study offers preliminary support for the hypothesis that male sexual interest in female breasts is an evolutionarily based tendency and neither an effect of the Westernization of clothing habits (and thus, covering female breasts in public) nor the ‘sexualization of what is hidden.’”
I heartily concur. No amount of covering of the female breasts has ever made them sexually enticing to me in the least! lol