Breast fetishism

Breast fetishism (also known as mastofact, breast partialism, or mazophilia)^[1] is a type of sexual fetish which involves a sexual interest in female breasts.

Debate exists on whether the modern widespread sexual attraction to breasts among heterosexual males of western society constitutes a sexual fetish.^[2] In clinical literature of the 19th century, the focus on breasts was considered a form of paraphillia, but in modern times this interest is considered normal. Some have attributed the use of tight clothing and the display of cleavage to the increase in so-called breast fetishism.^[3]

The phrase is also used within ethnographic and feminist contexts to describe a society with a culture devoted to breasts, usually as sexual objects.^[3][4]

Scientific explanation

Some scientists have hypothesized that sexual attraction towards breasts is the result of their function as a secondary sex characteristic. For instance, British zoologist and ethologist Desmond Morris theorizes that cleavage is a sexual signal that imitates the image of the cleft between the buttocks,^[5] which according to Morris in The Naked Ape is also unique to humans, other primates as a rule having much flatter buttocks.

Evolutionary psychologists theorize that humans' permanently enlarged breasts, in contrast to other primates' breasts, which only enlarge during ovulation, allows females to "solicit male attention and investment even when they are not really fertile".^[6]

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,^[7] and that breasts are primarily biosemiotic features that have evolved to influence human sexuality rather than serve an exclusive maternal function.

Feminist interpretation

Some feminists have argued that examples 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 that the walls of the shrine(s) were adorned with disembodied pairs of breasts that appeared to have "an existence of their own". Elizabeth Gould Davis argues that the 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".^[8]

Some authors from the U.S. have made the statement that attraction to the female breast is a sexual fetish, that it is the American fetish-object of choice,^[9] and that breast fetishism is predominantly found in the U.S.^[10][11][12] Feminist film critic Molly Haskell has even gone to such an extreme as to claim that, "The mammary fixation is the most infantile, and the most American, of the sex fetishes".^[13][14]

See also

Bakunyū Erotic lactation Exhibitionism

Mammary intercourse Russ Meyer Toplessness

Sexuality portal

References

1. ^ Hickey, Eric W. (2003). Encyclopaedia of Murder and Violent Crime. Sage Publications Inc. ISBN 076192437X
2. ^ Carolyn Latteier, 1998. (p. 117).
3. ^ ^{a b} Goldscheider, Glazier, Flowerday, 2003. (p. 58).
4. ^ Evans, Phil. (1989). Motivation and Emotion. Routledge. ISBN 0415014751, p. 34.
5. ^ Desmond Morris. Manwatching. A Field Guide to Human Behavior.. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1977. ISBN 0-8109-1310-0.
6. ^ Charles B. Crawford and Dennis Krebs (eds.). "How Mate Choice Shaped Human Nature", Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology: Ideas, Issues, and Applications, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates (1998).
7. ^ Marsden, Paul. (1999). Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation. Review of "Thought Contagion: How Belief Spreads through Society". . Retrieved 2007-10-05.
8. ^ Davis, Elizabeth Gould. (1971). The First Sex: The Breast Fetish. Penguin Books, p. 105.
9. ^ Slade, Joseph W. (2000). Pornography and Sexual Representation: A Reference Guide. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-31520-6, p. 402.
10. ^ Miller, Laura. (2006). Beauty Up: Exploring Contemporary Japanese Body Aesthetics. p. 74. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-24509-9
11. ^ Latteier, Carolyn (1998).
12. ^ 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.
13. ^ Northrup, Christiane (2006). Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom: Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing. p. 334. Bantam. ISBN 978-0-553-80483-6
14. ^ Ryan, Christopher. "Sex at Dawn". Exploring the evolutionary origins of modern sexuality.. Psychology Today. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sex-dawn/201004/why-do-breasts-mesmerize. Retrieved April 23, 2010. 

Further reading

• Bass, Alan. (2000). Difference and Disavowal: The Trauma of Eros, The Part Object. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0804738289.
• Bonder Bette, Martin Laura (PhD.), Miracle Andrew W., Culture in clinical care, SLACK Incorporated, 2002.
• Block, Susan (2004). "Covering Justice: Ashcroft's Breast Fetish". In Serpents in the Garden: Liaisons with Culture and Sex, ed. Alexander Cockburn, Jeffrey St. Clair.
• Carey, Kimberly (1997-05-25). "Breast Enlargement Fantasy a Big Burden to Bear". Chicago Tribune: pp. 6. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=11861462&sid=13&Fmt=3&clientId=17210&RQT=309&VName=PQD. Retrieved 2007-03-21. 
• Davis, Elizabeth Gould. (1971). The First Sex: The Breast Fetish. Penguin Books.
• Draitser, Emil. (1999). Making war, not love: gender and sexuality in Russian humour. The Breast Fetish (pg. 29). Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0312221290.
• Evans, Phil. (1989). Motivation and Emotion. Routledge. ISBN 0415014751.
• Goldscheider, Calvin D.; Stephen D. Glazier; and Charles Flowerday. (2003). Selected Readings in the Anthropology of Religion: Theoretical and Methodological Essays. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0313300909.
• Hickey, Eric W. (2003). Encyclopaedia of Murder and Violent Crime. Sage Publications Inc. ISBN 076192437X.
• Latteier, Carolyn. (1998). Breasts: the women's perspective on an American obsession. Haworth Press. ISBN 0789004224.
• Marsden, Paul. (1999). Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation. Review of "Thought Contagion: How Belief Spreads through Society".. Retrieved 2007-10-05.
• McConaghy, Nathaniel. (1993). Sexual Behavior: Problems and Management. Springer (Publisher). ISBN 0306441772.
• Miller, Laura. (2006). Beauty Up: Exploring Contemporary Japanese Body Aesthetics. University of California Press. ISBN 0520245091.
• Miner, Horace Mitchell. (June 1956). wikisource:Body Ritual among the Nacirema, from American Anthropologist, vol 58.
• Moreck, Curt. (1965). Breast fetishism. International Press of Sexology. ASIN B0007HAEES
• Morris, Desmond. (1967). The Naked Ape. Jonathan Cape.
• 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 0313315205
• Tovar, Virgie. 2007. Destination DD: Adventures of a Breast Fetishist with 40DDs. Sexy Advisors Press. ISBN 0978869946.
• Wijsbek, Henri (2000). "The pursuit of beauty: The enforcement of aesthetics or a freely adopted lifestyle?". Journal of Medical Ethics 26 (6): 454–459. doi:10.1136/jme.26.6.454. PMC 1733316. PMID 11129847. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1733316. 
• WikiWLP. White Lightning Productions. "The Magnificent Milkmaid". accessed 2007-10-12.
• Yalom, Marilyn. 1997. A History of the Breast. pub. Knopf. ISBN 0679434593.