The PC purpose of the female breast
Here’s the latest PC war:
A children’s publisher has bowed to pressure and pulped remaining copies of a puberty guide for boys that claimed girls have breasts for ‘feeding babies and looking grown-up and attractive’.
Growing Up for Boys by Alex Frith, published in 2013, promises to ‘prepare boys for what to expect from puberty.’
But it sparked outrage among social media users after a blogger posted a page [from the book] on Facebook which reads: ‘Girls have breasts for two reasons. One is to make milk for babies.
‘The other is to make the girl look grown-up and attractive. Virtually all breasts, no matter what size or shape they end up when a girl finishes puberty, can do both things.”
Ah, the humanity! The outrage!
If, like me, you wonder “WTF?” or “Is there something I’m missing here?,” then it’s time to get with the program and understand just what is so offensive about it:
The extract was posted by Simon Ragoonanan who blogs at Man vs. Pink, ‘chronicling the fun and games of a geek father, his fangirl daughter, and their ongoing struggle against pinkification’.
He wrote on Facebook: ‘The problem is that the book is saying that looking attractive and grown up is a key purpose of the breast.
‘It’s like saying the same about a woman’s legs. Nothing wrong with finding them attractive – and I do – but it’s not their ‘purpose’ to make a girl/woman look attractive or grown up.
Ah, but Mr. Ragoonanan, no one would say that about legs because they obviously are there to stand on and to walk with, and both men and women have them in fairly similar fashion.
Not so for breasts. I know the PC crowd isn’t really interested in biology, but breasts in the human female are a puzzling anomaly. Mammals—and the human is a mammal, at least until the PC crowd gets around to revising that fact if they need to or want to—feed their young milk from breasts, but humans are the only mammals whose breasts are enlarged all the time. And this is true only in the female, so there is a great deal of male/female dimorphism on that score.
Biologists and evolutionary biologists have argued about the purpose of the permanently enlarged female breast in humans, and they are not in total agreement about it. The main function of the female breast is to feed the young milk, as with any other mammal, but the main function of its permanent enlargement is thought to be—yes, sexual attraction.
You can find a gazillion articles on the subject. Here’s one that’s fairly typical:
The full, plump bosom seen in the human ape is an anomaly. No other primate has a permanent breast. During lactation all the ape species develop a full breast to store milk. In non-human primates (and other mammal species) a full breast is a clear indication the female is suckling young. Not so in humans. In addition, females in early adolescence can start developing a breast before menarche and females maintain breasts post menopause, so the full breast is not a reliable indicator of fertility. Neither is size an indicator of milk production ”“ bigger breasts don’t necessarily produce more milk. It is the symmetry of the breasts that indicates the phenotypic quality and fitness of the individual female, not the size.
The sex appeal of rounded female buttocks and plump breasts is both universal and unique to the human primate1. Fertile women tend not to store fat around the abdomen, so the waist of a fertile female is usually slimmer than her hips. Other female primates do not have fat deposited on the rump. For example, the female gorilla has a skinny posterior and stores fat on her abdomen, as do human males. So it has been widely theorised that the plump buttock and bosom of modern women are sexual ornaments, selected for by ancestral males2.
And there’s even a theory that compares human female breasts to the tail of the strutting male peacock:
Because breasts sometimes get in women’s way, some scientists have developed an evolutionary theory they call a “handicap principle.” According to this theory, heavy breasts honestly announce a woman’s genetic health, but at a cost of her carrying them around.
Barash and Lipton explain that this same idea applies to creatures like the male peacock, which struts around with his awkward, ornamental tail in hopes of roping in mates.
One lesser-agreed upon theory, supported by Leonard Shlain, a surgeon and author of “Sex, Time and Power: How Women’s Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution,”(Viking, 2003), suggests that women’s breasts grew round after our early ancestors stood upright.
In this view, the breasts of the female ancestors of humans evolved over time, along with a gradual tilting of the pelvis, so that the vagina was more oriented to the front of the body. Together, these transformations encouraged face-to-face sex, and marked a departure from the position most commonly used by other apes, in which the male approaches the female from behind.
Ethologist Desmond Morris has also proposed this theory, and has suggested breasts are substitutes for the round, red buttocks of our female ape ancestors.
Growing Up For Boys simplified matters a bit, but all the explanations I’ve read in the past for the human female breast (and I’ve read quite a few) talk about sexual attractiveness. But shhhh, musn’t tell. Biology must bow down to our PC masters, and books that don’t do so must be destroyed.
hats, girdles, garter belts..
uplift bras lifting higher and higher
until they fly away
and breasts fall
after all.
L.Ferlinghetti: Overpopulation
Let me cite a confident pronouncement by a typical member of the quasi-educated left: a librarian/internet troll from New Zealand who made it his avocation to annoy American Republicans: “The teleology is all in your head.”
So, although there are effects, or better, manifest results of a directionless environmental filtering in the world of explanations, there are no purposes in explanatory biology, anymore that in physics.
Even Mayr’s notion of teleonomy is (considered) a step too far toward Aristotelian constructs. See for interest, “Teleological and Teleonomic: A New Analysis By Ernst Mayr”
For that matter, intentionality, and even consciousness of the decision process are illusions. It’s all just effects – this reality we inhabit – with no causes, you see.
X has the effect of producing such and such a result, but it is not the cause … because there are no causes … or something like that.
Then of course there are those who wish to expand the apparent “purposes” and functions of things because they recognize that doing away with purposes redoundingly undercuts and reduces their wants – for example for perverted sex – to simple expressions of will: that they want what they want. And therefore reciprocally, that you equally well want, or despise what (or who) you don’t want with equivalent moral justification.
Thus, I once found myself engaged in argument with fellow who asserted that it was ludicrous to declare that legs were for walking, inasmuch as dancing, and running and skipping were all possible with them as well; and therefore these were all purposes.
I pointed out that he was merely describing various gaits or stylized forms of locomotion, and that no one would say that under his own interpretation it would make sense to say that the purpose of legs was to perform bicycling motions while lying on one’s back.
Legs may merely have the effect of enabling locomotion, but eliminating locomotion from their repertoire of uses, makes them almost purposeless apart from whatever side effects the presence of so many pounds of limp flesh and bones may have on the overall health of an organism otherwise “filtered” and fitted, and biologically conditioned to possess them.
I also like the way the solidarity pimps of the Guardian are so determined to include Gorillas in the “we”. It’s all just great apes … Reminds me of all that talk about “our” primitive ancestors and what “we” accomplished. Every liberal is a jet fighter pilot and brain surgeon through “participation” and imputation, I guess.
Even if they clearly are not.
Ah, Lysenkoism strikes again!
I find it a pretty stupid statement as far as ‘purpose’ , but think making a big thing about everything is pretty old.
Neo should do a post on “junk DNA”
Get with the program! If your gender or sex is whatever you think it is, then the purpose of anything is whatever you want it to be at any time. Science, biology, out the window, of course the “haters” go out the window first.
“Biology must bow down to our PC masters, and books that don’t do so must be destroyed.” neo
Just another example of how all ‘isms’ on the left, to one degree or another reject key aspects of the external reality within which we exist.
The only question is how many billions of lives the Left’s psychological pathology will destroy before reality overcomes that pathology.
Of course, cancers often destroy the host.
Will we need to revisit the purpose of sex?
As to legs, I’ve read it’s the ankles that make the difference.
Breasts and Beards have ONE over riding importance: they inform hostile raiders of a tribe who is who.
The fellas with the beards are to be slain// fought.
The babes with the brests are to be snatched and carried away.
It’s BECAUSE we wear clothes that gals need the instant recognition signal — during raids — that they are prizes — not combatants.
Such sex raids are a feature of humanity… See ISIS — and the legends of Rome.
Humanity is uniquely in-bred by any standard. So the need to raid nearby tribes to obtain variant DNA has been absolute for millennia.
This is most glaring in the Middle East — where tribalism runs on like 12,000 BC.
In virtually ALL earlier societies, the general proportions of the female breast was repressed.
With burkas taking this to the logical limit.
So the facts indicate that the female breast has NOT been used as a ‘come-on’ for millennia.
It’s NOT been used as a female vs female rivalry weapon.
It’s been a marker to separate female from male… something that even a burka achieves.
Beyond that, the butt and the breasts are massive stores of energy. They are critical to a successful pregnancy in all primitive societies.
THIS is the basis for the male obsession with T&A.
This occurs at a primal level… same as a babe looking at a warrior-savior… a fixture in female love p0 rn.
I’ve only ever been a warrior-savior a few times in my life. Such a status drives babes crazy with sexual desire. Not a word need be said. They — literally — can’t stop themselves… can’t contain their sexual excitement.
You’ll note that this status// situation is a staple of Hollywood dramas.
BTW, in all earlier times, the female breast starts to sag — a LOT — and very quickly, too… even by the age of 25… depending.
I suspect that the outrage here is over the idea that women have enlarged breasts, not for themselves, but for the benefit of males (and for the purpose of attracting males). The idea that women are intended to be attractive to men is perceived to be extremely anti-feminist.
After all, if a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle, then a woman does not need to do anything for men’s benefit. It would then be extremely galling to admit that part of women’s physiology is, in part, for the purpose of getting (and holding) male attention.
If this idea gets more circulation, I predict some feminists will arrange for medically-unnecessary mastectomies (or “merely” breast-reduction surgery), just so that they won’t be seen as attracting men with their very bodies.
My other thought is — is there anything these people CAN’T ruin for the rest of us?
Oh, and for the record — I’m all in favor of young girls being taught that they should be proud of their bodies, regardless of shape or size. But it’s worth pointing out that young boys, too, need to be taught… and one thing that most boys need to be taught, as they discover that they like looking at the female form, is that there’s nothing shameful about enjoying what women look like! There’s a reason a book for growing boys includes a discussion of breasts.
“Strange days have found us, and through their strange hours we linger alone, bodies confused, memories misused as we run from the day to a strange night of stone.”
I never realized Jim Morrison was such a prophet.
“Moonlight and love songs
Never out of date.
Hearts full of passion
Jealousy and hate.
Woman needs man
And man must have his mate
That no one can deny.
It’s still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die.
The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by.”
music and words by Herman Hupfeld
Nothing the Left can do will change reality. It’s the height of hubris and utter stupidity to think otherwise.
Neo is not only a sexist, she’s also guilty of species-specific bias. All mammals are equal, if not more so.
You haven’t heard the news from Portland? Their PETA chapter is subsidizing mastectomies for post-pubescent high school girls (whites only).
If you must lust, do so with a flat-chested species not your own. Next legal hurdle: the right to marry your cat.
According to the feminists there is no difference between males and females so don’t believe your lying eyes.
Cornflour…link please.
John Guilfoyle:
Sorry, another one of my bad jokes. I don’t even have a cat.
Mrs parker has petite tatas with perky pink nipples. She produced plenty of milfk for all 3 children. They are still perky tatas after all the years.. Egads, I am still in love with 100% of her after all these years. And every morning when I wake up I smell her armpits. Heaven. Heart, mind, and soul; we are bounded together for eternity.
Daniel in Brookline Says:
September 7th, 2017 at 3:35 pm
..
If this idea gets more circulation, I predict some feminists will arrange for medically-unnecessary mastectomies (or “merely” breast-reduction surgery), just so that they won’t be seen as attracting men with their very bodies.
* **
If flat-chested-womyn get as trendy again as they were in the Roaring Twenties and the Twiggie era, then the transgendered-men can save a lot by eliminating some of their surgery bills.
Cornflour Says:
September 7th, 2017 at 5:35 pm
You haven’t heard the news from Portland? Their PETA chapter is subsidizing mastectomies for post-pubescent high school girls (whites only)..
* *
Okay, I had fact-check you on this one, despite your “disclaimer” — because it’s just crazy enough to be true.
Nothing came up on the first search page, but this article was..crazy enough. Not the open-ness about mastectomy (that’s rather common these days), but the open-ness in how the news was being shared. The headline says it all.
http://www.kptv.com/story/29421648/double-mastectomy-patient-celebrates-body-at-naked-bike-ride
On a more serious note, one of my BFFs from HS had a large endowment (the noticing of which by the boys needed no book-l’arnin’ at all). She was widowed, sadly, at a relatively young age (late 50s), and her first action after the funeral was to get breast-reduction surgery.
Dudes, the double-Ds are painful to carry around.
Geoffrey Britain Says:
September 7th, 2017 at 5:23 pm
“Moonlight and love songs
Never out of date….
The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by.”
music and words by Herman Hupfeld
Nothing the Left can do will change reality. It’s the height of hubris and utter stupidity to think otherwise.
* * *
I was humming along, and decided the AntiFA & Friends would definitely run us out of town for singing this one.
Makes you wonder if any of them actually went to see “LaLa Land” —
Whatever happened to the Left’s passionate assertions that Evolution is the Determiner of All Things on Earth?
Surely that includes the divergence of the human female physiognomy from that of her “ancestresses” in the primate genus.
I guess you only need to “believe” in evolution if you want to beat up the other tribes.
Geoffrey Britain Says:
September 7th, 2017 at 2:53 pm
The only question is how many billions of lives the Left’s psychological pathology will destroy before reality overcomes that pathology.
Of course, cancers often destroy the host.
* * *
They’ve already started destroying lives with their pathological fixation on irrationality. If not with mortal wounds (although they will come to that), then certainly with economic ones.
(James Damore being the most recent victim, following the photographers and florists and bakers who refused to bow to the PC Gods of the Sexual Revolution.)
The olde folkes knew this (including Kipling, of course).
The phrase “Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad” is a phrase spoken by Prometheus in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “The Masque of Pandora” (1875).[1]
Another version (“Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad”) is quoted as a “heathen proverb” in Daniel, a Model for Young Men (1854) by William Anderson Scott (1813—1885).
A prior Latin version is “Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat” (Life of Samuel Johnson, 1791) but this involves God, (presumably the Christian God) not ‘the gods’. An earlier version has Jupiter and can be traced back to the play Antigone by Sophocles. Even this appears to be a borrowing from an earlier, lost Greek play.
This phrase was also used by British politician Enoch Powell in his controversial 1968 speech “Rivers of Blood” for which he was dismissed in disgrace from the Conservative Party Shadow Cabinet. He was never reappointed to any Conservative party position.
* * *
I recommend a reading of the Powell controversy, regarding the British “Racial Relations Act 1968”, and a pondering of its implications for today, in re the recent clash of mental midgets at Charlottesville.
Powell’s words and intent were just as mischaracterized then as his “successors” (hint: NOT the KKK et al.) are today, but his prescience is not denied.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivers_of_Blood_speech
I’m also reminded of a long-ago Non Sequitur cartoon. It showed a modestly-endowed woman, in a plastic surgeon’s office. She’s explaining to him “I want you to make them bigger so that I can yell at men for staring at them”; he’s face-palming.
The caption is “Why men will never understand women”.
‘It’s like saying the same about a woman’s legs. Nothing wrong with finding them attractive — and I do — but it’s not their ‘purpose’ to make a girl/woman look attractive or grown up.
Ah, but Mr. Ragoonanan, no one would say that about legs because they obviously are there to stand on and to walk with, and both men and women have them in fairly similar fashion.
except for the fact that secondary sexual characteristics of maturity for women lengthen the legs vs trunk size. so like breasts they signal hyper femininity..
wait till they find out women are child like to get protection from men… hypergamous, to get men to get them more… and and and and… tons of stuff they dont like about themselves and you cant say cause they are oppressed and i am the oppressor and they told me to shut my mout
look, the whole point is to top from the bottom
ie. claim you have no power while wielding it, so that your not responsible
The tyranny of female hypoagency – YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBgcjtE0xrE
[itsabout control]
its VERY good and explain s that this is not about what it is, what your seeing is someone who is complying with hypoagency… so that the agent of such, is not under inspectiuon…
funny… eh?
-=-=-=-=-
for those who are curious (ha ha ha ha) about Karen Straugn
Why I am not a feminist…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut2VVAW0MwM
Why I am an anti-feminist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afzs6FNxx1Y
this one covers boobs and legs
https://cdn.someecards.com/someecards/usercards/1342224664516_3947866.png
Modern Equality in a NUTSHELL
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CSMQ1l_VAAAs7Ma.jpg
Wet tshirt contest Winner – YouTube
[too many to list]
and then you have Spaulding Gray
booblie ooblie
Note a friend of mine with big boobs makes 400 an hour telling rich men to clean her bathroom with a toothbrush..
you think its cause of her brain?
Men not marrying? How deep does “the problem” go? – YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlvMAS_20K4
Why American Men Are Avoiding Marriage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzNN42bJUkw
and one reason is the kind of things in the article..
rather than fight over it, why bother with it
Since all these sexist human traits are caused by un PC natural selection behaviors, genetic and social engineering should be used to correct the horrors of evolution and breed improved humyns!
Or dispense with them altogether. Humanity is so last epoch.
Artfldgr:
Of course, legs of a woman (or a man, for that matter) can have a lot of sexual appeal. Just about every part of the visible body can have sexual appeal, and is somewhat different in men and women.
But breasts are differently different, and that’s why people don’t usually talk of the function of women’s legs as being sexual whereas people often talk about one of the main functions of the shape of female breasts as being sexual. The female and male breast are so different—although they come from the same template, one is large with fatty tissue and the other mostly flat—and they are so highly erotic, both visually and tactiley—that their sexual function is far more obvious and extreme than that of legs. And that’s why people talk quite differently about legs and breasts.
I will add, though, that in Victorian times or even earlier, legs were highly eroticized (and hidden behind skirts, of course). That can happen to almost any part of the human body. That’s where the practice of referring to chicken breasts and thighs as white meat and dark meat is said to have originated. Perhaps the tale is apocryphal, of course.
Esther, that’s a great idea but it’s not new.
E. O. Wilson in his book Sociobiology pointed out that many human traits were shaped by evolution and passed on genetically and he was called names and physically attacked for pointing out the obvious. The believers in the blank slate were furious.