• Question: what do men find attractive about breasts?

    Asked by eloisenicole to Donna, Jo, Mark, timcraggs on 24 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Joanna Buckley

      Joanna Buckley answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      Ha ha… this is such a cool question!!

      As the only woman left, I think I’m best placed to answer you, eloisenicole! 🙂

      Men find stuff interesting that they don’t have themselves…. therefore boobs are prime targets. You don’t have to go searching for them because they’re always in the same place. They’re also readily accessible and only a few inches down from your face so when some men talk to you, a select few feel the need to talk to directly your chest. This is most annoying and on many occasions I have pointed this out. Men don’t like you pointing this out because they thought they were doing it so you wouldn’t notice!

      On a more serious note, it most probably dates back to when they used to breastfeed and feel calm and comforted by the sensation, so I think some of it is imprinted from an early age.

    • Photo: Tim Craggs

      Tim Craggs answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      Hi Eloisenicole,

      Well! First off, not all men find breasts attractive. But for those who do, I think there are a number of reasons. We don’t have them! So that makes them intriguing. Secondly, in our culture, women keep their breasts covered up in public, so there is an intimacy associated with seeing someones breasts, because you don’t see everyone’s breasts! In other cultures women don’t reveal their ankles in public, and so men find ankles really sexy.

      It is interesting that men are so attracted to breasts, when at the end of the day, they are just skin and fat, like every other bit of the body!

      Some people might try and argue that there is a sexual selection pressure involved, meaning that men are attracted to breasts because breasts feed their offspring.

      So lots of possibilities.

Comments

  • Photo: timcraggs

    timcraggs commented on :

    Hi Jo,

    I wondered about the breast feeding thing, but that would not just be boys, girls are breast fed too!

  • Moderator - Sophia commented on :

    I’m not convinced by the ‘because they don’t have them’ argument. I mean, men don’t have sharks’ fins, or elephants’ trunks, but they don’t buy magazines full of pictures of them, do they?

    I’d say it’s more that breasts are a secondary sexual characteristic – i.e. they are things women have that men don’t have, so they are a signal that the person with the breasts is a woman. So (straight) men are hardwired to find breasts attractive. But maybe we should ask one of the scientists from evolution zone…

  • Photo: Hywel

    Hywel commented on :

    Is it cultural too? Do cultures where environment, diet and genes etc. do not result in the more voluptuous western figure, have the same obsession?
    I always though that it was a “those will feed my children nicely” kind of response although I cant say that is what’s going through my mind in a conscious way.

  • Photo: Jo

    Jo commented on :

    I totally agree, Sophia. However I know a couple of boys that would quite like a shark’s fin. Come to think of it… so would I!

    It could also be that the male form, generally, is made up of straight lines. Girls are far more curvy and this is an attractive prospect for a man.

    The possibilities are endless, eloisenicole. One thing’s for sure…. we will never never never be able to fathom men out 🙂