Breast fetishism

As a paraphilia, breast fetishism (also known as mastofact, breast partialism, or mazophilia)^[1] is a sexual interest that focuses exclusively on the female breasts, and is a type of 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.

An image focusing on female breasts

Scientists hypothesize that non-paraphilic sexual attraction to breasts is the result of their function as a secondary sex characteristic. The breasts play roles in both sexual pleasure and reproduction.^[3]

Some authors have discussed the modern widespread fascination with breasts among heterosexual males in Western societies, especially in the United States, within the context of sexual fetishism.^[4][5][6]

Scientific explanation

Scientists hypothesize that non-paraphilic sexual attraction to breasts is the result of their function as a secondary sex characteristic. The breasts play roles in both sexual pleasure and reproduction.^[3] Men typically find female breasts attractive^[7] and this holds true for a variety of cultures.^[8][9][10]

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.^[11] 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".^[12] Research has also shown that women with larger and more symmetrical breasts have higher levels of fertility.^[13]

Sexual attraction to breasts is considered normal unless it is exclusive and is therefore a form of partialism.^[2]

Society and culture

General

 

A female wearing tight clothing displaying cleavage

There is a widespread fascination with women's breasts, and especially their size.^[14] Many people, both male and female, consider breasts an important female secondary sex characteristic.^[15]

Modern female fashions which focus on tight clothing and the display of cleavage have been attributed to an increase in breast fetishism.^[16] 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 heterosexual men derive erotic pleasure from seeing a woman's breasts,^[17] 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.^[18] There are differences of opinion as to how much cleavage exposure is acceptable in public.^[19] 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.^[20] Art historian James Laver argued that the changing standards of revealing cleavage are more prominent in evening wear than in day wear in the Western world.^[21]

Film producers such as Russ Meyer produced films which featured actresses with large breasts. Lorna (1964) was the first of his films where the lead actress, Lorna Maitland, was selected on the basis of breast size. Other large-breasted actresses used by Meyer include Kitten Natividad, Erica Gavin, Tura Satana, and Uschi Digard. Most were naturally large-breasted; Meyer occasionally cast women in their first trimesters of pregnancy to enhance their breast size even further.^[22] 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."^[23]

With regard to pornography, according to statistics from the websites Pornhub and YouPorn, preference for either breasts or the buttocks varies between countries and, on average, between world regions; the United States and most of Latin America and Africa is in the buttocks group, and most of Europe and much of Asia is in the breasts group.^[24]

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.^[16][25] Some feminists have argued that incidents of breast fetishism have been found going back to the neolithic era, with the goddess shrines of Çatalhöyük (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 Çatalhöyük 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".^[26]

Some authors from the United States have discussed attraction to female breasts within the context of sexual fetishism, and have stated that it is the American fetish-object of choice,^[4] or that breast fetishism is predominantly found in the United States.^[27][5][6]

Motorboating

A form of breast fetishism where a person places their face into the cleavage between a woman's breasts and moves it from side-to-side is known as motorboating.^[28][29] The person performing the act may also make the sound of a motorboat, from which the name is derived.^[30][31] This act can also be performed in reverse with the woman placing another person's face in between her breasts and moving them from side-to-side.^[32]

See also

•  Human sexuality portal

• Bakunyū – a genre of pornographic anime and manga depicting women with large breasts
• Breast augmentation
• Breast bondage
• Breast torture
• Erotic lactation
• Mammary intercourse

References

1. Hickey, Eric W. (2003-07-22). Encyclopedia of Murder and Violent Crime. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications. ISBN 978-0-7619-2437-1.
2. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders American Psychiatric Association - 5th edition (5th ed.). Arlington: American Psychiatric Publishing. 2013. p. 701. ISBN 978-0-89042-555-8.
3. Lehmiller, Justin (2018). The Psychology of Human Sexuality (Second ed.). John Wiley & Sons Ltd. pp. 74–75. ISBN 978-1-119-16473-9.
4. Pornography and Sexual Representation: A Reference Guide (2000) by Slade, Joseph W. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-31520-6, p. 402.
5. Miller, Laura. (2006). Beauty Up: Exploring Contemporary Japanese Body Aesthetics. p. 74. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-24509-9
6. Latteier 1998
7. Buss, David (2019). "Men's Long-Term Mating Strategies". Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind (Sixth ed.). Routledge. ISBN 978-0-429-59006-1.
8. Jan Havlíček; Vít Třebický; Jaroslava Varella Valentova; Karel Kleisner; Robert Mbe Akoko; Jitka Fialová; Rosina Jash; Tomáš Kočnar; Kamila Janaina Pereira; Zuzana Štěrbová; Marco Antonio Correa Varella; Jana Vokurková; Ernest Vunan; S Craig Roberts (2017). "Men's preferences for women's breast size and shape in four cultures" (PDF). Evolution and Human Behavior. 38 (2): 217–226. doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2016.10.002. hdl:1893/24421.
9. Barnaby J Dixson; Paul L Vasey; Katayo Sagata; Nokuthaba Sibanda; Wayne L Linklater; Alan F Dixson (2011). "Men's preferences for women's breast morphology in New Zealand, Samoa, and Papua New Guinea". Archives of Sexual Behavior. 40 (6): 1271–1279. doi:10.1007/s10508-010-9680-6. PMID 20862533. S2CID 34125295.
10. Frank W. Marlowe (2004). "Mate preferences among Hadza hunter-gatherers" (PDF). Human Nature. 15 (4): 365–376. doi:10.1007/s12110-004-1014-8. PMID 26189412. S2CID 9584357.
11. Desmond Morris. Manwatching. A Field Guide to Human Behavior. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1977. ISBN 0-8109-1310-0.
12. Crawford, Charles; Krebs, Dennis (1998), "How Mate Choice Shaped Human Nature", Handbook of evolutionary psychology: ideas, issues, and applications, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, p. 113, ISBN 978-0-8058-1666-2
13. Etcoff, Nancy (2000). Survival Of The Prettiest: The Science Of Beauty. Anchor Books. p. 186. ISBN 0385479425.
14. Yeung, Peter (29 Oct 2014). . Dazed. Archived from the original on 10 August 2017. Retrieved 20 November 2014. The fetishisation of women's bodies and their regular reduction to breasts is something that New York artist Cindy Hinant is acutely aware of
15. secondary sex characteristics 2011-09-27 at the Wayback Machine
16. Glazier & Flowerday 2003, p. 58
17. Kinsey, Alfred C. et al. Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Saunders, 1948.
18. Ted Eisenberg and Joyce K. Eisenberg, The Scoop on Breasts: A Plastic Surgeon Busts the Myths, Incompra Press, 2012, ISBN 978-0-9857249-3-1
19. Salmansohn, Karen (October 29, 2007). "The Power of Cleavage". The Huffington Post.
20. D. Leder, The Body in Medical Thought and Practice, page 223, Springer Science & Business Media, 1992, ISBN 978-0-7923-1657-2
21. Carter, Michael, Fashion classics from Carlyle to Barthes, page 732, Berg Publishers, 2003, ISBN 1-85973-606-8
22. 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 978-0-9621797-2-3.
23. McDonough, Jimmy (2005). Big bosoms and square jaws: the biography of Russ Meyer, king of the sex film. London: Jonathan Cape. p. 138. ISBN 978-0-224-07250-2.
24. Dickson, EJ (12 December 2014). "America prefers butts to boobs, says Pornhub study". The Daily Dot. Retrieved 17 October 2019.
25. Evans, Phil. (1989). Motivation and Emotion. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-01475-1, p. 34.
26. The First Sex: The Breast Fetish (1971) by Davis, Elizabeth Gould. Penguin Books, p. 105.
27. 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.
28. Patrick Reilly (19 May 2022). "National Guard officer retires with full benefits after 'motorboating' subordinate". New York Post. Retrieved 17 May 2023.
29. "Breast Cancer charity rejects $US7000 donation raised by men 'motorboating' their faces into women's breasts". news.com.au. 13 October 2013. Retrieved 17 May 2023.
30. "70 Sex Terms You Should Know If You Don't Already". Women's Health. 22 September 2021. Retrieved 17 May 2023.
31. "'Motorboating For Breast Cancer' Twits Actually Did Something Amazing And Beautiful With The Money". Huffington Post. 5 December 2013. Retrieved 17 May 2023.
32. Rose Surnow (17 November 2016). "Motorboating". Cosmopolitan. Retrieved 17 May 2023.

Further reading

• Block, Susan (2004). "Covering Justice: Ashcroft's Breast Fetish". In Cockburn, Alexander; St Clair, Jeffrey (eds.). Serpents in the garden: liaisons with culture & sex. CounterPunch. ISBN 978-1-902593-94-4.
• Carey, Kimberly (1997-05-25). "Breast Enlargement Fantasy a Big Burden to Bear". Chicago Tribune. p. 6. ProQuest 418377452.
• Davis, Elizabeth Gould (1971). The First Sex: The Breast Fetish. New York, Putnam. OCLC 206443.
• Draitser, Emil. (1999). Making war, not love: gender and sexuality in Russian humour. The Breast Fetish (pg. 29). Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0-312-22129-0.
• Glazier, Stephen D.; Flowerday, Charles (2003). Selected Readings in the Anthropology of Religion: Theoretical and Methodological Essays. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-30090-5.
• Latteier, Carolyn (1998). Breasts: The Women's Perspective on an American Obsession. Haworth Press. ISBN 978-0-7890-0422-2.
• Moreck, Curt. (1965). Breast fetishism. International Press of Sexology. ASIN B0007HAEES
• 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 0-313-31520-5
• Yalom, Marilyn. 1997. A History of the Breast. pub. Knopf. ISBN 0-679-43459-3.

 

Look up mastofact or mazophilia in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.