Amanda,

I’ve given birth, and I’m not one to squeal or jockey to hold a new baby, either. I find it easy to ignore babies, unless they are crying/screaming, which happens not infrequently, but I tend to find that not so much cute as I find it loud.

I know I am just a man, but personally, I would switch out your #3 with A Fair Paycheck (I think it would be a bit snarkier, plus bring up a major issue). I also have to say that, as an effeminate gay, black man, my number one and the other hypothetical #3 would be identical to yours (if I were switching with a straight man, of course).

I think holding skills for non-moms top out at supporting the head if the baby still needs it, not dropping the baby, and not winding up with a wet spot on your shirt from the baby trying to nurse.

Though I do love the technique whereby bad behavior is excused by means of a simile that strips the target group of the bad behavior of individuality.  That’s pretty classy, right there.

I made a comment in this vein on the Mismeasure of Woman thread, but everything to do with babies really is an acquired skill. If women seem more natural at it, it’s because they get training from a young age. My mother, not being a squealer, didn’t train me. Most of my teenage/adult life, I felt exactly like you felt about babies. Even when I started to want kids, it was expressed not in squealing and gushing and desire to hold other people’s babies, but just more interest/curiosity in checking them out, looking at them. Having one kid under my belt, I am much more confident and competent at holding babies and interacting with small children, but I’m still not a squealer or a gusher. Interestingly, my husband is much more likely to really go nuts over a baby. He does his squealing in a very manly way, I assure you, but he’s really into kids and making a big deal over them and they respond really well to him, and I’m a lot more hands-off and matter-of-fact with other people’s kids.

I thought the squealing was for when you see a long lost friend as you run to hug them. I am way behind. Also, my wife cringes like you wouldn’t believe when one of her friends does this.

. . . is as easy as it is for a woman to simply ignore a cute baby in the vicinity.

Maybe the commenter meant “suck out the baby’s brain with a suction catheter”?  I know you find that to be the more natural (and constitutionally protected) response.

“I know I am just a man, but personally, I would switch out your #3 with A Fair Paycheck (I think it would be a bit snarkier, plus bring up a major issue).”

The social awkwardness generated by being insufficiently pro-baby-handling while female is pretty deep.  Like, some person you don’t know and have never met before is trying to hand you their child so they can use both hands to accomplish a task, and you’re the weird one for looking at them like “What the hell do you expect me to do with that, lady, it’s a toddler, not an oversized box or purse.” And also you’ve just deeply insulted them by not being honored to hold their spawn.

It’s like there’s a Mom version of the Pussy Oversoul where you can “take care of” a child by shoving at the nearest female and calling it a day, secure in the knowledge that her possession of a vagina will not only enable but compel her to tend to it in a competent and loving fashion regardless of experience or inclination.

Why look to religion for paternalistic bullshit that demeans women when The Raving Atheist brings it to our doorstep?

What luck.

I’m just honest. When someone asks if I want to hold the baby, I just say, “No thank you, I don’t like babies.” This generates interesting conversations.

The comments on tit-staring make me wish the asshole who wrote that comment could occupy a woman’s body for a day. 

I’m still learning how to ignore chauvinist pigs in my visual field.

You know, while I don’t squeal, I do totally look at cute babies, and smile at them, and compliment them, and tell my own little daughter and son to look at the cute baby.

And if I had the slightest whiff of an inclination to believe that mothers find this offensive or creepy or frightening or dehumanizing, the way women find men staring at their breasts to be, I would find it very easy to stop. It’s something I feel a mild inclination to do that I exaggerate because it’s socially acceptable and it’s generally taken to be complimentary (at least, coming from another woman. I suspect some women *would* be bothered by *men* looking at their babies excessively, but because I am female myself I get a free pass to do it.) I am not compelled to stare at cute babies; I do it because it’s socially acceptable and I know it won’t bother either the baby or the parent of the baby. (And stare has the wrong connotation because it implies slack-jawed obsessive gazing without interaction with the target of the stare as if they were a person, whereas the way I look at babies acknowledges that they are people. Small, cute people whose very existence is worth smiling at, but certainly people.)

Maybe if, instead of staring at tits, men gazed at women with a happy “It brightens my day so much to see you” smile to express their delight at the woman’s attractiveness, and did not then turn around and demand the women smile in return, but simply offered up their happy smile… maybe women *would* take the male gaze as complimentary. As it is, men don’t look at women the way women look at babies; men look at women the way women look at chocolate ice cream. And being that chocolate ice cream is not sentient and doesn’t mind the fact that you desperately wish you could consume it, this is *not* a flattering comparison.

I would also like to state for the record that I have never, ever offered up my baby to be held by a stranger, or even a friend, unless they specifically asked me, and I have never asked to hold anyone else’s baby. Would you give your purse to a stranger to hold? Should a stranger ask to hold a purse? No? Then for god’s sake don’t give up, or ask a mother to give up, a BABY.

And Raving Atheist? The beings who get their brains sucked out with catheters are unborn, and therefore, cannot be held by anyone. They also look like unformed nasty blobs and are probably covered with mucus and placental tissue and uterine fluid. No one actually *wants* to hold an unborn baby even if it were possible. You at least would want it to be born, and then clean it up so it isn’t covered with gross bodily fluids, first.

Babies are in kind of the same category as puppies and kittens for me - i.e., soft warm things that are nice to cuddle for awhile, then hand back to their caretakers when they actually need something.  But then, I’m a guy.  I can get away with that.

I have to say, I’ve never heard of “baby-squealing pressure” before, but it does make sense.  I’m sure that a woman who didn’t make a fuss over the latest little cousin would stand out amongst my my cooing, mugging aunts.

But I don’t want to hold a baby.  I just don’t.  And I’m not a squealer.

Well you just gotta love evo-psych pseudoscience in all of its sweeping generalizations, armchair observations, and “could it be more obvious that the author of this tripe watches sitcoms and “chick-flicks/frat-flicks,” and takes them as infallible *truth* for all of humanity’s behavior”-glory. And I don’t want to hold them because they’re usually wearing a bag of their own “filth” and they’re the best damn projectors of vomit ever (sorry frat-boys, no matter how drunk you get, you’ll never come close, just stick to beer-pong). I don’t see the big fucking deal with infants and toddlers, anyway. They’re just people. Not magical leprechauns that grant wishes and hand out gold coins.  I’ll take a cadaver or a fetid jail and its inmates, over dealing with infants and toddlers, anyday.

You’re screwed no matter what. We never did the whole “here hold this sac of shit, drool, & noise and coo” and we made a whole lot of people mad at us. They thought we thought our baby was too good for them to hold. Is there a no asking rule for friends and babies? Complete wack jobs on the street have no problem asking, so why can’t our friends.

Alara:

You know, while I don’t squeal, I do totally look at cute babies, and smile at them, and compliment them ...

And if I had the slightest whiff of an inclination to believe that mothers find this offensive or creepy or frightening or dehumanizing, the way women find men staring at their breasts to be, I would find it very easy to stop. It’s something I feel a mild inclination to do that I exaggerate because it’s socially acceptable and it’s generally taken to be complimentary (at least, coming from another woman. I suspect some women *would* be bothered by *men* looking at their babies excessively, but because I am female myself I get a free pass to do it.) I am not compelled to stare at cute babies; I do it because it’s socially acceptable and I know it won’t bother either the baby or the parent of the baby. (And stare has the wrong connotation because it implies slack-jawed obsessive gazing without interaction with the target of the stare as if they were a person, whereas the way I look at babies acknowledges that they are people. Small, cute people whose very existence is worth smiling at, but certainly people.)

Quoted for truth.

I like kids. Kids like me. I don’t have or want to have kids of my own. And I never squeal. But I do smile at children, I do associate with, play with, and smile at kids. I associate, play with, and smile at adults too.

Someone should remind the dumbass that people are people, and that enjoying the company of a person, however small, is not the same as leering at someone and making them uncomfortable.

Coworkers bring their young children into my office building on a somewhat more frequent basis than you’d expect in a white-collar professional environment.  In most cases, the male coworker’s wife drags the young’uns in and everyone oohs and aahs.  Me, I pick up my phone and pretend I’m making a call from my desk.  I’m *so* not interested in faking interest in someone’s child.  Faking interest in elevator conversation or my boss’s weekend plans I’ll do, but the baby thing just takes it too far.

The Raving Asshole fully lives up to their handle, as usual.

I’ve heard lots of guys make comments similar to the above, justifying their tit-staring as biological programming that they can’t avoid.  But of course, if it were biological, all straight men would do it.  I don’t do it, and that isn’t because I don’t love women.  In fact, I don’t do it precisely because I do love women.

I don’t do it, and that isn’t because I don’t love women.  In fact, I don’t do it precisely because I do love women.

Certainly.

Ya gotta admit though, sometimes is really is kinda hard.

4) Having to take a leak while hiking/camping. I know there are products now that will aleviate the squatting issue, but I still think it would just be easier to have a wang. When I was watching Transamerica and they go camping that first night and she’s trying to find a place to squat, I turned to angrymob and declared “that takes dedication to the cause. I don’t know a woman alive who doesn’t wish she had a penis when she had to pee in the wilderness.”

I’ve heard lots of guys make comments similar to the above, justifying their tit-staring as biological programming that they can’t avoid.  But of course, if it were biological, all straight men would do it.

It’s especially funny because tit-staring is so culturally bound.  If you go to someplace where women don’t bother to cover their breasts (like a topless beach in Europe) and walk around staring at women’s breasts, they will call the police on your ass and have you arrested as a pervert.

Mighty Ponygirl:

You could get one of these

On topic: If I barely know the person and they’re thrusting a baby at me, I couldn’t be less interested, but friend’s babies are another kettle of fish. I’m not clamoring to hold babies ... ever… but if the baby in question happens to be held by a friend, I try to at least get my face in their mental world of People To Not Freak Out Around.

atheist—like I said—I know there are products out there ... but frankly, I would feel like the “shaking” part would not be as effective. Would it get all of the tinkle out? Probably not, and I’d rather not carry around something that still had residual urine in it. So then I’d have to find a way to rinse… ok, I probably have a canteen or a camel back, but then I’m putting something that I would normally be drinking out of next to something that I just peed in, which skeeves me out a bit. Not to mention, I’d have to remember it every time I set out for a hike. It’s just a lot of bother when a penis would be easier.

Ms Kate: what if they were couriering BABIES?

On tit-staring:

I actually find it quite easy to resist, since the day I learned a firm, but mercifully humorous, lesson in High School.  I was in theatre class, playing out a scene with a female classmate, and her lines came out something like this: “Do you know what I’m talking about?  Do you know what it means to love?  Stop staring at my tits!” 

There was much laughter - at me, not her, as I deserved - she accepted my apology, and we moved on.  To this day, I swear that I wasn’t even aware I was doing it, but that afternoon taught me to be aware. 

On another occasion, this time in college, I was in a production of a play set in 18th-century France.  Corsets everywhere.  One of the actresses, bless her generous heart, said to me: “Go ahead and look.  That’s what corsets are for.”  I did…but soon lost interest.  Knowing the corsets were hurting the actresses’ backs and restricting their breathing kinda took the pleasure out of viewing well-displayed tits.

Gosh, it’s kinda like men are intelligent human beings who can control their urges and even - shock! - relate to women as intelligent human beings in their own right, whose feelings should be taken into consideration. 

Evo-psychs, please explain this to me!  I’s confuseded!

There seems to be a certain biological desire or imperitive vs. learned social behavior that this individual has missed.  My spouse and I have had a great many discussions on the subject of boobs.  I most always express my boob fascination as “Not noticing a woman’s boobs is like trying to look at a sign without reading it.”  “Notice” generally does not mean “ogle”. 

This has always bothered me: How does one enjoy the female form without being demeaning?

MP, so you’re saying what you’d really like is a detachable penis? 

Yes, my inner 12-year-old cracks up at that song every damn time I hear it.

Mnemosyne—I snuck that song into my high school’s video yearbook. :D

This has always bothered me: How does one enjoy the female form without being demeaning?

Glance, don’t stare.  The goal is to ensure she never even knows that you looked.

Well, unless there is a lot of pretending going on out there, I find that many women DO want to hold or get a close look at our new baby. Of course, she is very cute, so I can’t blame them!

AMEN. I think babies are cute, but the sqealing thing is not me. Matter of fact, until they’re old enough to interact in some way - it’s kind of weird to sit there staring at a baby. Being in my 30’s and not planning on kids, I can FEEL the looks when friends/family members watch me hold my nephew. It’s as if they’re going to witness my epiphany in real time: “OMG! The magic touch of this infant has activated my mommy gene and I am saved!”

Well, unless there is a lot of pretending going on out there, I find that many women DO want to hold or get a close look at our new baby.

Of course they do.  I bet many men want to hold or get close to your baby, too.  Babies are cute.  In fact - and I think this might be a genuinely legitimate piece of evolutionary psychology, as opposed to “evo-psych” - the human concept of “cute” pretty much uses human babies as a template: big foreheads, huge eyes, etc. 

That doesn’t mean that the whole running/squealing/cooing display is spontaneous and natural - that there’s no “pretending” going on.  People exaggerate their natural reactions to let you know how much they like your baby.

Libertarian, I think the word “gweedos” is meant to be “guidos”, an ethnic slur. It usually refers to young working-class Italian-American men, but the term has gained wider use in recent years to suggest a lower-class macho kind of guy.

Good question, Tim.  As a 38DD I’m trying to imagine a scenario in which a man I don’t know could look at my covered breasts for some length of time and I wouldn’t feel either uncomfortable or just weird about it.  I imagine the time of day, whether the guy looked skeezy and the location we were in would all figure into it, and particularly whether the discomfort would move into “threatening” territory. 

To be honest, I can’t imagine an “acceptable” scenario here.  I’m so paranoid about cleavage-eye that when I go to conferences I wear stick-on or pinned nametags as far away from my chest as possible - like, closer to my neck up by my collar bone.  (I have short hair, so this works.)

I suppose if you’re going to try it, you’d better be really, really smooth and subtle.

One of my ex-bfs would always check out babies when we went out.  Once, there were two, and they were looking at eachother, and he said, “look, they’re COMMUNICATING!”  with about as much wonder and awe as I ever heard him muster.  And he managed to ignore it when waitresses with nice racks hit on him.  And he had more than his fair share of flaws.  So, if my ex bf, who was rather fond of our lovely lady lumps in private, could keep a lid on it in public, I’m thinking most other people can too.

I used to pretty much despise babies. After spending a large part of a year holding one for large parts of every day, I have become fascinated by them. They’re cute, they have so many interesting expressions, they’re relatively simple. (For urban dwellers, think of the way it’s possible to interact with other urban dwellers’ dogs without nearly as much baggage as interacting with the humans themselves.)

This fascination is so thoroughly in the category of learned behavior that the only people who could possibly think otherwise are strictly unconscious patriarchalists.

Tufty:

Well, unless there is a lot of pretending going on out there, I find that many women DO want to hold or get a close look at our new baby. Of course, she is very cute, so I can’t blame them!

Many women *do* want to hold or get a close look at your new baby, because she is very cute. And because your reaction to them wanting to do so is “Well, I can’t blame them, because our baby is cute!”, not “You disgusting pigs, get your eyeballs off my baby!” And the reason that you have the first reaction and not the second is that women do not have a long history of squealing over cute babies as an expression of entitlement to babies, a desire to do violence to babies, a dehumanization of babies, or a belief that babies are inferior and do not deserve basic human rights.

If you took your baby into a hotel and saw a big sign saying “WELCOME PEDOPHILE CONVENTION” and then a man came up to you and started staring slack-jawed at your baby like she was a hamburger and he was starving, I’m pretty sure it would bug you a *lot*. I have a baby, and if that happened to me, me and my baby would hightail it out of there. *That* is what men staring at women’s breasts feels like, not like women cooing over cute babies.

Tim:

Women don’t expect you to not *notice* their breasts—that would be like not noticing their arms. Humans have body parts. We all know this. What women want is for men to not treat them as if they *are* their breasts. Normal human interaction is with the face—we look at other people’s eyes, we watch their faces for gestures, we read their lips. When you stare at any part of the body that isn’t the face, you are ignoring the implicit belief that a person “is” their face and are treating them as if what they “are” is the body part they’re staring at.

So glancing at a woman quickly, so she doesn’t notice you did it, is fine. Also, looking at her breasts and then moving up to her eyes, and smiling (not a leer, a genuine smile… like you just saw a friend, or a cute baby for that matter). And then MOVE ON. You acknowledged that she is a human being with a face, and you expressed your pleasure in seeing her body with a happy smile, and you made no other demands of her. You didn’t tell her to smile, you didn’t stop her in the street, you didn’t take up her time, you didn’t stare at her like she was a walking slice of cheesecake with berries on top… you treated her like a person who you were happy to see. Then you went on with your life.

If all men treated women that they found attractive in such a way, women would be a lot less ambivalent about being seen as attractive by men. I mean, generally speaking, het men feel only pleasure when women look at them as if they were attractive… because women don’t feel entitled to look at them as if they were meat, because women haven’t had the historical power to *reduce* them to meat, because women won’t get in their face and make demands of them and consume their time, and because women will probably make eye contact if they like what they see, and they will probably produce a genuine smile. Women don’t look at men to express dominance. If you look at attractive women the way women look at attractive men, you won’t creep women out.

(Note that this conversation is totally heterocentric because we’re discussing how men behave toward women. In fact, as gay men do not have a history of demeaning each other through sex, nor do lesbian women, the way gay men and lesbian women look at each other is also not taken as threatening. Only straight men looking at women contains a threat, for historical and present-day reasons relating to the patriarchal construction of society.)

“Glance, don’t stare.  The goal is to ensure she never even knows that you looked.”

Indeed, Mnemosyne. It’s a skill. Like Seraph, I had a teachable moment in junior high school.  I’ve been aware, very aware, of the issue since then.  It’s been a few decades since then and that moment still stings with you-should-know-better-ness.

If you do find the baby in your arms, everyone is evaluating you for your holding skills, whatever those might be. 

That’s the creepiest part about holding a baby for me. Hence why I don’t do it anymore.
And if anyone says that I’m “so domestic” because I like to COOK FOOD FOR MYSELF I will kick them in a sensitive area.

I can tell ya, they’re definitely not talking about young guys.  The ones they describe might, or might not, be mostly Italian.  Don’t know.  Pretty sure they’re not prejudiced against Italians, since they’re each 50% Italian themselves.  Their mom is 100% Italian.  And “best vacation ever” = Italy.

The only thing I have a problem with is that somehow looking at someone is indecent. Left and right, this is just American puritanism.

It’s hard to see how “gweedo” came from anywhere other than “guido”, but yes, slang evolves.

if you’re a woman, and you fall short of gushing praise and requests to hold the baby, you’re being rude.

I am???  Oh crap. 

I swear, in most respects I’m a completely normal and functioning member of society—but half the “social observations” like this one that I read about are totally mysterious to me.  It would never have occurred to me that I was being rude by smiling, saying “S/he’s beautiful,” and going back to my office.  End of discussion, end of interaction.

And somewhat OT, but on the same kind of wavelength, I can’t say that I’ve ever noticed being stared at or ogled.  I’m not hideous, I’m annoyingly well-endowed (38D), and it just never happens.  Also?  Lived in big cities (San Diego and Boston) for twenty adult years, and I haven’t ever—ever—been catcalled, whistled at, groped, or harassed.

Half of the enjoyment of reading blogs and comment sections is the education you get about other people’s lives, I swear.

Uh, sorry.  Just find this kind of observation really, really interesting.  Carry on!

Yay!  Thank you, Amanda!  I thought I was one of the few people on earth brave enough to state these sorts of opinions on babies and the socially acceptable reactions to them.  I’m not a baby person.  I’m not even a child or teenager person.  Hell, I’m not a marrying person.  I don’t want a conventional life and I certainly don’t want kids mucking it up, mine or anyone else’s.

I have been attacked IRL and on message boards for protesting all the special privileges that people with children have as if I am either obviously doomed to hell, fundamentally mentally or emotionally flawed, and/or a castrating bitch.

Did you know that they have special parking spaces in some places for people who have children in the same proximity and for the same purpose as those for handicapped people?  When I protested the idea, explaining that in that case they should have them for single women who shop alone and who are often assaulted in mall parking lots, I was literally demonized.  No one ever really gave me a reason that having children is the equivalent to having a physical disability, but there are those at that message board who still call me out to my face as no better than a child molester.

I must constantly put up with co-workers hauling their kids to work for one reason or another, where they run wild, screaming and yelling.  I’d close my office door, but my university has an open door policy for those of us who provide student services, so I have to just deal with the noise, continual interruptions by the little poppets, and do everything to avoid feeling forced to gush over them.

I don’t hate kids.  I just don’t particularly want them around me most of the time and I never want any for myself.  One of the reasons I went into higher education was so I would be able to work in a field I adore (education) but not be driven insane by people who are not adults or, at least, almost adults.

If a good friend of mine has a new baby, I would love to hold it. Or if it’s a not-so-new baby, and she needs someone to hold it while she does something else.

Boobs are a different story. I never ask any of my friends if I could hold one for a while. But I will look at them—hopefully discreetly—if they are notable in some way, e.g. Gravity defying behind a clingy knit fabric, or in a cleavagearrific club-going shirt. The cleavage case is difficult, because unless I’m speaking to my friend, where it’s easy to make eye contact, I have to consciously look elsewhere the whole time. And continually thinking “Don’t look! Don’t look!” is tiring.

I think what fascinates guys (me) is seeing a female body part that is normally kept covered. Coninued exposure takes away the novelty; the topless beach quickly becomes boring.

A side note: Generally bars, etc. are segregated by age. It should be easy to find one where the guys don’t dye their chest hair.

Funny, I actually like holding babies. They’re awfully freakin’ cute, after all, and there’s something quite awe-inspiring about holding a new life in your arms.

Of course, as a man, nobody expects I’ll want to—and certainly, unless it’s a friend’s child, nobody asks if I’d like to, because everybody knows men aren’t nurturing or caring, just like women can’t help but love them some kids.

You know, it’s almost like human beings are different individuals, and that men and women behave in non-gender defined ways. But that’s crazy talk.

As for cleavage, I thought Seinfeld got it right—it’s like the sun, you don’t stare into it for very long.

I assume that Mr. Tit-Starer can’t help his wandering eyes whenever his mother is in the room. I mean, she has tits, right? And he can’t help but notice them, right? Same goes for whenver an 11-year-old in a training bra wanders by; his genes just drive him to ogle, don’t they?

Alara, gay men don’t have the issue because gay male culture assumes an absolute right of rejection. If you ‘re a gay man, you cruise a man and he turns away, he isn’t a “bitch” or a “fucking tease” or “stuck up” for daring to do anything other than reciprocate your interest; if you keep bothering him instead of moving on, you’re the asshole. That’s pretty much the exact opposite of straight culture.

I do not squeal at babies.  I do squeal at kittens.  Kittens are more fun.  I’ve never seen a baby do a backflip while chasing a feather.

Being in my 30’s and not planning on kids, I can FEEL the looks when friends/family members watch me hold my nephew. It’s as if they’re going to witness my epiphany in real time: “OMG! The magic touch of this infant has activated my mommy gene and I am saved!”

that’s almost identical to my experience, though mine has been exacerbated by the fact that three of my cousins have just had babies, so any family event involves being surrounded by them and hearing the oh-so-pleasant tales of colic, teething, digestive difficulties, etc. I can’t wait until the kids are older and have aquired some kind of personality!

Very worthwhile reading, Alara.  I’m painfully het and very much enjoy females, however, I still must observe a woman’s personhood.  Sometimes not an easy place to be. After that dumbass moment many years ago in jr. high school, perhaps I over-react and over-analyze this just to be extra sure I’m not doing it again.  Guilt, I haz it.

The only thing I have a problem with is that somehow looking at someone is indecent.

Could you answer me something, Sirkowski? 

Do you even read the posts on a thread, or do you just pop in and give your prefabricated answer, based on what the topic happens to be?

I’m assuming it’s the second, because otherwise, how could you read a column full of stories about how staring at a woman’s tits (not just “looking at someone”) can be rude and threatening, how it can reduce a person to a set of secondary sexual characteristics - but also containing advice to men on how to look without doing any of those things - and then say it has anything to do with “American Puritanism”? 

If you are reading, just what kind of outsized sense of entitlement and privilege do you have that you can just brush these things off as “American Puritanism”?

Really Amanda, I think you’re making a bit much of this.  First off, the comment doesn’t say women rush, squealing, over to the baby, it just says noticing.  And the comment is clearly playing on stereotypes of both men and women.  Surely not EVERY man stares at tits.  Likewise, not EVERY woman rushes over to a baby.

The fact that you always take the most extreme interpretation of comments like these, I think undermines your message most of the time.  I think you make a mountain out of a molehill with posts like these.

Let me turn this around on you:  I’ve walked alone at night and been accosted by guys.  They’re almost invariably larger than I am (I’m like 150lbs), and more aggressive/drunk whatever.  So no, there’s not this magical barrier of protection around us just because we’re men.  Not saying that women don’t have anything to be afraid of, but you paint this picture where everything would be just fine if you were a guy.  It’s not.

Sorry for the screed, but your posts often have the same tone:  any comment about a woman is automatically this chauvinistic aspersion on women.  That’s just not always the case.

three of my cousins have just had babies, so any family event involves being surrounded by them and hearing the oh-so-pleasant tales of colic, teething, digestive difficulties, etc.

Ah, the “special privileges” that people with children have, like two hours of (interrupted) sleep each and every night with a colicky baby.

As a young mother, I didn’t want to hand my baby over to strangers. So I always tried to avoid the squealers. Now I like babies just fine, but I let their parents hold them as I coo.

Someone should remind the dumbass that people are people, and that enjoying the company of a person, however small, is not the same as leering at someone and making them uncomfortable.

I just wanted to highlight this comment from wondering—because this, to me, is the saddest thing about the social pressure to objectify babies as *things*.  Connecting to children and infants as fellow human-beings is one thing; being expected to respond to them in stock ways is just as dehumanizing to them as treating women like they’re all tits and ass is. 

My feminist politics has helped me analyze the way we treat young in the same way we treat women—I’m not sure what the equivelent for “misogyny” would be for young people, but I think our culture is saturated in a hostility toward children that masks itself in appreciation, just like “chivalry” masks contempt of women.

Could you answer me something Seraph, could you read the original post linked in this post before going on a silly knee jerk reaction based on an assumption?

Mr. Murray’s casual insult to his fellow men, that they are simply incapable of behaving decently?

Thank you.

Jeez, Tim, your “teachable moment” must have been much harsher than mine.  Fifteen years later, I still have to laugh at mine.  Even then, it was so funny that it took some of the edge off.  The girl in question and I even became friends after. 

You might consider letting the moment go, even as you keep the lesson.  You’re not in Jr. High anymore.  Your voice doesn’t crack, your hard-ons last less than 36 hours at a time, and you need to shave more than once every two weeks.  Assuming that staring was all you did, that barely rates on the Jr. High stupid-o-meter.  And hey, you learned as a young teenager what Sirkowski and the commenter Amanda quoted still haven’t learned as grown men.  That has to count for something.

Queen Victoria once said (and I quote):

“An ugly baby is a very nasty object and the prettiest is frightful when undressed!”

Wisdom for the Ages, eh?

Sorry for the screed

Please. You all but told Amanda not to be so strident and make a big deal out of silly little women’s complaints, when we all know that men suffer too. How generous of you to set her straight like that - you know how excitable we females are. Certainly it wasn’t worth your time to comment on the original idiot, who believes that women have no sexual interest in men at all, and only have “coos over babies” in the vast chasm of life-experience where men have “looks at tits”.

Please continue to dislike holding babies for as long as possible. Preferably until you are post-menopausal.

Having one kid under my belt, I am much more confident and competent at holding babies

UR DOIN IT RONG

Sirkowski -

Read it.  And? 

You’ve latched onto the word “decent” and used it to imply that we’re all a bunch of prudes when the actual meaning - considerate of another person’s feelings (yes!  Women are people!  It’s true!  They’ve done studies!) - is clear. 

Have fun knocking down your strawfeminist.  I, for one, am not interested in playing.

What a cute attempt at an insult, Beans.

Person a: “I’m not fond of kids and don’t want them.”

Person b: “hahaha, you suck, you shouldn’t have kids.”

Person a: “Oh noes! Random anonymous internet person thinks I would be a bad mom! Suddenly, I have this urge to procreate! I’LL SHOW ALL THOSE RANDOM ANONYMOUS INTERNET PERSONS WHO’S WHO AND WHAT’S WHAT! I’LL SHOW THEM ALL!”

Beans, you’re what, 14? In the lunchroom, if someone tells you they have a peanut allergy, do you tell them they can’t try a bite of your PB&J;sandwich and think you like, totally schooled them?

With regards to staring (as opposed to baby holding), I think most reasonable people understand and accept that we will notice people who we find attractive and notice the parts of their bodies that are particularly attractive to us. The thing is, it’s just not that hard to be subtle. I’ve been with my husband going on 12 years now, I have never once noticed him noticing someone. Given that he is human and that I notice people, I assume he notices people. He’s just not an asshole about it. He has plenty of other faults (as do I), so I am forced to conclude that it’s not actually that hard to do, if you are older than 14 and have even the slightest inclination to try.

As for how to notice and also express appreciaton without being an asshole, eye contact and a smile with no expectation of anything in return and no pressure to reciprocate is good. That might brighten my day and put a spring in my step. But if I feel pressured to interact with the person or fend them off in any way, it ruins it.

All this is, of course, supposed to make you want one of your own, right?

Apparently they think so, but I have no idea why they think it’s appealing! Hearing all about various organic diaper rash treatments should be winding up my biological clock or something. I’m working on the assumption that their lack of sleep is affecting their reasoning skills.

Ranylt,

I’m leaving work for the evening, but I’ll get back to you with thoughts about reading suggestions later this evening.  Also feel free to email me at cookaj81 [at] hotmail.com if you want me to send any bibliography directly to your email.

Cheers,
Anna

UR DOIN IT RONG

Okay, that was fucking funny.

I think what fascinates guys (me) is seeing a female body part that is normally kept covered. Coninued exposure takes away the novelty; the topless beach quickly becomes boring.

Bingo. 

Personally, I think the tit-staring thing is pure Pavlov.  You’ve heard of him, right?  The psychologist who rang a bell every time he fed his dogs, so it got to the point where they drooled when he rang the bell, even if he didn’t give them any food?

Well, in the US, we’re taught from infancy that boobs = sex.  If a woman is exposing her breasts to you, then you will have sex.  It gets to the point where seeing and handling breasts is a sexual activity in its own right, and anything that reminds you of breasts (pictures, ridiculous novelty toys, even real, but thoroughly-covered and theoretically non-sexual breasts) gets a guy to thinking about sex.

However, Pavlov also discovered that if he rang the bell without giving the dog food enough times, it stopped drooling. 

And as anyone who knows anything about the Victorian era knows, a flash of ankle just ain’t what it used to be.  Funny how a sexual stimulus can go out of style like that if they really are hard-wired.

UR DOIN IT RONG

Yeah, the original comment being mocked was me, and I am alternating between laughing at loud and feeling really embarrassed.

Oh, I hate holding babies too. I need to *know* the child before I can hold her. Even my parents think I am weird.

I think what fascinates guys (me) is seeing a female body part that is normally kept covered. Coninued exposure takes away the novelty; the topless beach quickly becomes boring.

Yeah, you nailed it.

And as anyone who knows anything about the Victorian era knows, a flash of ankle just ain’t what it used to be.  Funny how a sexual stimulus can go out of style like that if they really are hard-wired.

Translation:  SHOW US YOUR BOOBS!

kodiak -

Yep. my cousins are starting to have kids too. I don’t mind the looks or the babies - I hold them once in a while and they’re cute! - it’s mainly the “don’t YOU want one of these??” moments that annoy me. Everyone looks at me and I feel the need to explain why I don’t want one. Very uncomfortable.

I have an older nephew (8yrs) who now comes for sleepovers and after school sometimes. I much prefer that age. We have conversations and he’s a smart and funny little kid. I really like being an aunt, and instead of appreciating that - I get the sympathetic looks that say “you don’t know what you’re missing”. It’s always weird to me how invested some people seem to be in whether I procreate or not.

Although, for the record, I’m a big fan of long shapely legs and I see those regularly enough without them ever going out of style.  So I don’t know exactly how well that whole “absence makes the heart grow founder” mantra works at the end of the day.

Beyond that, guys like staring at pretty girls.  That sort of thing doesn’t just turn itself off.  Guys can show restraint, we can be polite, we can straighten up and act our ages and avoid being blatantly obvious about it, but 9 times out of 10 - if we’re single or bored or lonely or just particularly high strung that day - we’re thinking about it.

That’s just facts of life.  :-p

Translation:  SHOW US YOUR BOOBS!

Well, I certainly wouldn’t object.  But you do get my real point, right?

The Raving Atheist,

...“suck out the baby’s brain with a suction catheter”?  I know you find that to be the more natural (and constitutionally protected) response.

TRA, we’re all adults here; it’s OK to be honest. If that’s what you’re into—collapsing the skulls of neonates and young babies—just admit it and be done with it. Don’t try to hide under the skirt of projection.

Never squealed at baby in all my thirty-eight years. Neither do I do the shriek-scream-dance at engagement rings, overpriced shoes or prospects of trips to what I believe are termed ‘spas’.

Clearly, I fail at socially-mandated femininity rituals. How sad for me. Ahahaa. right.

Oh, and Beans, why are you so upset that people might not want to hold a random baby? That’s quite of overreaction to something that harms absolutely no-one, isn’t it? Why the massive emotional investment in total strangers’ lack of interest in handling someone else’s offspring? It doesn’t seem healthy to me.

Beyond that, guys like staring at pretty girls.  That sort of thing doesn’t just turn itself off.  Guys can show restraint, we can be polite, we can straighten up and act our ages and avoid being blatantly obvious about it, but 9 times out of 10 - if we’re single or bored or lonely or just particularly high strung that day - we’re thinking about it.

Congratulations. Our hearts are breaking for you and your suppressed animal urges.

Seriously, honestly, truly, women do not care if you want to have sex with them. They just don’t want to be forcibly reminded of it.

anonymopus:

First off, the comment doesn’t say women rush, squealing, over to the baby, it just says noticing

it’s like an analogy. Staring at bosom is to noticing bosom as squealing at baby is to noticing baby. Read post and thread please.

I’ve walked alone at night and been accosted by guys.  They’re almost invariably larger than I am (I’m like 150lbs), and more aggressive/drunk whatever.  So no, there’s not this magical barrier of protection around us just because we’re men.  Not saying that women don’t have anything to be afraid of, but you paint this picture where everything would be just fine if you were a guy.  It’s not

Oh yes, because one anecdote makes up for the statistic that women are nine times as likely to be raped. Possibly more. Tell me, when you were “accosted” by these men, were you raped?

You didn’t tell her to smile, you didn’t stop her in the street, you didn’t take up her time, you didn’t stare at her like she was a walking slice of cheesecake with berries on top… you treated her like a person who you were happy to see…If you look at attractive women the way women look at attractive men, you won’t creep women out.

Very well said. These “boo-hoo, men just can’t help leering” conversations are never about honest, healthy sexual attraction. They’re almost always about whiny men who want you to feel sorry for them because they’re pathetic, and then tell you to flash them because it makes them feel powerful.

Robert Sapolsky wrote in “A Primate’s Memoir” that baboon females are eager to hold a high-ranking female’s baby, but usually ignore a low ranking female’s. And males go mad if a high ranking female is in heat, but pay no attention to the genital swelling of a female that’s too young or low ranking. I guess a baboon is able to react according to the context, but humans just have some involuntary reflexes.

but 9 times out of 10 - if we’re single or bored or lonely or just particularly high strung that day - we’re thinking about it.

I realize that this is going to attack the very foundations of your worldview, but women do not spend all their time dying to know what you are thinking. Or caring much what you are thinking. For the most part, we just want to know if what you’re thinking is going to end up being a threat to us; beyond that, unless we have a direct personal interest in you (“I wonder if that cute guy in my Physics class noticed me?”), we actually do not give two flying mechanical shits what you are thinking about, when, or how often.

The corollary to this is that it is incredibly tedious for you to blather on about how biological urges - nay, imperatives!, mean that you must exercise Herculean mental effort in order to prevent your head from swiveling whenever titties are near.

Funny that men who live in cultures where toplessness is the norm manage to function. You’d think these poor fellows would be completely incapacitated with all the boobage surrounding them day in and day out.

Well, in the US, we’re taught from infancy that boobs = sex.  If a woman is exposing her breasts to you, then you will have sex.  It gets to the point where seeing and handling breasts is a sexual activity in its own right, and anything that reminds you of breasts (pictures, ridiculous novelty toys, even real, but thoroughly-covered and theoretically non-sexual breasts) gets a guy to thinking about sex.

There’s definitely a lot of that going on, Seraph. However, it seems inescapable to me that there must be deep biological structures in human brains that link forms to gender, and use that matrix to create attraction. Otherwise, we’d have no underlying interest in sex for our society to transform, and for ourselves to shape.

Geg, the parking spaces are for pregnant women, or people with infants and toddlers. *not* people with children. You have a preschooler, you and your preschooler can walk.

And the reason is that pregnancy *is* a disability for many women, babies are heavy, and toddlers walk slow, tire easily, and are much more likely to randomly dart into traffic than any older child is.

As a short, young-looking woman who probably looks quite vulnerable, I would find “parking for women” to be *extremely* patronizing, especially since, while women are much more likely to be raped, men are much more likely to suffer any other kind of violence from strangers. I do not need the world to treat me as a walking potential victim; putting some lights in the parking lot is all I need. As a mother who has been pregnant and who has had to carry infants with c-section stitches in my middle and who currently *has* a toddler… special parking for people with young children or pregnant women makes *much* more sense than special parking for women.

You know, I frequently walk through a micropark that has been largely taken over by bike couriers.

Somehow, I can manage not to stare at all the meat on the hoof ... if only by shifting my gaze from glute to glute and leg to leg.  Must be my lack of Y chromosome that kicks in and makes me more considerate?  Bullshit.

Mmm-hmm. We will note that the original guy vilified talked about not “ignoring” tits which was immediately equated with “staring”. 

And put me up for one of those guys who had their moment way back when he was younger (first year of uni) by managing to embarrass someone he genuinely liked by not focusing enough on the eyes when talking to her.  Since I now work in areas filled with women with very nice chests and legs, glancing only and focusing on the eyes is a survival skill. Plus, you know, it helps to actually like the women you work with as people.

However, I will put a bid in for the evo-psych crowd on this matter.  Female tits specifically evolved as a sexual signal; they’re actually counter-productive for breastfeeding. We are *supposed* to notice. But I just use the term “notice” - what heterosexual males do as a response is another matter entirely.

Men look at women’s breasts because it is pleasurable. Women look at other women’s breasts to compare.

We will note that the original guy vilified talked about not “ignoring” tits which was immediately equated with “staring”.

Yes, but let’s face it PIATOR, the kind of guy who’ll whine about not being allowed to “notice” tits while claiming he’s helpless to resist his hardwiring is the kind of guy who’ll stare.

Men look at women’s breasts because it is pleasurable. Women look at other women’s breasts to compare.

Unless they’re gay, in which case they’ll look because tits are hot.

In other news, the sky is blue.

“Female tits specifically evolved as a sexual signal; they’re actually counter-productive for breastfeeding.”

*Headdesk.*  Um, that would be a really tough one to prove.  And you seem to be conflating what you so charmingly call “female tits” (I am assuming you are not discussing birds) with large ones.

Phoenician, once again, noticing =/= staring. Given that the vilified commenter made his statement about ignoring in defense of staring, I don’t think we’re the ones conflating anything.

Men look at women’s breasts because it is pleasurable. Women look at other women’s breasts to compare.

Wow.  Way too heteronormative there, tpx.

if you read the comments on that page, there’s a disturbing amount of evo-psych bs rehashed over and over again by people who can find any justification for what they believe in, rather than seeing reason.  it’s a pretty infuriating thread after a while, in addition to just the main post.

However, I will put a bid in for the evo-psych crowd on this matter.  Female tits specifically evolved as a sexual signal; they’re actually counter-productive for breastfeeding.

Um, I think breasts and nipples are pretty important to the whole lactation process thing.  Unless women have backup mammary glands in their feet or something, I think the science is pretty reliable on this one.

I’d like PiatoR to expand on his whole “breasts are useless for lactation” theory.  Clearly he knows far more about female anatomy than anyone else alive if we were supposed to be feeding our young through our thumbs all these years but were foolishly using our breasts instead.

And if we’re going to talk about useless appendages that developed as sexual signals, let’s talk about the penis for a moment, shall we?  There’s a reason that human males have the largest penis-to-testicle ratio of all of the primates, and it’s solely because the penis is a sexual signal.  I guess that means it’s a completely useless organ, right, PiatoR?

Men who claim that they can’t help staring at tits are actually claiming that they have trained themselves to to look at tits as signals of sexual availability. The excitement they feel at looking at these select tits - they must not be old, or perhaps in some case must not be small or saggy, and they must not be related to you too closely, like mothers, daughters, sister - seems to be a completely esthetic pleasure, but is actually a response to the stimulus of sexual arousal that is created by the assumption of sexual availability.

Men walk around constantly seeking signs that they have learned to interpret as sexually arousing, and these same signs tend to categorize a subset of human beings that they deem fuckable as primarily arousing and only secondarily human, if at all. This is not some deeply-seated genetic coding or other evo-psych bullshit or else it would have caused the human race to auto-distruct through inbreeding thousands of years ago.

This is just something men do because they think they need to be constantly seeking arousal in order to be sufficiently masculine.

Careful! I once got Amanda Marcotte to viciously slander me on her front page by mentioning a very commonly accepted evolutionary-biological theory pioneered by Desmond Morris! She’ll likely completely ignore every scientific argument you make so that she can scream her head off at you, most likely because she has absolutely

And no, human breasts don’t exist purely for lactation. In most primates, breasts are only inflated while lactating. In fact, only a little over 20% of the female breast is actually dedicated to that function. It isn’t even the nipples at all that are the primary source of attraction to breasts, it’s cleavage. Unlike virtually all other true-mammals, humans walk upright. That means we are rarely anywhere near eye-level for the more common universal attractor, the human backside. Because of this, humans utilized the glands and fatty tissues already found in their make-up (evolution most often follows the path of least resistance) to create a subtle mimicry of the ass in breasts.

I’m not going to stay here and debate this. I tried that last time, and Amanda behaved liek a science-hating scumbag creationist trying to disprove evolution by using moon-dust theories from the 1950’s. Maybe if she took real science courses in college, she would be qualified to critique these theories. Hell, even if she just copied Morris’s many (credible) critics, she could do fine. But no. She just published a front page hit-piece without contacting me, and without offering me the opportunity to respond. I would suggest she learn the very real differences between evolutionary biology (why we look the way we look, how we developed), and evolutionary psychology (Bull-shit non science developed to justify conservative BS). Until then, she’s just another fool allowing her personal ideology to get in the way of scientific research.

Note, none of this is to actually defend the behavior she rightly criticizes. We aren’t limited to our animal natures, and theres no reason to treat a human being a thing that exists for your entertainment or profit. It is to say that Amanda Marcotte has some pretty massive issues on subjects like this and is incapable of displaying any kind of objectivity on human male sexuality.

This is interesting, most of the pro-aborts do not like born babies as well. No wonder why abortion doesn’t phase them a bit. Personally I want nothing to do with a women who doesn’t like babies.

Damn, Fred. That is some deep shit.

Personally I want nothing to do with a women who doesn’t like babies.

I used to like babies fine, but now I want all the buggers dead, just because you said that.

Soullite,

You know that this is Amanda’s blog and she can treat your comments any way she pleases, right?

But if you’re a woman, and you fall short of gushing praise and requests to hold the baby, you’re being rude.

Luckily for me, I have no problem with being rude. When co-workers bring a baby in to work, I choose that time to go on a break. If asked to hold one, I say “no thanks”. When a mother blatantly fishes for compliments, I will offer something like “Well, it doesn’t smell as bad as they usually do”.

I have all the maternal instincts of Medea.

Also: “pro-aborts”. Lolz. Don’t worry BobK, most of us want nothing to do with you either.

I’d tell BobK to go fuck himself but that’s probably the only kind of sex he ever gets.

(Well, maybe a goat here and there . . . .)

Maybe the commenter meant “suck out the baby’s brain with a suction catheter”?  I know you find that to be the more natural (and constitutionally protected) response.

Raving Atheist, seriously?

You were in The God Who Wasn’t There, dude. Like, a real movie. Don’t you have anything better to do than troll Pandagon? Really?

That means we are rarely anywhere near eye-level for the more common universal attractor, the human backside.

Why would you think you have to be eye-level with an ass to check it out?

I’m not going to stay here and debate this.

Maybe because the “breasts-as-ass” theory is transparently stupid?

It isn’t even the nipples at all that are the primary source of attraction to breasts, it’s cleavage.

So how do you explain the fact that large breasts (yes, the ones with cleavage) only came into fashion in the past 100 years or so?  Look at any amount of European art prior to about 1880 (and even past then) and you’ll see nothing but small breasts presented as the ideal of beauty. 

Sorry, but an obsession with large breasts is not only culturally determined, it’s a very American obsession, and it’s a very recent one, to boot.

Though, again, you’re proving my point that the penis is the male analogue to the breast:  something that is far out of proportion to what’s actually necessary for survival that’s used to attract a mate.  Remember next time you catch a woman looking at your crotch to size you up that she’s just doing what comes naturally.

I worked at a nursery (babies, not flowers) for a summer, about six years back.  Since then, I’ve been much more likely to smile at babies just because it was a nice job, and I got really comfortable handling newborns like the semi-blind sacks of biological process they are.  Liking babies is probably biological to some degree, but there’s no reason for it to be gender-specific (why the hell would we evolve with men not wanting to protect other people’s babies as much as women?), and it’s obviously pretty easy to overrride or enhance culturally.

I’ll also throw a half-hearted bit of support in for the evo-psych talk about large (as in larger than other primates’) breasts as display rather than function.  Mnemosyne rightly points out that men have it too, since human penises have a lot going on that isn’t intrinsic to their function.  Men look at sexual characteristics quickly and without much discrimination.  Straight guys will look at boobs, baseball players’ crotches, dogs’ penises, right away upon being shown a picture.  Staring at boobs and baseball players’ crotches without, you know, consent, is bad.  ... Staring at dogs’ penises is bad too.  This is the worst comment ever.

Yes, but let’s face it PIATOR, the kind of guy who’ll whine about not being allowed to “notice” tits while claiming he’s helpless to resist his hardwiring is the kind of guy who’ll stare.

True enough.

I’d like PiatoR to expand on his whole “breasts are useless for lactation” theory

I believe I said “counter-productive”.  I’d have a hell of a time chasing down the references, but I recall comments relating large breasts to difficulties with breast feeding, with a couple of cases of well-endowed women actually *smothering* their babies accidentally.  Other primate species simply have teats, and have no problems breastfeeding.

And if we’re going to talk about useless appendages that developed as sexual signals, let’s talk about the penis for a moment, shall we?

Heh.  The best theory is, as you point out, as a sexual signal.  The penis doesn’t have to be so large to get the job done.  So I’m not going to disagree with you.

There’s a reason that human males have the largest penis-to-testicle ratio of all of the primates, and it’s solely because the penis is a sexual signal.

Well, the alternative theory is sperm competition, IIRC. Humans don’t have the largest ratio:

To expand the comparison beyond the apes, Harcourt and his colleagues examined the data on testicle size and mating system for a wide variety of primates, from lemurs to baboons to humans. The results are dramatic. In most species classified as multi-male, that is, where a female has more than one partner during any one given estrous period (equivalent to ovulation), males’ testicles are larger than you would predict from their body size. In contrast, single-male systems, that is, monogamous primates, or those where just one male defends a harem of females, such as the gorilla, have testicles that are either smaller than you would predict from body size, or right on the line. I know what you’re wondering, and the answer is: humans fall right on the line, suggesting that sperm competition has played a minor role in the evolution of our sexual anatomy and behavior.

I guess that means it’s a completely useless organ, right, PiatoR?

You’re getting over-defensive.  I did not say the breast was useless; I said that it (meaning the mass of fat tissue beyond the simple teat) evolved as a sexual signal.  It is there to say “I am a sexually capable female human being”.  This is a pretty important function in itself - would you prefer to have your buttocks swell up and turn purple once a month instead?

And, to reiterate, what gets done with that sexual signal is a matter of culture and socialisation - from bare breasted Africans who essentially ignore it, to starers who ignore the person carrying the things, to the Muslim fanatics who use their own attraction to them as an excuse to vilify said carriers.

  My daughters (both 24) call these guys Gweedos (phonetic).  Not sure why.

“Guido” is a slur for Italians.

Just so you know.

I believe I said “counter-productive”.  I’d have a hell of a time chasing down the references, but I recall comments relating large breasts to difficulties with breast feeding, with a couple of cases of well-endowed women actually *smothering* their babies accidentally.

Which, again, is proof that the guys who insist that they “naturally” stare at large breasts because it’s determined by evolution have no clue at all that an interest specifically in large breasts is strictly culturally determined.  As I said above, it’s only within the last 100 years (at best) that large breasts were even considered attractive in European culture, and most cultures don’t think that they’re anything special at all.  They’re a signal of sexual maturity, and not much else.

And, gosh, with your history on this blog, I can’t imagine why anyone would think you’re arguing in bad faith based on bad assumptions.  Again.

There seem to be several competing issues in this thread. I believe these things are beyond dispute:

1). People who are attracted to women tend to like looking at breasts.
2). It is rude to stare at people’s breasts.
3). Unrelated to the issue of if it is rude to stare at breasts is the fact that human breasts are quite different from other primates, as are human penises. This is probably some sort of sexual signal, but I am not familiar with the literature on this issue.

This has been an “air clearing” post. Carry on.

However, I will put a bid in for the evo-psych crowd on this matter.  Female tits specifically evolved as a sexual signal; they’re actually counter-productive for breastfeeding.

..

Sorry, but an obsession with large breasts is not only culturally determined, it’s a very American obsession, and it’s a very recent one, to boot.

I think PIATOR was right, women’s breasts actually are larger than would be optimal if they were only used for breastfeeding. Most primates have tiny, almost non-existent breasts. So, to PIATOR, and to me, that suggests that women’s breasts are meant as a sexual signal as well as for their function of feeding babies. Just as most men’s penises are larger than they need to be if all they are for is reproduction or urination. Some animals have organs that aren’t for anything other than to signal sexuality, and really we’re no different.

Also, I think it is wrong that human sexuality is completely determined by society. If that were the case, it seems to me that some human societies would likely have eradicated it, and themselves. The Victorians, for instance. I don’t doubt but that sexuality is very fluid, and that societal norms change its expression greatly. But there has to be some kind of deep structure in the human mind that understands gender and sexuality on a pre-conscious level. And I think these deep structures drive us a lot.

(Of course, yes Americans take the big breast obsession to pretty ridiculous lengths sometimes.)

It’s just possible that, as obnoxious as Evo-psych has made itself to feminists and others, it is not 100% bullcrap.

I realize that this is going to attack the very foundations of your worldview, but women do not spend all their time dying to know what you are thinking. Or caring much what you are thinking. For the most part, we just want to know if what you’re thinking is going to end up being a threat to us; beyond that, unless we have a direct personal interest in you (“I wonder if that cute guy in my Physics class noticed me?”), we actually do not give two flying mechanical shits what you are thinking about, when, or how often.

Oh nooooooooo!  But you’re not allowed to do that!  You see, you’re only allowed to display an interest in me if I display an interest in you.  Wondering if that cute guy in your Physics class noticed you is completely out of bounds unless that cute Physics guy WANTS you to think about noticing him.

Sorry, but you can’t have it both ways.  By all rights, you shouldn’t even know the guy is cute.  After all, that would imply you were checking him out.  Which means you were leering at him.  Which means you were just treating him like another piece of meat on the slab.  And that’s a big no-no.

Also, I think it is wrong that human sexuality is completely determined by society.  If that were the case, it seems to me that some human societies would likely have eradicated it, and themselves. The Victorians, for instance.

You misunderstand:  what a particular culture finds sexually attractive is determined by society, and it gets channeled into some interesting directions.  You really need to do a lot more reading about the Victorians if you think for a minute that they were interested in eliminating sex from their society.  There’s a reason why you didn’t really have BDSM porn until the Victorian era.

What I’m saying is that it’s ridiculous to argue that any particular expression of sexuality in a human society is “natural” because it’s so closely regulated by what society you’re in.  Try going to France with shaved armpits sometime—people will wonder what strange hygiene issues you have that require you to shave.  But God forbid a woman in America should appear in public with unshaved pits—then you’re a disgusting, hairy-legged feminazi that no man in all of creation would ever be attracted to.

There is also a theory (sorry, can’t source it at the moment) that as humans evolved, females developed larger breasts as the amount of hair on our bodies decreased.  A larger breast gives the nursing infant something to hang onto when there is no fur. 

For what it’s worth…

Atheist,

If PIATOR’s theory was correct, we would see more reproductive fitness among large-breasted women.  That is the only way that larger breasts could have been selected for in the first place.  Many traits we see in humans are just a matter of random variation.  (Like hair color.)  Also, as Mnem keeps pointing out, in recorded history, breasts go in and out of fashion, just like ankles or elbows or any other body part.

Despite asses not being at eye-level, men still are capable of looking at them.  Being possessed of a rather large ‘un, I have noticed the phenomenon.

Try going to France with shaved armpits sometime—people will wonder what strange hygiene issues you have that require you to shave.

Common misconception. French women shave their armpits, too. Personal experience, etc.

It strikes me as one of the top level feminine skills you have to acquire, and I’m a complete failure.

I have acquired the skill of making myself scare when threatened with babies. I’m squeamish and I hate to be drooled or puked on. And I save my squealing for fangirlish moments (and kittens).

The Raving Atheist: Maybe the commenter meant “suck out the baby’s brain with a suction catheter”?

Now that you mention it… Baked in a pie?

anonymopus: First off, the comment doesn’t say women rush, squealing, over to the baby, it just says noticing.

Like an arachnophobe always notices spiders?

Common misconception. French women shave their armpits, too. Personal experience, etc.

Sigh.  Yes, Chet.  Because the French women that you have personally known in the 21st century shaved their armpits, that means that everyone on the whole planet has the same beauty standards and that male revulsion to armpit hair can be explained by evolution.  Same reason that all cultures everywhere practiced foot binding to make their women more attractive—because all beauty standards are hard-wired into the male brain by evolution, which means that we can’t ask men to stop staring at our tits.

Which, again, is proof that the guys who insist that they “naturally” stare at large breasts because it’s determined by evolution have no clue at all that an interest specifically in large breasts is strictly culturally determined.  As I said above, it’s only within the last 100 years (at best) that large breasts were even considered attractive in European culture, and most cultures don’t think that they’re anything special at all.  They’re a signal of sexual maturity, and not much else.

I don’t necessarily disagree with your first sentence - I don’t believe anyone here other than you has made any comment about an attraction to large breasts as opposed to small breasts. Your second sentence is incorrect; fashions come and go.  Paul Rubens was painting in the 1500s and 1600s.

About the only thing that can be said about what is sexually attractive in any culture is that if the rich can do it and the poor can’t, it will be considered attractive.

If PIATOR’s theory was correct, we would see more reproductive fitness among large-breasted women.

Human women have larger breasts than other primates.  “My” theory is that that is a sexual signal.

Translating that to “Large breasted human women are more sexually successful than small breasted women” does not necessarily follow.  As an analogy, you can observe that taller people tend to be stronger and better able to fight than shorter people; it does not follow that a race of 12 foot warriors will evolve and take over the planet.

If PIATOR’s theory was correct, we would see more reproductive fitness among large-breasted women.  That is the only way that larger breasts could have been selected for in the first place.

Ismone:

Not exactly. There are physical features of animals which are signals of health or something like that. I don’t mean breasts or dicks are like that exactly. I mean they are physical features which, when viewed by other humans, tend to signal gender and inspire feelings of sex. I think that this is sufficient for its evolutionary purpose even if it’s not tied to health. I disagree that the only reason larger breasts would have been selected for in the first place is if they were tied to fitness.

There could be a pre-existing pattern that hetero male (or homo female) primate brains tend to be attracted to already: something that looks like the buttocks of a female. The female primate breasts could then tend to swell over the years, approximating this pattern. In this way, human female breasts could become a signal of female gender, and a signal that inspires sexual feeling in het males or homo females.

How dicks evolved in this arrangement, I confess I have no theory that sounds good. But do you see now what I mean about human breasts having become a sexual signal that is not completely determined by society? (Though, of course, I fully admit that society changes how humans react to this signal, among others, and that some humans take things to be sexual that others don’t even register.)

Which, again, is proof that the guys who insist that they “naturally” stare at large breasts because it’s determined by evolution have no clue at all that an interest specifically in large breasts is strictly culturally determined.

Well, more to the point, those men are rude and inconsiderate.

The Raving Atheist: Maybe the commenter meant “suck out the baby’s brain with a suction catheter”?

Now that you mention it… Baked in a pie?

Or, crunchy, strawberry flavored abortion-O’s in milk. Mmmmmm

In order for human females to develop more noticeable breasts than other female primates as a “sexual signal” there would have to be some advantage to those larger breasts.  Otherwise they would not develop. 

Please don’t try to pull the bait and switch on me, PIATOR, if you are talking about breasts developing as a replacement for butts as a sexual signal, you are DISCUSSING EVOLUTION.  If there is no selective advantage to breasts, they are like hair color or elbow joints.

In short, things do not “evolve as a sexual signal” unless they confer an advantage.  That is pretty fundamental when it comes to natural selection, whether you believe the boobs as another but theory or not.  (Sorry PIATOR, I now realize that someone else, I think soullite, made that argument.)

Elbow joints aren’t useful? I am confused.

What I’m saying is that it’s ridiculous to argue that any particular expression of sexuality in a human society is “natural” because it’s so closely regulated by what society you’re in.

Mnemosyne:

I’m not saying sexuality is ‘all natural’. But frankly, I do think it has a ‘natural’ (non-human-created) component. Are you saying that in your opinion, it does not?

In order for human females to develop more noticeable breasts than other female primates as a “sexual signal” there would have to be some advantage to those larger breasts.  Otherwise they would not develop.

I’m saying there is an ‘advantage’ to the human females with bigger breasts. The advantage was that the human males were more prone to mating with them.

I’m also saying the breasts don’t necessarily have to correlate to something that you or I, the detatched, objective observers, would call an ‘advantage’.

If you look at other animals that have developed sexual displays, there’s a tendency toward excess because (so the theorists I’ve seen tend to say) having more than you need says “I’m so healthy and fit that I can do fine even when I’m encumbering my body with this huge pile of feathers/hair/whatever.” So it seems not implausible that there would be wiring in human brains looking for excessive muscularity or penis size in men, excessive breast and butt size in women, blah blah blah. But whether that wiring gets used is a cultural question.

What we do see during the past thousand years or more is that the standard of female beauty, at least, is about what’s hard to attain. When food was scarce, an artist would depict women who were thoroughly rounded. Now that “everyone” in industrialized nations can get more than enough calories, thin is in. When everyone labored outside, pale skin was the mark of beauty. Now that we all work inside, it’s a nice even tan. When manual labor was most people’s lot, softness was prized; now it’s toning and muscles. And so on. The ongoing US fixation, which is large breasts on a skinny frame, is of course very difficult to attain without unusual genes, rigorous conditioning, or plastic surgery (possibly in combination).

So, let me re-phrase that as a question.. do people think that human sexuality is completely determined by society, or do you believe that there is are deep biological structures which control it to some degree?

Not that I mind the sight of a woman’s figure, but I guess because I actually like women and wish them well, “well” being as they damn well define it, I don’t look at their figures.  Period.  No it’s not hard whatsoever, if you actually wish women well and want them not to have a “creepy gawked-at” experience on a train, workplace, etc.  If this means that those few women who actually seek to draw attention to themselves don’t get any from me, fine - they will get attention from somebody else.

I’m saying there is an ‘advantage’ to the human females with bigger breasts. The advantage was that the human males were more prone to mating with them.

If that were the case, than the vast majority of human women should be a D cup or larger.  But they are not.  Human breasts run a large gamut from very small/almost nonexistent to very large.  That should maybe, possibly give you a hint that the advantage you’re claiming doesn’t really exist.

So, let me re-phrase that as a question.. do people think that human sexuality is completely determined by society, or do you believe that there is are deep biological structures which control it to some degree?

I think that specific sexual preferences—like large breasts, or small waists, or “lotus feet”—are culturally determined.  Strongly preferring large breasts has more to do with fetishization than it does with evolution.  I also think that, as with so many issues that depend on human behavior, it’s virtually impossible to tease out what’s “natural” and what’s culturally determined.  When you’re treating infants differently from Day One based on whether they’re male or female, you are never going to be able to figure out what’s “natural.”

This has gotten completely off-topic, but can we put the “breasts evolved to look like butts” theory to rest once and for all?  It was cute when Desmond Morris made it up 25 years ago, but it’s since been pretty much totally debunked, for reasons including:

1. The whole theory rests on the idea that women evolved butt-like protuberances on their fronts so men would have sex with them face-to-face, rather than from behind like most primates. Trouble is, no one’s been able to find a plausible evolutionary advantage to the missionary position.  It’s a convenient way for animals shaped like us to have sex, but there’s no reason our biology should devise ways to actively encourage it, since other positions work just fine.  Also, to put it bluntly, if breasts are supposed to discourage us from doing it any way but missionary, they’re not working very well.

2. Naked breasts don’t look anything like butts.  They look like breasts.  That tight, butt-like cleavage is almost always the product of elaborate undergarments, therefore it’s not something that was selected for in our ancient, underdressed prehistory.

3. Bonobo chimps (the eternal spoilers of half-baked evo-psych theories) regularly have sex face-to-face, and female bonobos don’t have large breasts.

I do think it’s plausible that the human breast evolved partly as a sexual signal, possibly just as a signal that a woman is old enough to be fertile.  But the breasts=butts thing is very silly and is, as far as I know, no longer taken seriously by anthropologists.

If that were the case, than the vast majority of human women should be a D cup or larger.  But they are not.  Human breasts run a large gamut from very small/almost nonexistent to very large.

Well, what if it’s a tug-of-war between an attribute the the human males find attractive versus the difficulty of having large breasts?

Anyway, now I understand that you believe that there are “natural” and also societal factors in sexual attraction, or at least that the question is indeterminate.

atheist, while I notice that Mnemosyne has already responded to your thing about large breasts being an advantage, there’s one other thing. In evolutionary biology (NB NB I speak as a humanities student) there is an assumption that animals sexually prefer a trait because it confers an advantage. Which makes your argument “Large breasts confer an advantage, because males prefer them, because they confer an advantage, because males prefer them…” and rather cyclical.

In order for human females to develop more noticeable breasts than other female primates as a “sexual signal” there would have to be some advantage to those larger breasts.  Otherwise they would not develop.

Indeed.

Please don’t try to pull the bait and switch on me, PIATOR, if you are talking about breasts developing as a replacement for butts as a sexual signal, you are DISCUSSING EVOLUTION.

Please don’t try to make out that I am arguing something I am not. You are confusing “humans have larger breasts than other primates” with “large-breasted women” relative to the rest of the human species.

To offer just some other considerations, consider the *disadvantages* of large breasts, including added problems running and a greater chance of breast cancer.

As so often seems to happen on the Internet, people have their own bees and start shouting about their own bonnets when the person they are responding to was originally talking about top-hats.

I do think it’s plausible that the human breast evolved partly as a sexual signal, possibly just as a signal that a woman is old enough to be fertile.

This is basically what I was getting at anyhow.

In order for human females to develop more noticeable breasts than other female primates as a “sexual signal” there would have to be some advantage to those larger breasts.  Otherwise they would not develop.

What a quaint little world you must live in, where natural selection is the only force operating on the evolution of morphology.

In evolutionary biology (NB NB I speak as a humanities student) there is an assumption that animals sexually prefer a trait because it confers an advantage. Which makes your argument “Large breasts confer an advantage, because males prefer them, because they confer an advantage, because males prefer them…” and rather cyclical.

It’s not cyclical, it’s sexual selection. The advantageous trait is that mates prefer it, period.

You know, peacock feathers and the like. One suggestion is that a potential mate that has survived this long with such an incredible handicap - like bright plumage impossible to conceal from predators - must be extra bad-ass.

This isn’t controversial. You can check out “sexual selection”, if you want.

In short, things do not “evolve as a sexual signal” unless they confer an advantage.

That’s actually not true.  Sexual signals like elaborate plumage or bright-colored rear ends serve no evolutionary advantage but one: they make the bearer more likely to attract mates.  It used to be thought that, for example, birds developed long, bright-colored tails to signal that they were healthy and therefore good genetic stock.  But if that’s the signal, it’s a false signal: there’s no correlation between the quality of a bird’s plumage and its health.  In fact, developing long, luxurious plumage may weaken the bird’s health overall.  So, yes, there are plenty of cases in the animal kingdom where the only advantage to a trait is attracting mates—but as far as the selfish gene is concerned, that’s the greatest advantage of all.

What makes me skeptical about the idea that large breasts (or small waists, or blonde hair, or being twelve years old, or whatever trait evo-psych guys are rhapsodizing about this week) evolved as a “sexual signal” in women is that flashy sexual signals almost always develop in males.  Females don’t need to grow big antlers or peacock tails; they’re the choosers, not the chosen.  It’s males who need to look pretty to attract mates.

You can’t have it both ways.  You can’t claim that men are so randy they want to mate with every woman in sight, then turn around and claim that women need to have all these elaborate signals in place to get men to even notice them.  Anyway, it’s clear that the trait of staring obnoxiously at women’s breasts and then pouting when one of them calls you on it is evolutionarily disadvantageous, since it makes women not want to have sex with you, so it should’ve been bred out of the species by now.

mnemosyne-

I generally enjoy your posts, but ok really not sure what your argument is here. It is hard to dispute that the business of surviving would be easier without large breasts and penises (as compared to other primates). Because natural selection is merciless it is also a fact that these characteristics must confer a selective advantage. If we look at the complete human population it is clear that breast and penis size tend to cluster in a range that by primate standard would be described as “enlarged”.

We can’t know with certainty why, but we can be sure that over the course of recent human evolution women with breasts of “average” size have been more likely to have offspring. I think we can all therefore agree that breasts that are enlarged compared to other primates must have a benefit.

Because there is no obvious value of larger breasts fir child rearing some people have proposed that perhaps enlarged breasts have some value in mate selection. Of course, because we can’t replay evolution we can’t be sure that this is true.

Now, there is naturally a range of sizes that breasts come in. The preference (within this range) is quite obviously cultural. But the existance of breasts is obviously genetic, and I think it is safe to assume that the fact that Herero men prefer breasts over no breasts is innate. Yes, it is very hard to distinguish instinct from culture, but I think we are very safe in assuming that Herero humans are innately attracted to the bodies of the opposite sex.

Rebecca,

What I meant about elbow joints is that their structure has more to do with how our way-back ancestors happened to develop, rather than, say, being a certain way because humans with ball and socket elbow joints were outcompeted by humans with hinge joints.

Atheist,

I really don’t think you’ve done enough to prove your case that breast size (which has a great deal of variation) evolved b/c it was useful in sexual signalling. 

Paul,

If breast size correlated with the health of an individual, like say, good skin or long, thick hair, does, or if it correlated to fertility, like certain waist-to-hip ratios do, I would be inclined to agree with you about breasts.  But they don’t.  So I seriously doubt that they are a sexual display in the evolutionary scheme of things.

Atheist, again,

Of course I think that some aspects of sexuality are more biologically than socially constructed.  In fact, I give a great deal more creedence to the whole MHC thing than Amanda does, for one.  I think it is fascinating that, for example, cousins who marry have fewer genes in common than two average cousins would.  I just don’t think anyone has proven their case that breast size has been selected for.  It isn’t impossible, but because there is so much variation (just like with hair color) and because it doesn’t communicate much about reproductive fitness (unlike waist-to-hip ratios), it is pretty darn unlikely.

Chet,

If you want to bring out other forces that influence morphology, go for it.  Until then, you’re just being your usual patronizing insulting self.  But as much as I hate to say it, yeah, you’re correct that males preferring large breasts would be enough to drive natural selection.

Shaenon,

I include more offspring within the definition of advantage, because, at bottom, all advantages only matter if they produce more offspring.  A bird can have fantastic wings, but if it doesn’t, ummm, bump uglies with another bird, those wings can be advantageous as all get out but they will become a dead end.

Stephen,

But there are many things about our bodies that don’t confer an obvious advantage.  Some things are just random or artifacts or socially constructed.

<i.What makes me skeptical about the idea that large breasts (or small waists, or blonde hair, or being twelve years old, or whatever trait evo-psych guys are rhapsodizing about this week) evolved as a “sexual signal” in women is that flashy sexual signals almost always develop in males. </i>

Ah, now *that* is an interesting problem.  One factor here might be that human infants require a hell of a lot more care than the infants of other species.  Other species have the luxury of seperating fornication from actual child raising, where humans have entangled the two.  Instead of sex being a matter of males persuading females to choose them, human females also have to persuade males to stick around afterwards.

But here we’re really getting into the evo-psych woo-woo territory.

You can’t have it both ways.  You can’t claim that men are so randy they want to mate with every woman in sight, then turn around and claim that women need to have all these elaborate signals in place to get men to even notice them.

Shaenon

I’m not sure who you are replying to specifically, but I was not claiming that. I was just claiming that some of our sexuality is non-socially constructed. I was using the idea of breasts being a sexual signal as an example of that.

Of course I think that some aspects of sexuality are more biologically than socially constructed.

Ismone

Then I am sorry that I misunderstood you. I was honestly not sure what you belived. Some people on this thread seemed to believe that sexuality was a completely socially constructed phenomenon.

Keith,

There is certainly more than one explanation for women’s breasts.  You being assertive about the theory doesn’t make it true.  Breasts swell up more when women are nursing.

Females don’t need to grow big antlers or peacock tails; they’re the choosers, not the chosen.  It’s males who need to look pretty to attract mates.

In most primates, including humans, both sexes exhibit mate choice. They’re both choosers and chosen. So it’s not unreasonable, therefore, that both men and women would have experienced sexual selection.

If you want to bring out other forces that influence morphology, go for it.  Until then, you’re just being your usual patronizing insulting self.

Sure, I was being patronizing. No comment about a humanities student declaring authoritatively what is and isn’t possible in evolution? (Genetic drift is one of the other forces I was referring to, and there’s considerably more. Strict personal advantage is not the only reason morphological traits develop.)

But as much as I hate to say it, yeah, you’re correct that males preferring large breasts would be enough to drive natural selection.

And, what a surprise, we find that human breasts are considerably larger than they need to be. That fact has yet to be explained by anyone who doubts the “breasts as sexual signal” hypothesis, I notice.

There is certainly more than one explanation for women’s breasts.  You being assertive about the theory doesn’t make it true.  Breasts swell up more when women are nursing.

They swell up when women are pregnant, too.

Purely as speculation, perhaps there was a primate ancestor who developed a *periodic* swelling of the chest to signal female sexual cycles - “I’m a female in heat, ready to have sex *now*”. It’s not difficult at all to imagine that.

Later, females developed hidden ovulation, and that particular hormonal mechanism got hijacked as a puberty-related signal for breast development - the chest swelled up once and for all, to signal “I am a sexually-adult human female”.

When you start screwing around with the hormones, that mechanism might again come into play. the change in breast size for pregnancy and lactation need not have a “purpose”, it might just be an artifact of the means by which breasts developed.

But, again, that’s just speculation.

I can buy the notion that breasts that are large compared to other primates is a way to signal sexual maturity, and certainly people who are heterosexual are wired to find the bodies of the opposite sex attractive. But it doesn’t follow from that that male attraction to breasts in and of themselves is hard-wired. There are plenty of cultures and countries, even today, where breasts are not a big deal. I’ve known American women who dated men from some of these countries who complained their breasts got no attention at all - no fondling, no sucking, nothing. So much for hard-wired.

There also is a real possibility that larger breasts are totally random. It’s been discovered that most of the qualities that separate dogs from wolves in the physical sense are just random traits that happen to be in the same part of the genome as tameness. They discovered this when breeders of foxes with nasty temperaments started selecting for tameness. Within several generations, the foxes developed floppy ears and started barking instead of yipping and growling, along with being tame. So many dog traits are not actually advantageous or desirable in and of themselves, they’re just located next to traits that are. It’s certainly possible that larger (than other primates) breasts in humans function in a similar way.

“I’m healthy, I’m virile, and I’m not a mental basket case”

Does this mean there are primitive people somewhere who select exclusively on physical attractiveness, and ignore personality? I think the reason evolutionary psychologists tend to also be assholes is that they think some stupid shit like this could apply to people. Because in their world, all you need is a huge boner and women will flock to you. They seem to relate to people and issues as abstract objects exclusively, so they keep missing the forest. And they’re Libertarians. I’m not sure about the overlap, but all those voices seem to churn in the same direction.

The best case you could make is that functioning genitals confer an evolutionary advantage. Size, color, texture, everything after that is random biology and social programming.

Look, in England in the 1300s it was high court fashion to have your breasts completely out. 200 years before, it was all about the gender neutral tight tunic.

“In the second half of 1300’s womens garment divided to bodice and skirt. The bodice was very closefitting and the collar was low, leaving the breast almost bare - and in some occasions, definitely bare. The collar was often trimmed with fur. The waist was high. The skirt was loose, and had a train. With this costume some kind of corset was worn. But the most remarkable feature of women’s clothing was the henin, the high, towerlike hat with veil, which still seems to be the symbol of medieval lady for mundanes. During the next period, the 1400’s the henin grew very high, it might had two horns and several meters of silk or linen veil over it.
“
Hoop skirts are all about big asses. Explain as a theory of brain development how what is sexually arousing could shift that radically in a couple of generations. Evo Psych isn’t useful to derive anything specific, because the mental programming you’re discussing is on the order of “I like to feel good. Sex feels good.” It’s not gonna help you understand why Jannice in accounting hates your guts.

For that matter the basic premise of this sideways argument how it’s really ok to stare at people because our primitive brains say so, ignores that not everybody likes the same things at the same time. I’m all about asses. So if I have to keep glancing behind you when we’re together, it’s not me. It’s my evolutionary biology.

You were in The God Who Wasn’t There, dude. Like, a real movie. Don’t you have anything better to do than troll Pandagon? Really?

It was a fun movie, but RA wasn’t actually in it. He got interviewed over the phone on a separate audio track as an afterthought.

Scott Butcher from http://raptureletters.com got higher billing.

I gotta say, I do love the fact that the evo-psych-supporters all about the “big tits are natural sexual advantages!11!1!111” are all male (I’m not sure of atheist’s gender but can hazard a guess).  It’d be funny if it weren’t so boringly predicatable the way the doods show up to defend certain POVs.

So many dog traits are not actually advantageous or desirable in and of themselves, they’re just located next to traits that are.

Insomnia suggests it would be a good idea to point out that large breasts would not be advantageous to dogs, because their tits are so close to the ground already. A friend of mine who lived out in the country actually had to buy his bitch a “bra.”

Sheesh, Amanda!

“Men get off with a nod towards the new human being and a compliment.  But if you’re a woman, and you fall short of gushing praise and requests to hold the baby, you’re being rude. “

I don’t mind that you don’t care for babies.  I *do* mind you letting men (as a class) off the hook about it.  One of the ways men are indoctrinated to accrue power is by slicing off huge chunks of cool stuff.  For most of us (doesn’t have to be all of us and therefore doesn’t have to be you) babies are cool stuff that mostly men slice out.

Oh yeah, and I know you’re not comfortable with the general idea but if you can wrangle a beer and a barbecue sandwich on a lawn chair you can wrangle a baby.

figleaf

Even if human female breasts have evolved as a sexual signal, that doesn’t mean you have to fucking stare at them all the time.

And is it just me, or is there something uniquely American about this obsession with tits? As a previous commenter pointed out, over here in Europe it’s quite common for women to go topless on beaches, and nobody gives a damn. They’re just tits.

In evolutionary biology (NB NB I speak as a humanities student) there is an assumption that animals sexually prefer a trait because it confers an advantage. Which makes your argument “Large breasts confer an advantage, because males prefer them, because they confer an advantage, because males prefer them…” and rather cyclical.

Rebecca on 08/28 at 09:07 PM

Rebecca

Sure, it is cyclical… if you assume that the big breasts (or big dicks, or beards, whatever) have to be a signal for a non-sexual ‘advantage’, like health. What I’m saying is, the big breasts don’t have to be a signal for health, or really anything other than gender and sex. They may, in other words, be a completely vacuous attribute from the viewpoint of anything at all other than sex, and still be a useful “sexual signal” from an evolutionary viewpoint.

Someone gave the example of the peacock, and I think it’s a good one. The male peacock’s display is large, eye-catching, pretty, and basically useless for anything at all other than attracting peahens. Or, take antlers. I guess a moose or caribou could successfully hurt a human with them but really they are pretty lame weapons, for their cost… a lion or a bear won’t be deterred by antlers. Their prime purpose is to be big, impressive & pretty and to draw the eyes of mating partners. That’s it. There doesn’t have to be any other ‘advantage’ attached to them.

To be a useful sexual signal, something just has to keep the animals mating. From the perspective of a gene that “wants” to propogate, nothing else is truly necessary. If they do signal some other positive attribute, like health or dominance, that’s great but strictly speaking it’s gravy. My theory is, human breasts & dicks are like that.

since I can’t manage the squeal, I’m falling short in this department.  I kind of admire other women who’ve learned the squeal.  It strikes me as one of the top level feminine skills you have to acquire, and I’m a complete failure.

It’s like how I just find it hard to get very interested in sports. There are these little wierd skills, or more accurately, vices, that help with social life. They can be hard to develop, or fake convincingly.

And is it just me, or is there something uniquely American about this obsession with tits?

I’d say so, personally.

Every nation’s got its own little quirks, and this is one of ours…

Even if human female breasts have evolved as a sexual signal, that doesn’t mean you have to fucking stare at them all the time.

And that’s all that needed to be said.

Unless you’re a professional biologist, there’s little point in arguing that breasts are or are not a product of sexual selection. It doesn’t matter to you one bit, except as a curiosity to pass the time.

The enemy is the person who says “breasts evolved from sexual selection and so it’s okay for me to leer at them.” This is a non sequitur, so it’s irrelevant to attack the antecedent if your ultimate target is the consequent.

This is a non sequitur, so it’s irrelevant to attack the antecedent if your ultimate target is the consequent.

Yah, good point.

I expected to see tits in this thread.

*sigh*

http://www.steveprime.com/Great_Tits_a.html

the evo-psych-supporters all about the “big tits are natural sexual advantages!11!1!111”

I swear, the level of natural human stupidity is an ever-renewing advantage.  You go out of your way to lay out that this is not the argument you are making, and still idiots read it that way.

A.  I don’t care that much if people stare at my tits.  However, this rarely happens, as they are, well smallish, so maybe I just ahven’t suffered enough with that specific indignity.  I’ll break someone’s fingers if they touch though.
B.  I have NO DESIRE to touch anyone else’s babies - EVER.
C.  If a squealer comes near my baby, I want to clutch him to me and run away.  I hate other people holding him.

Breastfeeding pretty much takes care of the staring too.

Chet,

That wasn’t me.  My undergrad. degree is in biology.  And you know as well as I do that genetic drift is not at all relevant if we’re discussing sexual signalling.  Unless you’re saying what I am saying, which is that it is far more likely that the trait arose randomly, i.e., through genetic drift.  Which would make more sense of breast size was more uniform, which it is not.  A trait that arises because of genetic drift, or the bottleneck affect, or any non-directive process has nothing to do with traits that arise as a result of selective pressure.  And even if it had been me, there are mature, adult ways to handle someone else’s ignorance.  Like, oh, saying “unfortunately lower division biology classes tend to oversimplify.  You seem to be assuming x.  Which is generally true.  But actually, y is a better…”

You get my drift.  But why bother making the effort if you just want to assert dominance instead of having an intellectually honest, respectful conversation.

Everyone else,

I’m still not buying large breasts as a sexual signal.  The other assumptions being thrown out on this thread are also somewhat tiresome, i.e. ovulation being a completely hidden secret.  Men find ovulating women more attractive, ovulating women are more likely to want sex, and ovulating women tend to dress more attractively.  Ovulation is not entirely hidden.  (But just hidden enough that failure rates for birth control are higher in practice than in the lab—-perhaps because super-horny couples say forget it and skip the love glove?)  There is so much variation in breast size and shape (and penis size and shape) that I think sexual signalling is a pretty weak hypothesis.  It is interesting that none of those arguing for that proposition have responded to the post upthread where someone said that to the extent breasts are larger, it is because we are less furry and the baby needs something to hold on to.  If big penises are a sexual signal, why not body hair?  Men (usually) have more body hair than women.  Or why not men’s usually more muscular arms (due to the effects of T on the upper body)?  I personally happen to find them distractingly sexually attractive.  See the problem now with confusing personal (and somewhat socially constructed) kinks with evolutionary behavior?  You know, it could be true.  Not impossible.  But not a given, either.

Keith M,

I think you take the most reasonable approach, but I’m still not sold on your final conclusion, that at some point larger breasts/penii were sexual signals.  (Notice I said larger.  Clearly, we have some way of telling apart males and females, considering that most humans are willing to have partners of the opposite sex, whether the person is hetero or bi.  And, as we can see from our closeted friends, some gay people manage to sustain a hetero marriage and obtain kids that way.)  I’m also not sure you can come up with the timeline that you do.  (Big breasts pre-language—-sorry, how do you know that?). We’re a pretty well-fed lot now, and we’ve got lots of hormones circulating in the environment, hell, some men have rather large chesticles as well.  Without really good data on what genes cause larger breasts, (and to what extent environmental or developmental factors contribute) and when those genes arose (through looking at the junk DNA surrounding those genes, other relatives, DNA from preserved remains, if possible) I’m just not buying what you guys are selling.

This is interesting, most of the pro-aborts do not like born babies as well. No wonder why abortion doesn’t phase them a bit. Personally I want nothing to do with a women who doesn’t like babies.

Proud “pro-abort” here who really dislikes babies.  And most children.  Except for mine, of course.  And my nephew.

BobK: Your last sentence seems to say that you see women as nothing but wombs on wheels.  Any thinking womb would wisely grind you into the dirt and run the other way.  I can just imagine what any male children of yours would turn out like.  More mini-misogynists this world does not need. 

Do all humanity a favor…keep whacking off into that sock.

“Jeez, Tim, your “teachable moment” must have been much harsher than mine.  Fifteen years later, I still have to laugh at mine.  Even then, it was so funny that it took some of the edge off.  The girl in question and I even became friends after. 

You might consider letting the moment go, even as you keep the lesson.  You’re not in Jr. High anymore.  Your voice doesn’t crack, your hard-ons last less than 36 hours at a time, and you need to shave more than once every two weeks.  Assuming that staring was all you did, that barely rates on the Jr. High stupid-o-meter.  And hey, you learned as a young teenager what Sirkowski and the commenter Amanda quoted still haven’t learned as grown men.  That has to count for something. “

Seraph:
Heh. I almost wish for the 36-hour hardons again. My wife would be happy with just a 2-hour hardon, but that’s a different thread altogether.

I’m sure it wasn’t more harsh. It probably never registered at more than a little tickle on the Jr. high school stupid-o-meter. I just think that I have an overdeveloped sense of empathy.  Perhaps I’m way too sensitive to the resulting shame of violating social norms.  I don’t know, but that incident colors my interactions even now. It was a “creepy guy” moment.  I was leering at this very pretty, well-developed, girl in a tight “Baylor” sweatshirt when I was about 15. (That was like 22 years ago.) I didn’t think she knew I was looking at her at the time, but she did and it creeped her out.  I never want to make someone feel uncomfortable or threatened in that “Creepy Guy” way ever ever again. That’s always been antithetical to who I am.  Even today, I get annoyed at other douchebags who, as grown men,  leer at women and see them as parts.  However, a small part (well, maybe a bigger part than I’d like to admit) of my primal brain is still drawn to a woman’s curves, especially boobs. Another small part of my primal brain is engaged when I admire a woman’s curves that reminds me of that stupid “Creepy Guy” incident years ago…and to never repeat it. 

Ummm…Remember that time…when…ummm…you were looking at…umm…that girl’s boobs…and…umm…she saw you…and…um…it creeped her out?

Yeah…I try to forget about that…

GOD!  STUPID! I’m so STUPID! GOD!

I gotta say, I do love the fact that the evo-psych-supporters all about the “big tits are natural sexual advantages!11!1!111” are all male (I’m not sure of atheist’s gender but can hazard a guess).

FAIL. I am a female biologist and I agree with Phoenician, atheist and others that the best explanation for human breasts is that they are a sexual signal.

Ismone:

There is so much variation in breast size and shape (and penis size and shape) that I think sexual signalling is a pretty weak hypothesis.

Wrong, actually there tends to be a lot of variation in sexually selected traits (like deer antlers). And it may be that there was selection for the trait previously, and it has relaxed or levelled off now.

It is interesting that none of those arguing for that proposition have responded to the post upthread where someone said that to the extent breasts are larger, it is because we are less furry and the baby needs something to hold on to.

I thought it was implausible. The human baby is pretty massive compared to ape babies and it can’t hang on a boob without support. And this theory also involves selection - why should this explanation be any more plausible than the sexual selection theory?

If big penises are a sexual signal, why not body hair?  Men (usually) have more body hair than women.  Or why not men’s usually more muscular arms (due to the effects of T on the upper body)?  I personally happen to find them distractingly sexually attractive.  See the problem now with confusing personal (and somewhat socially constructed) kinks with evolutionary behavior?

What’s the problem? If you want to make a hypothesis that those traits were sexually selected, go ahead.

Of course, you can always argue that some given trait could be the result of drift, but that’s just a hypothesis too. It is very implausible that most noticeable morphological traits would be neutral.

Without really good data on what genes cause larger breasts, (and to what extent environmental or developmental factors contribute) and when those genes arose (through looking at the junk DNA surrounding those genes, other relatives, DNA from preserved remains, if possible) I’m just not buying what you guys are selling.

Finding the genes would be optimal, of course. But it’s a pretty plausible hypothesis even now. We don’t know exactly which genes make the peacock’s tail or a chimp’s sexual swelling either.

As for why humans would have sexually selected traits in both sexes, the idea that only the non-limiting sex (usually males) should have them turned out to be an oversimplification:

Sexual Selection in Males and Females
Tim Clutton-Brock
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/318/5858/1882

“Research on sexual selection shows that the evolution of secondary sexual characters in males and the distribution of sex differences are more complex than was initially suggested but does not undermine our understanding of the evolutionary mechanisms involved. However, the operation of sexual selection in females has still received relatively little attention. Recent studies show that both intrasexual competition between females and male choice of mating partners are common, leading to strong sexual selection in females and, in extreme cases, to reversals in the usual pattern of sex differences in behavior and morphology.”

“The enemy is the person who says “breasts evolved from sexual selection and so it’s okay for me to leer at them.” “

Precisely.  That’s never an excuse for de-humanizing a woman.  Thanks for putting that so succinctly. I really like boobs and female curves in general, but that’s no excuse to stare at a woman like she’s an object.

Jesus I hate threads like this. All looking is staring, all staring is just harmless looking, biology and sociology prove everything and/or nothing and everyone ends up generally less well-disposed towards everyone else. Just, ugh.

I love the Internet.

Windy,

Regarding deer antlers—the older the deer gets, the bigger the antlers get.  Variation has a lot to do with differing ages, and we KNOW that bigger antlered fellas have more offspring.  If we knew the same about bigger penii’d men, or bigger boobed women, even in the past, I would grant that y’all are right.  But we don’t have that data, so I think you guys are trotting out a just-so story.  Also growing large antlers requires a lot of resources, which basically says, hey, female deers, I am so healthy that I can have a functional immune system and grow big antlers which take up a lot of resources.  Ditto for plumage.  There isn’t a lot of variation among peacocks for what the plumage looks like, and the larger size is a combination of good genes, good womb environment, and good resources in the here and now.  Completely different from penii and breasts which grow once and stay the same.  Not entirely different from WHR, which only arises once, but reveals a woman’s hormonal balance during puberty, and not so different from male hairiness and muscular arms, both of which reflect high levels of testosterone which—yep, DEPRESSES THE IMMUNE SYSTEM, just like growing antlers does.  So my hairy and male-pattern-embaldened fortinbras gentlemen—you are signaling that you have lots of T and therefore a really healthy immune system RIGHT NOW.  (Yes, I am looking at you, Vin Diesel.  Rawr.  You’re lucky I am married.)

Fair enough about the boob-baby hypo.  My point is, there are lots of cultures that could give a rat’s ass about boobs, and there is a lot of randomness, and boobs come in many shapes and sizes.  Which makes me think that they do not necessarily have much, if anything, to do with sexual signalling.  WHR is a much, much more likely candidate.

I am trying really, really hard to remember if greek and roman poetry loved themselves some boobs.  I am thinking no, but am not sure.  Oh, wait, the greeks loved on the MALE form.  Interesting.  Anybody else thinking that was socially constructed (at least in part?)

Count me among the non-holders, non-cooers. I like seeing babies because they are part of friends’ lives.

Ismone

There’s a mention of the “beloved"s breasts in the Song of Songs in the Bible, which was written by ancient Hebrews. “Your breasts are like twin fawns of the gazelle” or something like that. I seem to remember ancient Hindu erotic art centering on breasts.

The Greeks did talk about female beauty too but yeah, I don’t remember anything about breasts. I remember African sculptures with big breasts. Also, I think this is an important data point.

Whatever, it’s not the biggest deal to me. And Grammar RWA is right that it really has no bearing whatsoever on the rudeness of staring at someone’s body.

Regarding deer antlers—the older the deer gets, the bigger the antlers get.  Variation has a lot to do with differing ages, and we KNOW that bigger antlered fellas have more offspring.

That’s because hypotheses were suggested and then tested. Similar hypotheses have been made about humans. They are still untested but so is the drift hypothesis!

If we knew the same about bigger penii’d men, or bigger boobed women, even in the past, I would grant that y’all are right.  But we don’t have that data, so I think you guys are trotting out a just-so story.

The drift hypothesis is just as much just-so at this point, and even more so since it doesn’t explain why human breasts are so much larger than other apes’. And, now you are changing the subject a bit. I was talking about your claims about variation in sexually selected traits and whether we need to know the genes to talk about possible sexual selection.

Also growing large antlers requires a lot of resources

Growing boobs takes some resources too, although less than antlers.

There isn’t a lot of variation among peacocks for what the plumage looks like

Yes there is. That study also failed to find a preference for longer tails, more symmetrical tails or for greater number of eyespots. Yet even if there is no selection in a particular population for larger peacock tails now, it would be insane to conclude that there never was selection for a larger peacock tail.

Are you opposed to talking about sexual selection for peacock tails because some tests fail to show that it’s operating now, and because we don’t know which genes are responsible? (except oestrogen, so they have that in common with boobs, except the tails are regulated by lack of oestrogen)

Completely different from penii and breasts which grow once and stay the same.

My boobs haven’t… and this is irrelevant since there’s nothing in sexual selection theory that says that it must be a trait that gets larger by age. In some species reproductive success increases with age, in some it doesn’t, so the signals would probably reflect that.

My point is, there are lots of cultures that could give a rat’s ass about boobs, and there is a lot of randomness, and boobs come in many shapes and sizes.  Which makes me think that they do not necessarily have much, if anything, to do with sexual signalling.  WHR is a much, much more likely candidate.

Fair enough, I tend to be a bit more skeptical about WHR, at least claims that all cultures converge on the same optimal WHR.

This is mostly for KeithM: I don’t understand how losing the penis bone makes sense as sexual selection. If a big healthy boner is a sign of virility or mental health or whatever, then the bone should be an advantage, like a corked bat is an advantage. The only disadvantage is that it’s harder to get limp. We’re suggesting that human females were selecting for dicks that could go limp? Forgive me if that seems implausible.

Wikipedia says other mammals have an analogous clitoris bone too. There’s my fact for the day.

Windy,

The reason the drift or randomness hypothesis is always more robust is that it is much more likely that things just happened rather than that they were directed by evolution.  Unless we can prove that there is an advantage, even if the advantage is only appears more attractive = has more offspring.

I just don’t see as much variation among peacocks and deer as I do among humans.  (‘Course, I am a human.)

Antlers take a lot of resources EVERY YEAR.  So they’re a really good way to measure the stag’s current health, and his age (bigger = longer living), and thus his fitness (hey, this stag managed to live a long time).  Just like yummy muscley arms, like my husbands.  (What—I love him for his brain, I swear.)

The article you linked to regarding peacocks showed that peacock tails vary only slightly.  Regarding some other populations of peacocks, (perhaps a different subspecies) I have seen evidence that more eyespots/longer tail equals more reproductive success.  So at least in some parts of the population, that selection is still in effect.

My point with only growing once is to differentiate them from signals that are ongoing (markers of testosterone/estrogen) being among them.

That is a good point about WHR, I wonder if some humans are genetically different so that the amount of estrogen at puberty isn’t reflected in their WHR.

The reason the drift or randomness hypothesis is always more robust is that it is much more likely that things just happened rather than that they were directed by evolution.

This is a subject with some disagreement among biologists. Some of them would agree with you, some say that it’s a bad assumption in case of visible morphological traits.

And, the drift hypothesis still assumes that once in human history, women with larger breasts had more children. There was a significant direction of change from ape-like ancestors to humans. It just happened by chance rather than any advantage that large-breasted women had in natural or sexual selection. Because this only occurred in one lineage of primates, I think selection or side-effect of selection on some other trait is a more plausible explanation.

I just don’t see as much variation among peacocks and deer as I do among humans.  (’Course, I am a human.)

Exactly

The reason the drift or randomness hypothesis is always more robust is that it is much more likely that things just happened rather than that they were directed by evolution.

Not really.  There are selective pressures against the human breast - I lost a good friend to a miserable death by one.

That wasn’t me.

Yes, I know. You responded to a post directed at that person, though.

Not quite sure what you’re on about.

Unless you’re saying what I am saying, which is that it is far more likely that the trait arose randomly, i.e., through genetic drift.

I have no idea why breasts are so much larger than they need to be. I’ve done no research on the topic. All I know is, it’s kind of dumb to suggest - and I know it’s not you suggesting it - that the only reason that an organism would have a trait is because of a direct, clear advantage to that individual.

But why bother making the effort if you just want to assert dominance instead of having an intellectually honest, respectful conversation.

Tried it that way, once. The result was that completely innocuous statements of mine were taken completely out of context and used to support the ludicrous notion that I’m a secret misogynist infiltrator and rape apologist.

This would have been a thread about music, I think?

So, no. Sorry. Nowadays, I’m on full battle stance when I’m at Pandagon. It’s the only way to make sure people grapple with my ideas and not with strawmen.

Dearest windy, you weren’t one of the defenders of said theory so call “fail” all you like but. until you responded to my comment, you hadn’t been one of the men in the thread so vehemently defending this theory.

Dearest windy, you weren’t one of the defenders of said theory

It may be that the straight males in this thread have good reason to suspect that a posited straight male attraction to breasts isn’t just happenstance, perhaps?

you hadn’t been one of the men in the thread so vehemently defending this theory.

Hmm.  Looks like sexism, smells like sexism…

Glance, don’t stare.  The goal is to ensure she never even knows that you looked.

Oh, I think many still know.  We’re social animals, and are extremely good at tracking others eyes, even for the briefest of glances.  The goal is to ensure the she can pretend she never even knew that you looked.  A quick glancing can make it feel much less threatening (to some, perhaps most), and like many flirtatious behaviours can let a woman ignore or escalate as she chooses.

</i>It may be that the straight males in this thread have good reason to suspect that a posited straight male attraction to breasts isn’t just happenstance, perhaps? </i>

Oh hai, heterosexism, hai.  Because there aren’t any gay women in this thread, not at all.  Or maybe that’s just not ‘natural’ or biological or something?

Hi all!!! Good and nice site!! I ad this site to bookmark!!! Regards!!!!!!!

Oh hai, heterosexism, hai.  Because there aren’t any gay women in this thread, not at all.

Speaking for gay women is a level of hubris that even I draw the line at, and I’ve been known to reply to exclamations of “God” with “stop using My name in vain”...

Hekie: It wasn’t clear whether you were talking about this thread only or all theorizing about sexual selection on breasts. And why is it heteronormative to say that some trait may have evolved “for” attracting the opposite sex? That’s not the same as saying that we “ought” to use it only for that purpose.

On the youth-hating strain in the culture, loosely analagous to misogyny—there’s a little on this in _The Cute and the Cool_, which is pretty good on what we want/fear from the young. Also, it’s mostly about our reaction to children, not teenagers.

Lads, Desmond Morris is considered the Eric Von Daniken of anthropology. And don’t believe anything David Reuben wrote either. Please join the 21st century!