Was an apology required - Purpose of Female Breasts

[bshole]

The publisher has apologized and is revising the book to remove the bit about breasts being attractive.

It is the section on breasts that has drawn criticism, after writer and blogger Simon Ragoonanan, who blogs about fatherhood at Man vs Pink, posted a page from the book on Facebook. “What are breasts for?” writes Frith in the extract. “Girls have breasts for two reasons. One is to make milk for babies. The other is to make the girl look grown-up and attractive. Virtually all breasts, no matter what size or shape they end up when a girl finishes puberty, can do both things.”

“This just seemed awful and completely unjustifiable,” Ragnoonanan told the Guardian. “Usborne are serial offenders in peddling gender stereotypes to kids.”

The problem is that pronounced human breasts are absolutely unique in the animal kingdom and the scientific literature indicates that they evolved this way attract to males.

The sex appeal of rounded female buttocks and plump breasts is both universal and unique to the human primate1. Fertile women tend not to store fat around the abdomen, so the waist of a fertile female is usually slimmer than her hips. Other female primates do not have fat deposited on the rump. For example, the female gorilla has a skinny posterior and stores fat on her abdomen, as do human males. So it has been widely theorised that the plump buttock and bosom of modern women are sexual ornaments, selected for by ancestral males2. Seen from a distance the adult female form, either from behind or from the front, can be recognised as distinct from the male of the species. An hourglass figure, plus youthfulness, would have attracted male hominids looking for mating opportunity3. The hourglass figure remains attractive to modern males. Over the centuries females attempting to increase their mate choice have dressed to exploit this shape (corsets, bustles and wonder bras). If ancestral males had not shown a preference for the mutation producing symmetrical, plump bosoms, modern women's chests would resemble the flat thoraxes of the other apes.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/aug/29/usborne-apologises-puberty-book-childrens-publisher

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/may/14/breast-size-evolution

My entire childhood in fundamentalist Christianity revolved around shaming over my sexual attraction to women. Could this shaming have spread to the secular world?

 

[werepossum]

It’s not shaming, it’s just more proggie stupidity. Pretending there is no difference between men and women, including physical, denies that one can elect to be either at a moment’s notice. Just worming our way deeper into the Idiocracy.

 

[ch33zw1z]

It’s not shaming, it’s just more proggie stupidity. Pretending there is no difference between men and women, including physical, denies that one can elect to be either at a moment’s notice. Just worming our way deeper into the Idiocracy.

Did you watch that movie?

 

[Puffnstuff]

I must confess that I do find female breasts extremely attractive.

 

[lxskllr]

Deleted.

I don't know which thread you thought you were in, but this wasn't it.
admin allisolm

 

[Moonbeam]

The author stated that the function of breasts was to make girls blah blah blah when the function of breasts is to nurse infants. Walking erect may well have influenced the shape of breasts seeing as how not walking on four feet takes a lot of asses our of your face. One could speculate there may be reasons to know if you are dealing with a male or a female via easily identifiable means. It might be also that longer nurturing times require upgraded equipment.

Thinking rationally on the subject in American culture will be difficult, however, because if Americans are anything, they are hung up on sex.

 

[Moonbeam]

My entire childhood in fundamentalist Christianity revolved around shaming over my sexual attraction to women. Could this shaming have spread to the secular world?

This raises important considerations in my opinion. Is all shame a bad thing? How do intelligent creatures easily influenced by nurture vs nature, properly control sexual desire. We can't go around fucking everything and person we meet or make all interactions about sex. Perhaps some sense of organic shame around sex has evolved naturally to moderate pure sexual drive among social animals. Where shame goes of the rails, it seems to me, is when it becomes personalized and universally applied. We need some manner of protecting our youth from premature sexual exposure, but we don't want to make all sex feel dirty or fun and adrenalin addictive as excitingly illicit.

 

[bshole]

The author stated that the function of breasts was to make girls blah blah blah when the function of breasts is to nurse infants. Walking erect may well have influenced the shape of breasts seeing as how not walking on four feet takes a lot of asses our of your face. One could speculate there may be reasons to know if you are dealing with a male or a female via easily identifiable means. It might be also that longer nurturing times require upgraded equipment.

Thinking rationally on the subject in American culture will be difficult, however, because if Americans are anything, they are hung up on sex.

According to Dawkins, life's only purpose is to pass on its genes. Within that framework...:

If ancestral males had not shown a preference for the mutation producing symmetrical, plump bosoms, modern women's chests would resemble the flat thoraxes of the other apes.

.
It would appear that breasts served a secondary function of passing on the organisms dna by attracting mates. It is a compelling case. In reading the criticisms of the statement, I saw no attempt at rebutting the science but only condemnation of the consequences of publication of the science.

I loathe the fact that the results of science has convinced me that the chances of an eternal happy life are basically nonexistent. Just because I don't like the consequences of the scientific method does not give me the right to deny the science (outside of the appropriate peer reviewed journal).

Any kind of science denial is ultimately counterproductive.

Human males have always been hung up with sex. I imagine that ancestral men without much of a sex drive did not pass on their genes.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

I'm ok playing the odds, and thinking you're a mouth breathing imbecile who's opinion ranks below my cats.

Perfectly good rant shot to hell by using "who's" instead of "whose". Otherwise A+

 

[imported_tajmahal]

Would an apology get him laid? I'd understand an apology like that in a heartbeat.

 

[JSt0rm]

This raises important considerations in my opinion. Is all shame a bad thing? How do intelligent creatures easily influenced by nurture vs nature, properly control sexual desire. We can't go around fucking everything and person we meet or make all interactions about sex. Perhaps some sense of organic shame around sex has evolved naturally to moderate pure sexual drive among social animals. Where shame goes of the rails, it seems to me, is when it becomes personalized and universally applied. We need some manner of protecting our youth from premature sexual exposure, but we don't want to make all sex feel dirty or fun and adrenalin addictive as excitingly illicit.

Thats all fine but the male animal is going to have ingrained into it a certain attraction to physical attributes. Its a subconscious selection of a healthy mate to produce healthy offspring that has probably been around long before humans were a thing.

 

[JSt0rm]

remember women also select based on things. Those things are strength and economic prowess i.e. intelligence. Its a complicated issue. Im pretty sure women dont want a deadbeat who plays ps4 15 hours a day. So they select against that.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

It would appear that breasts served a secondary function of passing on the organisms dna by attracting mates. It is a compelling case. In reading the criticisms of the statement, I saw no attempt at rebutting the science but only condemnation of the consequences of publication of the science.

Exactly. Mating displays and rituals are hard-wired into the DNA of all animals. Females might be attracted to males that do the best dance, have the biggest antlers or have the brightest plumage, males might be attracted to big breasts or a certain tone of mating call or pheromones, etc. Whatever that particular species values highest is the trait most likely to be passed on because that's what's going to attract mates easiest. While the plumbing of breasts in obviously to nurse young almost every species is attracted to secondary sexual characteristics and they might not even know why. So it's downright stupid to dismiss breasts as solely mechanical. Physical attractiveness is a big selling point for humans as well as apes and birds and fish and everything else.

 

[Moonbeam]

I loathe the fact that the results of science has convinced me that the chances of an eternal happy life are basically nonexistent. Just because I don't like the consequences of the scientific method does not give me the right to deny the science (outside of the appropriate peer reviewed journal).

Any kind of science denial is ultimately counterproductive.

Thjs is the part of your post that for me holds any real relevance. Science denial is ultimately counterproductive. So is assuming your analysis of our existential situation scientific. The actual science says something very different for me than it does for you:

Thought is time and fear. Thought is dependent on language, an abstraction or memorized version of reality based on words and all the emotional associations transmitted in association with those words. You were sold a bill of goods that happiness and eternity are a gift of a God you later realized can't possibly exist. I realized the same thing and had the same reaction. But an odd thing happened to me in what I was sure would be my life long permanent miserable state. I ran into Zen, people without a god but happy and I hated them for it, I did everything I could to find what was wrong with their thinking but found instead what was wrong with mine. I had an inexplicable experience of coming awake in the present and knowing everything. Happiness and eternal life are simply what is in the presence of love. To be is to enter into joy and timeless eternity. The absolute fullness and presence of oneness in an awakened state admits no room at all for thought, time, or fear to enter. The lover and the beloved are one and the same thing. You discover that God isn't some external thing but IS in the presence of a God conscious state. All of your hopes and dreams and everything you think you have lost are merely hidden but absolutely real.

 

[Zaap]

Who exactly NEEDS to read this information in the first place?

Is this like father advice someone is supposed to give to kids or something?

I'm befuddled on multiple levels. By someone who needs a book to either glean or give such advice ... or the type of absolute dipshit who could possibly be offended by it enough to demand some retraction. Either thing is pretty senseless.

 

[woolfe9998]

One of the twitter comments says the book

reinforces the sexualisation of breasts which makes girls and women self-conscious

If books didn't tell us that breasts were supposed to be sexy, we'd never give them a second look, right? No, sorry, the "sexualisation of breasts" doesn't require reinforcement from anything.

These feminists act as if biology has nothing to do with sex. They are fighting a battle they cannot win.

 

[dank69]

In the context of educating pubescent kids, the line does not need to be there. If someone wants to know why breasts evolved the way they did they can look it up on the internet. A young male reading this it will just be another unnecessary straw on the camel's back reinforcing the idea that it is okay to objectify women. That is not all that troubling as that message will be received from a million other sources anyway, although coming from educational text lends that line of thinking a bit more credibility.

The real problem comes from young girls reading it. Young girls are already bombarded with the message that their self worth derives from their appearance and this is a completely unnecessary log on that fire.

Yes, the science seems to say it is true about why they evolved the way they did, but the information just does more damage in this context for absolutely no benefit.

 

[Moonbeam]

Thats all fine but the male animal is going to have ingrained into it a certain attraction to physical attributes. Its a subconscious selection of a healthy mate to produce healthy offspring that has probably been around long before humans were a thing.

And? Some of human adaption is billions of years old, some hundreds of millions of years old, some tens of millions of years old, some millions of years old and some more recent still. Right now we are struggling with the adaptive advantages accrued via frontal lobe cognitive thinking, and amygdala fight or flight, and how one can impede the effectiveness of the other. Our reasoning capacities are late to the scene and we are still adjusting. We are still adjusting and for a longer time, with the survival instinct vs the welfare of society. We have a lot of things ingrained. Evolution has to work with the evolution that has already transpired and that may include prior adaptions becoming vestigial.

 

[interchange]

This raises important considerations in my opinion. Is all shame a bad thing?

Well, if you want to get all classically psychoanalytic, you might say that shaming has embroiled these objects with quite a lot of libido. It's important to note here that libido might be better thought of as energy, motivation, power, etc. rather than anything inherently sexual. It might be accurate to say that these things are later sexualized which gives that libido a way to be used productively. Ideally, the energy would be used in the service of blocking an impulse when inappropriate and unleashing that impulse pleasurably when appropriate.

I'm not sure to what degree sexual attraction to breasts is biological. I'm sure it is. However, vastly different degrees of sexualization is readily observable across different cultures and within the same culture over time.

 

[Moonbeam]

In the context of educating pubescent kids, the line does not need to be there. If someone wants to know why breasts evolved the way they did they can look it up on the internet. A young male reading this it will just be another unnecessary straw on the camel's back reinforcing the idea that it is okay to objectify women. That is not all that troubling as that message will be received from a million other sources anyway, although coming from educational text lends that line of thinking a bit more credibility.

The real problem comes from young girls reading it. Young girls are already bombarded with the message that their self worth derives from their appearance and this is a completely unnecessary log on that fire.

Yes, the science seems to say it is true about why they evolved the way they did, but the information just does more damage in this context for absolutely no benefit.

Nice. This is reminiscent of Google firing the another idiot who couldn't figure this out.

 

[woolfe9998]

In the context of educating pubescent kids, the line does not need to be there. If someone wants to know why breasts evolved the way they did they can look it up on the internet. A young male reading this it will just be another unnecessary straw on the camel's back reinforcing the idea that it is okay to objectify women. That is not all that troubling as that message will be received from a million other sources anyway, although coming from educational text lends that line of thinking a bit more credibility.

You honestly think boys in puberty need books or, for that matter, any societal messaging whatsoever, to "sexually objectify women?" So in primordial times, before we had books, photos, video etc. 14 year old cave boys didn't get aroused when looking at cave girls?

The real problem comes from young girls reading it. Young girls are already bombarded with the message that their self worth derives from their appearance and this is a completely unnecessary log on that fire.

It's a book giving advice to boys about puberty. I'm guessing the number of female readers is somewhere between zero and, say, one.

Yes, the science seems to say it is true about why they evolved the way they did, but the information just does more damage in this context for absolutely no benefit.

And no detriment either. Pubescent boys are going to ogle breasts whether you say this in no books or 10,000 books. The funny thing is that anyone thinks that sentence will change anything for a male reader. As if the light bulb will suddenly go on and he'll think "oh that's what those are for. Hmmm."

 

[mect]

It’s not shaming, it’s just more proggie stupidity. Pretending there is no difference between men and women, including physical, denies that one can elect to be either at a moment’s notice. Just worming our way deeper into the Idiocracy.

I've seen very few progressives argue that there is no difference between men and women. Arguing that we shouldn't force pointless gender rolls onto individuals and acknowledging the scientific reality that there is a spectrum of genders rather than a simple binary is not the same as saying there is no difference. Yes, there are some progressives that try to make such arguments, but the majority of progressives are quick to agree about their stupidity, as we've seen here.

 

[dank69]

You honestly think boys in puberty need books or, for that matter, any societal messaging whatsoever, to "sexually objectify women?" So in primordial times, before we had books, photos, video etc. 14 year old cave boys didn't get aroused when looking at cave girls?



It's a book giving advice to boys about puberty. I'm guessing the number of female readers is somewhere between zero and, say, one.



And no detriment either. Pubescent boys are going to ogle breasts whether you say this in no books or 10,000 books. The funny thing is that anyone thinks that sentence will change anything for a male reader. As if the light bulb will suddenly go on and he'll think "oh that's what those are for. Hmmm."

First of all, you basically said the same thing I did so your condescension is unwarranted.

Secondly, I think you underestimate the possibility it could be detrimental. Let's assume you are correct that no girls will read this text. Let's also stipulate that boys and men will ogle breasts because everyone knows this.

What this could theoretically lead to is boys ogling breasts in a more aggressive manner and using this text as justification.

You and I both know we will be ogling breasts, but we also both know we should be subtle about it. I can see the possibility of boys not only ogling aggressively to the point of intimidating the girls, but when called out on it saying that they are somehow allowed to make girls uncomfortable because biology. That is not okay.

 

[woolfe9998]

I've seen very few progressives argue that there is no difference between men and women. Arguing that we shouldn't force pointless gender rolls onto individuals and acknowledging the scientific reality that there is a spectrum of genders rather than a simple binary is not the same as saying there is no difference. Yes, there are some progressives that try to make such arguments, but the majority of progressives are quick to agree about their stupidity, as we've seen here.

I think the problem with academic feminism is that it puts everything on nurture and nothing on nature. It assumes that everything we observe as common sexual behavior of males is a product of social conditioning. So at its core, it does assume a sameness at the biological level in every way except basic body morphology and reproductive function.

 

[Moonbeam]

Well, if you want to get all classically psychoanalytic, you might say that shaming has embroiled these objects with quite a lot of libido. It's important to note here that libido might be better thought of as energy, motivation, power, etc. rather than anything inherently sexual. It might be accurate to say that these things are later sexualized which gives that libido a way to be used productively. Ideally, the energy would be used in the service of blocking an impulse when inappropriate and unleashing that impulse pleasurably when appropriate.

I'm not sure to what degree sexual attraction to breasts is biological. I'm sure it is. However, vastly different degrees of sexualization is readily observable across different cultures and within the same culture over time.

These kind erudition, for lack of a better word, are at once fascinating to me but also hard to wrap my head around. The question I come away with is whether you think that shame is a natural human emotion or requires some sort of activation via some prior event that applies humiliation?

Do you think shame exists when we fail to achieve some inner inborn expectation of ourselves, or is it the result of fear that love and support will be withheld, that we have failed to please? I guess the latter would have to be inborn so maybe I am not saying this right. Maybe is shame natural or learned. I just can't seem to find words to express my question which may mean I don't know myself what I am asking.