Breasts as Sex Objects

From Encyclopedia of Sex and Sexuality

In the United States and, to some degree, in other countries sharing Western culture, women’s breasts have become an object of sexual attraction and desire. In recent years, this has reached an extreme, motivating increasing numbers of women to become recipients of surgical breast augmentation procedures to enhance their sexual desirability. The emphasis placed upon the breast as a sexually exciting object rather than an organ for nurturing appears to be culturally derived and a product of socialization: in most cultures the breast is regarded mainly as a source of nourishment for babies.

While there is no definite explanation for the emphasis placed on the breast as a sexual object in Western countries, one possible explanation relates it to the suppression of visibility of all parts of the anatomy that distinguished males from females during the Victorian era. Consequently, the breast became “forbidden fruit,” as did the genitalia. Since it was essentially size that distinguished the female breast from the male breast, size itself became associated with sexuality, and “flat-chested women” became a demeaning term during most of the twentieth century (the period of the desirability of the deliberately flat-breasted “flapper” of the 1920s appears to have been an aberration).

Until the late 1930s many local ordinances made it illegal for both males and females to bathe in public places with the breasts or torso exposed. As males challenged this, their bathing attire eventually became a one-piece topless garment. While topless sunbathing (and in many places, complete nudity) is not uncommon for women throughout Europe, it is still a rarity on American beaches. Although the reasons for greater modesty in America regarding women’s breasts are not clear, the banning of topless sunbathing is consistent with the double standard that allowing for greater freedom for the male than the female.