The history of breasts through the ages has always been either displaying them or covering them up, depending on the times. Rome and Greece had Nubian slaves expose their breasts to please their masters. The sculptors of both Italy and Greece frequently depicted exposed breasts. Poets wrote about their lovers’ “buds,” “strawberries,” “apples,” and “cherries” to passionately describe her breasts. During the Renaissance period, breasts were pushed up, pushed together, and molded into firm, protruding objects of desire, through the invention of the corset.
Mammals have mammary glands, but other mammals don’t have breasts like ours, which become large at puberty and remain the same, regardless of our reproductive status. Humans are the only animals who, as part of the mating process, include fondling the breasts. We’re also the only animals who use nipple clamps and sex swings. The Rhesus monkey mothers produce milk that is higher in fat content for their male offspring than for their females, but the females get more milk. In the primate society, young females learn from hanging around their mothers, so they need to nurse more frequently on thinner milk. The young males need to have time to play and explore, skills that they’ll carry when they leave the group, so they don’t need to feed as often.
In the book titled: Breasts: a Natural and Unnatural History, written by Florence Williams, is a comic but informative history of the human breast, and takes the reader from sexual attraction to implants. Breasts feed us, nurture us, and excite us. Williams was inspired to write the book after she participated in a study of her breast milk while she was nursing her daughter. Mother’s milk is “always the right temperature; it has the correct balance of lipids, proteins and sugars. It is medicinal, nutritious, and, to a baby, delicious,” according to Williams. Her detailed study includes oddities never considered: Breast milk contains substances similar to marijuana, and is sold on the Internet for 262 times the price of oil, she wrote.
According to William’s research, breasts are bigger than ever and big breasts get a lot of attention. An average woman is now is a C cup, and you can buy bras from H to KK. The average breast weighs just over a pound, but can double that during pregnancy. The largest enhanced breast in the world is 21 pounds or a 38KKK, the equivalent of 1.3 gallons of liquid. According to Frederick’s of Hollywood, 15% of women are A-cup, 44% are B-cup, 28% are C-cup, and 10% are D-cup.
While some experiments with breast augmentation started in the 19th century, it wasn’t until the 1940’s that Japanese prostitutes started to enhance their breasts with injections of silicone, hoping the American servicemen who were stationed there would be more attracted to them. Large doses of industrial silicone were mixed with cottonseed oil or olive oil to prevent the silicone from migrating in the body. Thousands of Las Vegas showgirls, topless dancers, actresses, and strippers were also injected with liquid silicone, a pint at a time, weekly. The injections proved a disaster with silicone turning up in lymph nodes and other body parts, so the practice was outlawed.
Starting around World War II, breasts became prominent with Howard Hughes’ The Outlaw starring Jane Russell. Hughes had a special underwire bra designed to allow the breasts to be pulled upward, and therefore a larger amount of bosom would be exposed. Russell, unbeknownst to Hughes, said the contraption hurt too much and wore her own bra, but lined it with Kleenex and tightened the straps while filming.
Russ Meyer had a lifelong fixation on large breasts. He was a Playboy photographer for awhile, and then became an independent filmmaker of soft-core porn, featuring women with very large breasts, and names like Pandora Peaks and Melissa Mounds. Meyer’s films were lewd, crude, and tasteless, and all about sexed-crazed harlots and the he-men who lusted after them, but they made a lot of money at the box office. During World War II, Meyer found himself, along with Ernest Hemingway, in a French brothel. Hemingway found out that Meyer was a virgin and offered him any prostitute that he chose. Meyer picked the one with the largest breasts.
Frederick’s of Hollywood was founded in 1947. They made the first padded bra and invented the push-up bra. Women bought pointed, cone-stitched bras, sold under the name Missiles. Up and coming celebrities such as Pamela Anderson appeared in their lingerie catalogs. Mr. Frederick felt there was nothing more seductive or sexy than a woman in his lingerie. Women loved the lingerie and loved to show off their breasts. Low-cut tops can mean better tips in the case of waitresses. The age-old joke is about two women applying for a job. One was highly qualified, the other less qualified. Who go the job? The one with the biggest breasts! Stars like Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren, and Raquel Welch were all cast as sexual beings. Stars like Katharine Hepburn and Audrey Hepburn, both with small breasts, were not cast as sex symbols, but as women of upper class sophistication.
The existence of silicone and saline breasts has created other issues. Some men admit that size matters and they don’t care if the breasts are real or fake. Other men freak out when they find out that those double D’s are fake and created by augmentation. To understand the beginning of the breast implant craze, we need only to look at Hollywood and the stars. Hollywood doesn’t seem to cast flat-chested women, like they do those with larger breasts. Some of the top stars who have supposedly gotten implants to help their careers are: Halle Berry, Salma Hayek, Beyonce, Megan Fox, Britney Spears, and the list is goes on forever.
What are considered to be the perfect breasts? A majority of men say a perky 36D. They like breasts firm, but not too firm, bouncy, not too far apart and with long nipples. Men who spend a lot of time in strip clubs or watching porn will admit to liking augmented breasts. Besides looking better, they claim the woman has more confidence in herself and appears to take better care of herself and her appearance. A majority of men still argue that they like natural breasts and find them more attractive. Some physiologists say that you can judge a man’s self confidence by the breast size he is attracted to. Self-confident men tend to like smaller breasts. The man with lower self-esteem will be more attracted to the larger breasts. No matter what the size, one thing is for sure – breasts are longingly desired, up close and from afar, and found to be extremely sexy in almost every culture.