I feel sort of like a boob this morning, for having to write this, but I confess, I am not sure what you are writing about.

I am kind of groping around here, but well,

Perhaps we need some illustrations, photos, or videos to help get the points across.

Interestingly, though, in the 1999 book "An Underground Education : The Unauthorized and Outrageous Supplement to Everything You Thought You Knew About Art, Sex, Business, Crime, Science, Medicine, and Other Fields of Human Knowledge" by Richard Zacks, it suggests that before the 20th century or so, big breasts were considered more peasant-like than sexy.

Here's the section (not sure which pages these are, but it was from the fourth(?) chapter, "Everyday Life"):

History's Quest: Avoiding Big Breasts

Large breasts--in the genre of Elle MacPherson, Sophia Loren, beloved Marilyn Monroe--have very, very rarely been venerated throughout the history of Western civilization. Americans refuse to believe it, but it's true: This 20th century (mostly American) obsession for over-sized mammaries on a thin frame is a complete aberration. The women who grace the covers of Playboy--with their birdlike shoulders and 3-D cleavage--would have been considered almost freaks in most of Europe and the United States through the mid-1800s. They'd have been viewed as too skinny, with a man's derriere, and their large breasts would have been deemed maternal, not sexual, and more suited for peasant wet nurses.

Martial, the Roman poet, wrote of the perfect breast as not overflowing one hand. And the Romans--so efficient in public works--left nothing to chance. The women of ancient Rome wore a "fascia," a light but firm undergarment to support and supress the bosom. "This device opposed the growth of the breasts," wrote Augustin Cabanes, a l9th-century medical historian, "just as tight shoes of the Chinese women reduced the size of their feet."

The ancient Greeks--during the so-called Golden Age of Aristotle and Aeschylus--had a temple dedicated to Aphrodite Kallipygeia, Aphrodite of the Beautiful Derriere. One Greek dramatist penning cosmetic advice to a prostitute recommends suppressing her large breasts while supplementing her hips via padding. "Like ourselves, the Greeks detested bulky breasts," stated another French medical historian in 1895, "the signs of beauty were elevation, smallness and regularity of contour."

Renaissance corsets so brutally squashed breasts that quite a few medical texts for women from that period discussed how to cure nipples inverted by a lifetime of corset-wearing.

Unlike today's Wonderbra, the prevailing challenge was always to minimize, not maximize, to understate, not poke somebody's eye out. "The formulas for reducing and firming up the breasts are countless," notes Dr. Cabanes elsewhere and cites by example a French handbook from the Renaissance. The Bastiment des receptes advises: "To make small breasts remain in that state and to reduce the size of large ones, take the main viscera (heart, liver, spleen, lungs) of a hare, mince them and mix with an equal part of ordinary honey. Apply this as a poultice to the breasts and surrounding areas and renew the application when dry."

Even the most cursory glance at sculpture through the ages reveals very few figures resembling Claudia Schiffer and many more resembling Venus de Milo, who'd be considered a bit zaftig today. Women who would have been a goddess for Sophocles are Helen Gurley Brown's mouseburgers.

(end)

Zacks also mentions Scarlett O'Hara's fierce determination to keep her waist under 20 inches(!) her entire life, despite having had three babies, and he explains why this was hardly an unusual attitude for the time.

> Now think with the other head.

Comments like that make me hate women.

The Junior Explorer Science Kit kind, I mean.

Hi, Amy! Have fun!

It's weird to me that anyone over the age of fourteen, especially someone who's given some attention to biology and emotions (let alone eroticism) would think that the warmth of boobies could or should need to be reduce to a question of "why."

(Yes, I know KD's head is too big. I didn't 'shop that, OK?)

The girly mentality pisses me off sometimes.

Amy, you're aware of Desmond Morris' theory, that he wrote about in "The Naked Ape" (1967).

This is a pretty good summary of his theory as I remember it:

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Why-Do-Women-Have-Breasts-46783.shtml

Basically, female human breasts evolved to take over the sexual signalling of the female human butt that was lost as humans start walking bipedally, with eyes focused face to face.

The male mandrill is the classic example for something related to sexual signalling. But it apparently is the ultimate dick face.

http://jk-animalsoftheworld.blogspot.com/2012/12/mandrill.html

When you ask the

Q: "Who would waste time and money doing a study like this?"

and get

A: "Larry Young, a professor.."

stop reading and move on to the next article.

Sound technique, Gog

The study results seem pretty obvious...but it does make me wonder about something.

In the Medieval Era of dating, say from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, it was common for couples to have months of makeout sessions before actually having intercourse (with or without marriage)..a girl might well have had her breasts caressed by the guy 50 times or more before having sex with him. Whereas in today's hookup culture, there are probably usually only 3 or 4 titty-touching sessions (if that) before things proceed to actual sex.

I wonder if this could have an effect on the kind of bonding that does or doesn't take place.

Source?