Usborne Puberty Book tells children that breasts exist to make milk and to make girls look grown up and attractive

Idle thoughts on women and their "use"
Inspired by this thread.

I was just thinking that breasts don't disappear when a woman is beyond her use for reproductive capabilities.

And that often it's only after she has a baby they get much bigger.

Women are only "useful" for reproductive purposes for a third of their lives. Men twice that. Surely men are only here for reproductive value? They die when they're no longer sexually viable. Women still have half their lives left at the end of their reproductive capabilities. Almost like we're useful way beyond that our abilities to be fucked.

Our breasts, rather than disappearing when no man wants to fuck us (which is what Usborne and all the men on this forum thinks they are there for) stuck around till we die. The ability to spontaneously lactate for a child in need who is in need is documented. A child wouldn't be able to root for a breast if it couldn't get to them.

Obviously women could then and still do hunt, and woulnt t have starved while men were off hunting the mammoth.

Radom musings sorry. I just can't help but wonder why we see women as sex objects and not men as such when they added so little other value to society

GriswaldFamilyVacation

That's interesting. My DH, obviously, is completely flat chested. Looking at him objectively, I think breastfeeding would be a struggle.

Agree with a pp about breastfeeding with smaller breasts. It most definitely makes it more difficult to feed in a few normal position.

Totally agree Scrumple.

Also to the people saying big breasts impede survival I would add - where else on the body would be preferable to have fat deposits? Head, arms, legs - no. These need to be trim to function effectively. Belly? Not really - hunting and foraging would be difficult with a big belly impeding your bending and running. Bum - yes, that is another fat storage area, but it can only get so big before it starts to impede movement.

Big breasts might be slightly more disadvantageous to movement than small breasts, but it is one of the more sensible places on the body to store fat, if you think about it. And having fat stores is significantly more advantageous than not having fat stores so the advantage outweighs the disadvantage.

Female humans are also one of the only mammals to menstruating. And it's not because it's attractive to men.
It's because the physical resource drain of reproduction is far greater on female humans, than other mammals. Women menstruate as self-protection, because the egg burrows so deep into the lining that a thicker, shedding endometrium allows for survival.
I would say that logically speaking, the reason for fatty deposits at the breasts, stomach, and hips, would be because producing milk to sustain human infants is such a physical drain on resources, and having stored fat increases survival. Also, with human infants unable to cling onto the mother, and the infant breastfeeding regularly for several years, the pendulous shape of the breast would allow the infant to feed while the mother engaged in other activities, increasing the survival rate.
Also, as others have mentioned, seeing as breasts are composed of fat, in our ancestral past where humans would have been on the verge of starvation a good deal of the time, it seems likely that very large breasts are peculiar to modern times.
Some people also seem to have the idea that evolution actively selects for things. It doesn't. All evolution does, is mean that traits that don't actively kill you or your infant early on, or affect your reproductive success, are continued, and traits that do, are not continued by virtue of the carriers dying out.
So human males finding breasts attractive making breasts bigger, is an entirely illogical way of looking at things. If anything, the larger breasts would have to have existed before males found them attractive. And then one could argue that they meant those females were mated with more often, and thus it became more wide-spread - except I haven't noticed that flat-chested females are less likely to have children, so that explanation doesn't hold up.

It really pisses me off that it's virtually impossible now to buy a bra without padding. At an op shop recently every single bra on the table was padded. If i want a non padded one i have to get an itritating crop top when I'd prefer a clasp.

What sort of message is that sending to girls?

Just a note on whether large breasts facilitate feeding.
IMO yes they do. I am very flat (something I rejoice about as I like to run) and I can't feed lying down (or be plugged in by DP ).
I also have never been able to feed while using the carrier, which many women do successfully). Essentially I can't 'pick up' the nipple to stuff it in, the baby must be moved to it.
I am a very successful feeder though.

Personally I lean towards the fat storage theory which is a pretty established theory, I think. It's the aquatic ape one.

It does seem compelling.

There are about 5 credible theories as to why human primates might have permanently enlarged breasts where our other primate cousins don't, and yet the one that has the most traction seems to be "bewbs gotta be big because they give men the dick tingles". And I wonder why, in our porn soaked, western white malecentric world that might be.

It would appear to be a mystery.

I've looked in the girls' book. It does emphasise that breasts are attractive. Also not to worry about size as someone out there will like them.

According to the spiel Griswald 1 mill years bc is

'Imaginative realism'

so there!

How depressing 😩

It hasn't even crossed my dds mind that the size of her breasts might ever be a factor in ANYTHING. She's 11 and probably the right age for this book which I will avoid like the plague.

Also not to worry about size as someone out there will like them.

Bloody hell. Comforting though that might be for certain girls, I still think that's entirely the wrong message.

I've looked in the girls' book. It does emphasise that breasts are attractive. Also not to worry about size as someone out there will like them.

No mention of attractiveness in the chapter about boys though.

Personally I lean towards the fat storage theory which is a pretty established theory, I think. It's the aquatic ape one.

And the fact that woman need greater fat storage in order to survive pregnancy and lactation - therefore only women need the characteristic - is not the same as it evolving because men like it.

I think that apes have babies less frequently than humans.
Do they continue to lactate and feed their young while pregnant as women do?

Am I wrong in thinking that the norkage we associate with women is unlikely to have been what was normal thousands of years ago?

No, you're not wrong. And it's only since the advent of ubiquitous porn that large breasts have been thought of as particularly attractive or positive.

There is NO proven fact about breast's origin

Quite so newdaddie, and I have only ever mentioned theory.

But I prefer to lean toward the theories of people studying an area, rather than be told by people that something different is a fact, just because they say so .

@traffordtimes

Yes. (Ish)

I've read one of the authors Singh, and about 10 years ago he was the most 'popular' going by citations and I think he still is in ethology.

But I'm guessing he loses credibility in this thread for having a penis and I'll refrain from putting that in a pa strikethrough since I'm already Billy no mates here.

Those authors are not the most popular writing about this since they are writing for ethology (study of animals in general) and evolutionary psychology (evopsych) is far more popular with citation numbers in the thousands compared with hundreds for ethology.

But Ethology literature is generally more credible with natural sciences since it tries to get close to the scientific method. Note I said close.

There is NO proven fact about breast's origin.

The accepted truth at the moment is based on parsimony or Occam's razor. Basically the simplest answer is the most likely truth. Ethnology views are that in the absence of other solid evidence it is likely that our anomalies including fatty breasts, fatty hips, fatty bums, pubic hair, beards and broadening shoulders are signals of sexual maturity and desirability.

I guess prehistoric Harry needed a clue not to hump Sam instead of Samantha. Silly man.

Ironically given the dislike of evopsych, on this board it is evopsych that actually supports the radfem positions in this debate. Because evopsych allows an epistemological approach. Basically the stance that 'I am a feminist, that is my truth, I will pick arguments that support my ideology, and I will search for evidence that will support my argument. That is what is happening here** on this thread.

Epistemically is not wrong, but it's not the scientific method.

Tldr: yeah the guardian article is most likely right... blah blah mansplaining blah blah

*not factually accurate

Blee. I'm so relieved my Dad is not newdaddie. Old Daddy was not given to making uncalled for remarks about my body or what he imagined to be the purpose or intention of any of its constituent parts.

If he's ever given my breasts a moment's thought, I am blissfully unaware of it.

Also, he has never allowed himself to speculate, in my hearing at least, about which of my bits are most likely to draw the appreciation of men.

She's a future leader dontcha know.

Obviois external breasts can be cumbersome when running, and could be vulnerable when you are attacked

Am I wrong in thinking that the norkage we associate with women is unlikely to have been what was normal thousands of years ago?

We weigh much more, eat more and we have more sedentary lives, women today spend much of their lives on hormonal birth control and in many countries the milk we drink is full of hormones. Other foods soya etc work as synthetic oestrogen. I'm sure I've read the average cup size has increased over just the past couple of generations. Visible breasts were probably not that big.

I think newdaddie is just a bit immature and will learn a lot from his DD.

NewDaddie

Lol. For what it's worth, I don't think you are a hundred percent, 24 carat gold sterling prat. Just misguided. And too wanton with your non feminist wording.