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

The fuck?????

I've been googling. There are several contradictory theories. From mate attraction, to positioning and size of breasts as a counterbalance to the vaginal tilt/walking upright. But they're all theories.

No-one is denying that men aren't attracted to breasts. (Although, they are hugely over sexualised in the west).

But to provide sex education that states the purpose of a girl's body is to be attractive to men is the height of objectification. And wholly unnecessary.

Focus on the fact that women's breasts are sensitive and nipples are an erogenous zone. That she can become aroused. If that's a turn on for the male, then great. Asserting that this is the whole purpose, is damaging.

It seems odd to take the trouble to tell boys something they will almost certainly find out for themselves (given they are not gay/bi/whatever).
They could just have left it at feeding.

The penis doesn't exist to pleasure or attract females.

Over time penises and vaginas have become well suited, mutual pleasure often results from sex etc.

But that doesn't mean the penis is for the woman's sexual pleasure. It also doesn't mean the point of an erection is to signal to a female that a man is aroused, or to turn her on.

There is a fair variation in penis size, within limits, in humans because the size doesn't affect the actual function (within certain limits). So the point of a large penis is not to arouse a female. The existence of large penises is a side effect of the mechanism of sexual reproduction making a penis necessary.

If you can't accept this kind of thing you tend to fall into a rabbit hole of wondering what all sorts of chareteristics are for and the evolutionary 'point'. In reality lots of characteristics don't have a point. They just aren't disadvantageous enough to cause early death of all possessors of the characteristic.

I didn't.

So tell me, do you think the phrasing in the book, which is after all the actual topic, is appropriate?

All that needed to be said is that breasts signify that a female is, or is about to be sexually mature. "Attractive" is far too loaded a term, and while you could use it in a strictly biological sense, as in "attracting a mate", that is not how that sentence reads in the book.

Larry you do realise that nipples become erect to allow babies to feed from them?

Agree with everyone who has said it's a disgusting, sexist way of explaining breasts to young boys.

To the biology - there are several other theories entirely unrelated to the incredibly western-centric, and male-centric idea that breasts are to attract men.

Screenshots taken from here

Then why create a false dichotomy?

No I understood your point perfectly, Larry.

Sophocles,

You completely miss the point of how beautiful evolution is in creating the false dichotomy of nipple erection being either nice for the woman or a signal to a potential mate. It is both. After all an erect penis is much easier to spot than an erect clitoris etc, so women have evolved a secondary erogenous zone. I don't think (although I am not a biologist) that any other species has erector nipples due to sexual arousal.

Evolution isn't clever its lazy as shit. In fact evolution isn't anything bar the absence of mass death. It has no aim or purpose.

I'm trying to think of an important sexual characteristic that suffers such huge variability as breast size does.

I was always taught that if something is important in evolutionary terms, that characteristic is tightly regulated and not much variation is seen. Because variation dies out quick when the characteristic is important to survival. Peacocks have tails to be attractive to females - they all have big, colourful, impressive tails. You don't get some with barely there tails and others with ones totally huge. They all average fairly closely around a set size, the sweet spot of trade off between the effort to maintain the tail vs the reproductive success it affords.

There is huge variation in breast size. And as I said before it has no impact on feeding success of children. So doesn't that imply that it's just a side effect of something or other? Whether that's the fact that we ovulate all year therefore making growing / shrinking breasts more effort than it's worth, or some other reason. To have breasts that are vaguely visible, showing that you are fertile - ok helps a bit, along with pubic hair and various other sexual characteristics. But suggesting there has been some big evolutionary push to make breasts attractive to men - nope, not buying it.

Spot on 3little badgers and Larrygrylls. Breasts are indeed secondary sexual characteristics of the adult woman. They are absolutely about procreation, attracting male partners and nurturing the young. Any other view is a whitewash akin to Trumps climate change denial.

Also, the point is, no matter how much you might like your pet theory of what larger breasts are for in women, that is not what was being said in the book that people are objecting to. It's the phrase "they are to make girls look grown up and attractive", which is a terrible, terrible way of putting it, particularly to children.

I, as a flat chested girl would have read that and thought "Oh, I'm fucked. I will never get a boyfriend because I still look like a child, and apparently that matters". That message was clearly communicated to me in the playground anyway, it didn't need reinforcing in books.

Jigglytuffs alternative phrasing would be much better.

Nipples becoming erect when females are sexually aroused is also, surely, evidence of this.

Bloody hellfire, how is that "for" attracting a mate? It shows that the female is aroused, which might, you know, be nice for her? And amazingly, this can happen without a man being anywhere in the vicinity. If you believe that female arousal is a thing, of course, and that women aren't just for display.

I've heard it all now, women's nipples become erect because men like it

I am large of breast, running with them even with the most sturdy of bras is not easy. The personal disadvantage in terms of survival of large breasts is significant. Therefore if prominent breast tissue was just a case of being there for lactation it would be in every females advantage to have breast tissue which is only fully developed when lactating for a suckling offspring.

However that is not the case so we must ask ourselves why? What is more important than our own survival? The survival of the species perhaps? Now, as someone up thread has pointed out, we are 'always on' in terms of ovulating every month therefore having a signal of fertility which represents that for example permanent breast tissue, makes the chance of mating and therefore species survival more likely.

And biology is very 'heteronormative'! It is all about procreation.

The denial of basic biology is stunning on here.

Clearly breasts are part of the human female's secondary sexual characteristics and a part of their function is sexual signalling. Evolution is very 'clever', breasts did not evolve to either be good for feeding or to attract a mate, they did both very effectively. Nipples becoming erect when females are sexually aroused is also, surely, evidence of this.

And women do need to attract men as well as vice versa in terms of biology. As a primarily pair bonding species women aim to attract a suitable mate and they are in competition for this with other females, just as the males are.

It is really hard to argue that prominent breasts which consist of mainly fatty tissue and have erectile nipples are solely for feeding, especially given the biological disadvantages they bring with them (greater mass and poorly distributed mass with no mechanical advantage gained).

If it had said something along the lines of "The primary function of breasts is to produce milk for babies. Some scientist also think they are to help people see the difference between men and women from a distance. Many people find them visually appealing." or something, I wouldn't have a problem.

It's the way it's worded that's so awful. And that it implies that some breasts fail in their function of being visually appealing.

One possible explanation is around the aquatic ape theory - breasts remain fatty so they float and you can continue to feed an infant as you wade in your watery environment around looking for food. Also fits with the move to being bipedal.

Now that might or might not be true, but it's no more or less proveable than the theory about attracting a mate. They're both just theories, so should not be presented as fact.

So why, unlike the majority of other mammals, do we not just develop full breast tissue when we are lactating?

Is it not the case that in most (all?) other species, the animal that puts on a display to attract a mate is the male (feathers, dances, nests, fighting other males etc)? Why are humans different? I think batteries has it: "It's men who need to convince women they are worth the effort of reproduction, not the other way round"

It cracks me up when the evolutionary just-so stories show the biases of the people using them quite so clearly. Women have breasts, men like breasts, therefore women evolved breasts to attract a mate. It's entirely plausible that men find women's breasts attractive because they signify maturity and fertility, but dear god that's not what they're for. The obsession with breasts is also very, very western-specific and, like a PP said, absurdly heteronormative on top of all the other errors of logic.

I doubt breasts evolved to attract men. It's men who need to convince women they are worth the effort of reproduction, not the other way round.

As there is no link between breast size and milk production / feeding success, surely prominent breasts can't be a sign of potential mothering success.

I guess I can see the argument they evolved as a way of signalling the female has reached fertility. Like when other mammals go into season, but human females are 'always on' in that respect as fertile all year round. But that isn't the same as the purpose being to attract men.

I am completely torn. As a mother of an 8 year old girl I want her to feel comfortable with the idea of developing breasts, she has seen me bf her little brother so she knows what their primary purpose is. I have also put much value on her lovely nature and who she is as an individual rather than her beauty.

However from an evolutionary point of veiw we did develop permenant breasts as a secondary sexual feature as our genital were hidden by becoming upright. Other apes etc experience a reddening around the vulva when fertile to attract a mate. Maybe they shouldn't have emphasised it in a publication for such young children as sexual objectification is not what we want for our children. We have come along way since we needed to be so obvious in mate attraction, but on the other hand what they wrote was not factually wrong.

What a weird thread. A woman's body did not evolve as men decided some bits were more attractive

Breasts - nipples and breast tissue are for feeding children. The fact that men like them is neither here nor there. And men could not feed children adequately despite being given huge amounts of hormones.

I suspect newdaddie has been drinking the Kool Aid.

On the flip side of it, instead of women evolving to have breasts so that men are attracted to them, what if men evolved to find women's breasts attractive? Women have always had breasts because their sole purpose is to feed an infant human. Isn't it far more likely that men evolved to find them attractive, much in the same way that most men find women with wider hips attractive, because it's allegedly a sign of fertility. I know that's a very simple explanation of it, but it's 4am!

However, you won't find a book describing women's hips as being for men's enjoyment, much as there should never be a book saying that breasts are there so women can be attractive to men. Utterly ludicrous and a very dangerous thing to teach young girls and boys.