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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think of course women's breasts are sexual

171 replies

WhitePhantom · 18/09/2017 11:18

Many many times I've seen people on here getting very indignant about people suggesting that women's breasts are sexual - "they're primarily for feeding babies", "they're purely functional", "they're no different to men's breasts", "women should be free to go topless just as much as men", etc.

I completely disagree! Women's breasts are a source of sexual pleasure from puberty till... I don't know, death?! I b/f all three of mine, which was a total time of 2 years, but for the other 30-odd years their only role has been sexual pleasure, for me and/or for whatever partner I've been with.

Am I completely deluded??


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OP posts:
SylviaPoe · 18/09/2017 13:53

Also, people enhance their appearance for very many reasons, not just sexual ones.

romany4 · 18/09/2017 13:54

FuckYouChrisAndThatHorse

I'm totally with you on forearms. With shirt sleeves rolled up. Hot as hell

Birdsgottafly · 18/09/2017 13:55

This debate comes up in the BF-mothers-should-cover-up debates.

The point is that no man (and some women) objects when a young Woman has her cleavage on show, but show the top of a breast with a baby attached and all hell breaks lose.

My DD had disparaging remarks from other Women when she was feeding in the Women's changing room, even though she was showing less than some bikinis.

PebblesFlintstone · 18/09/2017 13:56

Personally I find them primarily sexual, and as such wouldn't really be comfortable having them completely 'on show' - not because I think there's anything bad or dirty about sex, just... I don't know, it's hard to explain

This is the problem. Breasts are not primarily sexual. Anatomically, the primary function of breasts is for feeding infants. Yes, some women (and men) use them sexually too, but it becomes an issue if people then consider it abnormal for women to display them while being used for their main purpose because of the sexual associations.

AngeloMysterioso · 18/09/2017 14:00

Either way, just because breasts can be sexual doesn't mean they have to be covered up at all times. If I'm at the beach or by the pool and I want to sunbathe without my bikini top on then I'm bloody well going to, there's nothing sexual about it!

AngeloMysterioso · 18/09/2017 14:03

And what is so wrong with something being sexual anyway? Sex is not a bad thing!

SylviaPoe · 18/09/2017 14:07

There's nothing wrong with saying breasts are sexual, any more than there is something wrong with saying the nape of the neck is sexual.

There is something wrong with singling out a female body part and stating it is somehow uniquely sexual in a way that we do not do to male body parts.

whatwouldrondo · 18/09/2017 16:44

In China in the past rotting bound feet were sexual, men wrote poetry about the smell and deformity. And breasts were bound because they were not. What is sexual is socially conditioned. Feeding a baby is a natural function but the socially conditioned view of breasts gets in the way of that. That is dysfunctional. Add to that that Breast Cancer affects 1in 9 women and many go through
, in addition to a mastectomy, painful and life altering surgery just because they do not feel like women without a cleavage, also not a good thing.

I agree having your breast fondled is nice but now missing a breast what I feel most strongly about Is that it fed my DCs......

Iheartjordanknight · 18/09/2017 18:18

whatwouldrondo but surely you see the difference in that rotting bound feet don't have extra sensitive nerve endings to make it one of your bodies erogenous zones?

People are attracted to long hair. Hair isn't an erogenous zone. What you find attractive is totally different to what your body has specifically evolved to make sex pleasurable

Ttbb · 18/09/2017 18:29

They're only sexual because they have been chronically fetishised. They do not perform reproductive functions and therefore are not inherently sexual. I understand that some people find having their breasts touched sexually arising but I find having my neck touched really turns me on, that does make bricks secual though.

Iheartjordanknight · 18/09/2017 18:32

You don't have concentrated nerve endings specifically designed to generate a sexual response in your neck though do you?

SheepyFun · 18/09/2017 18:32

I lived in a non-western country for a while where, in rural areas at least, it would have been acceptable for me to walk around bare chested, but totally inappropriate to show my knees (for the record, I kept both covered). I didn't ask which parts of the body locals regarded as sexually attractive (that would have stretched my knowledge of the local language. And my relationships with local colleagues), but I suspect breasts were seen as purely functional. It was certainly absolutely normal to breastfeed anywhere and everywhere.

Richdebtomdom · 18/09/2017 18:35

From an evolutionary POV they are definitely sexual. Mammals generally have flat breasts until they are pregnant-humans have full breasts from puberty onwards. This is because they are used for sexual signalling... err am I mansplaining now? :-)

RoomOfRequirement · 18/09/2017 18:51

My problem with this argument is that it is more often than not used as a way to control and shame women.

Your breasts are sensitive and help you orgasm? Your husband gets turned on looking at them? Great, amazing, I'm happy for you.

Neither of those things should be used to shame women into 'covering up' in situations a man is allowed/encouraged to go topless, or when she is feeding her baby.

Iheartjordanknight · 18/09/2017 18:55

Is that what's being discussed though? I'm not really sure why that keeps coming up.

In some African tribes people don't wear clothes. They still have sexualised parts of their bodies. Covering doesn't make them
More sexual. Clothing is about culture, not what your body is or isn't designed to do.

Obviously my European body is fundamentally not different to an African woman's body, a Saudi woman's body, an American woman's body. We all have erogenous zones which prompt sexual feelings, and one of those is our breasts. For all of us. Whether I personally get turned on by my breasts being touched is irrelevant: I still have a higher concentration of nerve endings in them, like most women

SylviaPoe · 18/09/2017 19:30

'You don't have concentrated nerve endings specifically designed to generate a sexual response in your neck though do you?'

The nerve endings in breasts are not specifically designed to generate a sexual response. Even genitals don't have specific sexual nerve endings!

Women are, on average, more sexually aroused by having the nape of the neck touched than either breasts or nipples.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_stimulation

BillBrysonsBeard · 18/09/2017 19:41

I think they're sexual too.. but in my case, just because my DP loves them. I barely feel any pleasure from them and hate my nipples being touched!

Iheartjordanknight · 18/09/2017 19:43

My wiki vs your wiki Wink
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erogenous_zone

Guiltybystander · 18/09/2017 19:48

I've always found female breasts ugly. I will never understand why men like them. And I feel sorry for women with large breasts because it's more of a course than a blessing. They usually attract breast obsessed morons.

Guiltybystander · 18/09/2017 19:50

Curse, not course.

oblada · 18/09/2017 19:57

Surely it's all linked. They became sexual because they are used to feed babies (making them somehow magical, certainly very interesting) and the pleasure derived from them is probably somehow linked with pleasures associated with breastfeeding (partly due to hormonal responses) for both men and women as babies and mothers... They would not have been sexual objects if they did not have a feeding role in the first place. They are currently both but their primary function remains a feeding function.

IfNot · 18/09/2017 19:57

I agree with you OP. I find it weird when women say "they are like any body part and do nothing for me" because mine are very. Erogenous. And that's not because society told me they are. They just, physically are.
So I day breasts are both, at different times.

Guiltybystander · 18/09/2017 20:06

Breasts became sexual because men don't have them.
We usually find things sexual on our partners that we don't have. I find stubbles, body hair, muscles and strong manly features attractive because as a woman I don't have these. We like the difference.
I know it doesn't explain homosexuality but it's a different story.

IfNot · 18/09/2017 20:07

Biologically, their primary function is feeding, but as far as my life goes, their primary function has been sexual.

I spent 1 year using them to feed, but have spent 25 years using them for (my) sexual pleasure. And it's nothing to do with what men think /want.

SylviaPoe · 18/09/2017 20:12

I'd already read both Jordan. Neither say what you're claiming.

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