Why do women have breasts? Most people believe that it is for breastfeeding newborns. But it is just half the tale.
This is due to the fact that women have permanent breasts rather than temporary ones.
No other species has permanent breasts, whereas all other primates have retractable breasts.
Yes, when all other female primates get pregnant, they generate breasts as they begin to produce milk; but, after the youngster no longer requires milk, the breasts retract and the female returns to being flat-chested.
It’s far more rational this way, for a variety of reasons.
The primary reason is breast cancer. In affluent nations, one in every 12 women will acquire breast cancer at some point in their life, making it the leading cause of death among women. If women didn’t have permanent breasts, this wouldn’t be true.
That is, permanent breasts kill women in significant numbers and have done so for a long time, but not just through cancer.
Permanent breasts, however, have not only killed women but may also have killed newborns.
Every mother understands that nursing is an art that a baby and mother must learn together; nevertheless, some do not learn this skill, which is why they must use baby bottles.
In the past, there were no infant bottles, thus those who couldn’t master them died.
Given all of this, plus the fact that they kill a substantial number of women and maybe newborns, it begs the issue of why women would create them. Surely there must be some advantage for babies?
There is, breasts can operate as an extra area to store fat, which some think could aid women throughout pregnancy, particularly when food is scarce.
Other benefits are insufficient to offset the high expense.
It naturally begs the issue of why women developed them in the first place.
There are possibilities, but no one knows for sure. The one that was invented by Desmond Morris in “The Naked Ape” and further expanded by Leonard Shlain in “Sex, Time and Power” is the most popular.
Morris contended that as we learnt to stand upright and became forward-facing, we required a new signaling mechanism to replace the way that our ancestors’ female monkeys informed males that they were of breeding age and in heat through a ballooning rear end, which happened during ovulation.
His concept was to use permanent breasts as the new instrument. As a result, women had permanent breasts that faced front, which served as a new means for them to communicate to men that they were sexually mature and in heat.
Although the hypothesis is debatable, there is a wealth of data to support it.
For instance, ovulation is usually when a woman’s desire peaks. Additionally, during ovulation, her oestrogen and progesterone levels rise, which frequently causes her breasts to swell. For this reason, many women experience breast and nipple soreness during ovulation.
This swelling has the unintended consequence of making the breasts larger and more prominent.
This indicates that a woman’s breasts get larger and prettier during her monthly window of greatest fertility. For our predecessors, who would have been able to detect such things, this would have been a really helpful signaling tool.
For additional evidence, observe that the breasts of female apes who have not yet reached the age of pregnancy are consistently firmer and less sagging because they have not been stretched by milk.
It follows that a stronger chest in females may have formerly been a measure employed by men to assess a woman’s age or fecundity.
So, an evolutionary male might have utilized both a female’s chest and rear end to assess her suitability as a mate; initially, the rear end would have been the primary, but as humans developed to stand upright and became frontal facing, the roles could have flipped, with female chests being primary.
If this were the case, males would have gravitated toward females with firm and pert chests, resulting in females with more permanent breast tissue.
I present to you the start of permanent breasts in females.
Nobody knows for certain. However, this would explain why, contrary to common belief, males are more concerned with how full and pert their breasts are than with their size.
None of this implies that the idea is correct; as previously stated, many people disagree with it. However, this type of phenomenon, in which anatomical characteristics emerge that serve no use other than sexual communication, is frequent in nature. It even has a name: Fisherian runaway hypothesis.
The male peacock’s vividly colored tail best illustrates this viewpoint. The male peacock’s tail is a complete disadvantage on all levels, with the exception of one: attracting females.
The Disadvantages of Large Breasts in Love
Primates have comparable things that are meaningless outside of sexual signals, such as baboons and macaques’ large red bottoms.
This reality prompted academics David Barash and Judith Lipton to develop the handicap concept for female breasts.
They contend that, like baboons’ enormous flashy red bottoms, permanent breasts accurately indicate a woman’s genetic health, but at the expense of her having to carry them around in public view.
This appears to be the central theme, delivering sexual information, and it is undeniable how much sexual information can be extracted from female breasts.
For instance, age is the most common.
This is why the pretty cruel equation that has been a recurring element of arguments concerning the genesis of permanent breasts in women exists.
It goes like this:
No breasts equals too young; plump and firm breasts = fertile; sagging breasts equals either pregnant or too old; and empty saggy breasts equals too elderly.
Brutal, I know, but very valuable to ancestral men, and it’s not only the breasts that provide such information; nipples do as well.
Yep. Female nipples are a wealth of sexual information. For example, they get more pert after ovulation, perk up even more when women are excited, and become completely erect during sex.
Large breasts secrets this should open your eyes!
This is because oxytocin causes nipples to erect, and intercourse produces a significant increase in oxytocin release in women.
From here, it’s not hard to envision that our ancient males developed to recognize a nipple-on as an additional indicator of arousal in women, giving them a cause to focus not just on pert breasts, but also on pert nipples.
This might also explain why women’s nipples have evolved into a form that some feel is not well suited for nursing. Males may have influenced their evolution by choosing for attractiveness above function.
Even if this were not the case, the point is that nipples communicate information about ovulation and arousal, and when women get pregnant, their nipples grow bigger and the areola (the dark region surrounding the nipples) darkens.
These changes often occur within the first eight weeks of pregnancy, making them a popular indicator of early pregnancy, and guess what? A guy cannot get a pregnant woman pregnant.
He can’t get a breastfeeding woman pregnant either (breastfeeding is as efficient a form of contraception as the pill), and the nipples usually don’t return to normal until women quit breastfeeding.
That is, nipples are important not only for indicating if a woman is ovulating or aroused, but also for determining whether she is pregnant at an early stage and whether she is nursing or not.
That is, they inform a guy if woman can become pregnant or not.
Again, this is really important information for an ancestral male, and the information stream from breasts and nipples does not end here. Breasts also produce pheromones, which are extremely crucial in attracting a partner.
Women have apocrine glands on their areolas, which produce pheromones.
This fact, and this is just speculation on my part, is most likely what led to guys suckling on nipples becoming popular.
The Disadvantages of Large Breasts in Love
To illustrate what I mean, have you ever seen dogs sniffing and licking each other’s rear ends? This is common in nature.
Taking this into account, we may suppose that our ancestors were first fascinated by pheromone fragrance. Female breasts are a source of pheromone scent, and it is considerably easier for a species that walks on two feet to access than the other important source, which is the rear end. It makes sense that men would start noticing nipples with their tongues if we take this into account.
It begins to make sense that sucking on nipples would become a sexual activity when you consider that both individuals emit relaxing and bonding hormones while they are sucking on breasts.
Considering this, we might assume that pheromone scent first captivated our ancestors. A species that travels on two feet may more easily reach the pheromone aroma found in female breasts than it can in the other major source — the rear end. When we consider this, it makes reasonable that males would begin to detect nipples with their tongues.
When you consider that both people release chemicals that promote relaxation and bonding when they are sucking on breasts, it starts to make sense why sucking on nipples might turn into a sexual behavior.
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