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this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2024
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No Stupid Questions
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Okay I'm gonna post something like an actual answer, which I feel like will get downvoted bc y'all are men but whatever.
Women's bodies are sexualized, plain and simple. Breasts perform the biological function of nourishing a baby, but that has seemingly become secondary to their entity as an object of sexual desire, namely by men. So you have 3 factors - breasts are seen as sexual in nature, sex is considered taboo in many western cultures, and men are generally the ones who hold positions of power. Put that all together and you have laws and cultural attitudes that require that breasts be concealed in public.
Men's nipples are completely fine though. Men can walk around shirtless (in many places, perhaps not "most" but 100% more than can be said for a woman) and no one bats an eye, but the female nipple is considered obscene because it is seen as sexual.
All this "they don't" "not in Europe" "yeah aren't you disappointed" "hurr durr udders" fuckouttahere with that dismissive bullshit lmao
I think OP knows all this and agrees with it as well. I think they were asking historically when the shift happened.
Breasts don't need to be large throughout adult life for the purpose of nursing. Look at the non-human apes and other primates. The hypothesis that large adult human breasts outside of nursing evolved due to sexual selection is completely reasonable.
Sexual selection is not inherently good or bad. It just is. If that theory is correct, then breasts which are (on many women) large before and between nursing stages came about due to sexual attraction. There was selection for women with larger breasts and selection for men attracted to them. It's not the responsibility or fault of either sex, and the genes increasing both the attraction in males and the breast size in females are passed through both sexes. Fathers and mothers who have daughters with larger breasts and sons attracted to them will have more grandkids.
None of this comes with the baggage of how we should set up our society. We can suppress sexual activity in public, demand consent, be free to cover or not cover regardless of how it was we got to where we are today.
Isn't the breastfeeding function part of the reason breasts are sexualized? In other words - biologically males seek a female that can provide for her offspring so there'd be an evolutionary advantage for women who can at least appear to be able to do so.
I think it's more "Women have them, but men and children usually don't".
You are 100% correct.
I think OP agrees with you too, but the question is more around the "why". Once, we were also like animals, and didn't have clothing. To the animal brain, things like large breasts or wide hips means better reproduction. Did we start to cover up because it was cold and we got sick? It makes more sense to me that we started for practical reasons, and the hyper-sexualization came later, probably with religion.
Today, women are sexualized to an insane degree, and expanded to any number of inane body parts and not just breasts.
I think OPs question could also be phrased as "why did sex become so taboo?" And we might get a broader picture.