Harriet Geller
Breast Fetishism
Breast fetishism is a fetishistic sexual interest in the female breasts, especially their size, display and shape. It may also involve the movement of the breasts or their focus in sexual activities. Currently common in American and Japanese culture, this fixation has increased cultural acceptance of female breast implants among some subcultures. The roots of this phenomenon date back to ancient history, are biologically and culturally driven, and reflect differences in each society.
Large breasts are seen by some as symbols of sexuality and attractiveness, especially in large portions of the Western world, although historically the "preferred" breast size has changed many times. Anthropologists and sociologists have often tried to explain this in terms of natural selection and biology but conflicts exist over what is the core reason for some men's and women's attraction to large breasts.
Implausibly large breasts
Many adult film actresses and nude models have capitalized on this cultural phenomenon by having their breasts surgically enlarged to implausible sizes. Some workers closely or loosely related to the sexual industry (e.g. exotic dancers and waitresses in sexually-oriented businesses) also followed this recent trend and a growing proportion of them decide to undergo breast augmentation to improve their physical appearance and to profit from the perceived financial opportunities. Although this cultural phenomenon is more noticeable in the sex industry world, it can be seen as a reflection or exaggeration of the "real" world. Many consider the recent rising popularity of breast augmentation surgery and their overall mediatization as a sign of their increasing popular acceptance. Some also perceive or conclude that the 1970s feminism movement is greatly losing popularity, especially in the spheres were they are common or widely accepted.
A preference for naturally large breasts
Some individuals have a fetishistic preference for breasts that are very large but without surgical enhancement, labelled "natural" by the sex industry. The breasts appearance is therefore saggier due to gravity and relaxation of the skin. Models have ample breast tissue resulting from hormonal imbalance during or after pregnancies or ageing in general: although many apparently had virginal breast hypertrophy, a condition which involves excessive growth of the breasts during puberty.
Puffy nipples and breast fetishism
Not all breast fetishism concerns size, some prefers dark and puffy areolae (commonly, though incorrectly, referred to as "puffy nipples"), or unusually long or thick nipples. These variations are all sufficiently common, for example, to rate individual binaries groups on Usenet. The "puffy" fetish, in particular, can be somewhat controversial because this characteristic is most common in pubescent girls (though it is not unknown in older women). Finally, some prefer small rather than large breasts (estimates of men's preferences range as high as 1/3).
There are also fetishes concerned with lactation in general, and with nursing ("milk fetishism"). The former is quite common in many hentai games/anime/manga, where young large-breasted characters will be able to lactate despite never having been pregnant.
More recent breast fetishism can be in part linked with the Canadian actress and glamour model, Pamela Anderson, who helped amplify and normalize the trend by openly acknowledging her cosmetic surgery to increase her breast size and shape, and whose enhancement seemed to increase her stardom, rendering implants more publicly acceptable for the average woman.
In comics, animation, and video games, large-breasted female characters are fairly common; this is particularly true in American comic books, and Japanese anime and manga.
This trend, although popular to some extent, is nonetheless a fetish and is not invariably recognized. The large numbers of females who undergo breast reduction each year proves that large breast is not unquestionably desirable.
Like any other sexual fetishes or paraphilias, this preference might become psychologically problematic when it develops into a strong fixation and becomes the only means of sexual arousing.
Copyright: This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on Breast Fetishism.