VENUS OF WILLENDORF 28,000 B.C.E.
MATA HARI
The Breast (1972) is a novella by Philip Roth, in which the main character, David Kepesh, becomes a 155-pound breast.
*
Americans
are obsessed with big breasts and big butts.
But
this infatuation with bottoms and bosoms SEEMS TO BE a perennial and
universal preoccupation.
Scientists
have hypothesized that non-paraphilic
sexual
attraction to breasts is the result of their function as a secondary
sex characteristic.
For instance, zoologist
and
ethologist
Desmond
Morristheorizes
that cleavage is a sexual signal that imitates the image of the cleft
between the buttocks,
which according to Morris in The
Naked Ape
is
also unique to humans, other primates as a rule having much flatter
buttocks.
Evolutionary
psychologists
theorize
that humans' permanently enlarged breasts, in contrast to other
primates'
breasts, which only enlarge during ovulation,
allows human females to "solicit [human] male attention and
investment even when they are not really fertile.
Most
mammals (EXCEPT FOR OUR SIMIAN COUSINS) don't seem to have this
obsession, but
I need to do more research to know for sure.
The
history of striptease offers a glimpse into this obsession, and
though there is not much on butts and breasts, we can use our
imagination:
In
ancient Greece, the lawgiver Solon
established
several classes of prostitutes in the late 6th century BC. Among
these classes of prostitutes were the auletrides:
female dancers, acrobats, and musicians, noted for dancing naked in
an alluring fashion in front of audiences of men.
In
ancient
Rome,
dance featuring stripping was part of the entertainments (ludi)
at the Floralia,
an April festival in honor of the goddess
Flora.
Empress
Theodora,
wife of 6th-century Byzantine emperor Justinian
is
reported by several ancient sources to have started in life as a
courtesan and actress who performed in acts inspired from
mythological themes and in which she disrobed "as far as the
laws of the day allowed". She was famous for her striptease
performance of "Leda
and the Swan".
From
these accounts, it appears that the practice was hardly exceptional
nor new. It was, however, actively opposed by the Christian
Church,
which succeeded in obtaining statutes banning it in the following
century. The degree to which these statutes were subsequently
enforced is, of course, opened to question. What is certain is that
no practice of the sort is reported in texts of the European Middle
Ages.
Breasts
and butts generate a lot of bucks...
and
divorces.
Muslim
women do not produce such an obsession BECAUSE THEY ARE VEILED, BUT
they are mocked for their excessively protective apparel.
No
butts or breasts show.
Only
mystery.
IT'S
ABOUT RENEWABLE RESOURCES!
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