A Woman’s Large Breasts Indicate That Her Vagin…See more
The breasts are two prominences located on the upper ventral region of the torso among humans and other primates. Both sexes develop breasts from the same embryological tissues. The relative size and development of the breasts is a major secondary sex distinction between females and males. There is also considerable variation in size between individuals. Female humans are the only mammals which permanently develop breasts at puberty; all other mammals develop their mammary tissue during the latter period of pregnancy; at puberty, estrogens, in conjunction with growth hormone, cause permanent breast growth.
In females, the breast serves as the mammary gland, which produces and secretes milk to feed infants.[2] Subcutaneous fat covers and envelops a network of ducts that converge on the nipple, and these tissues give the breast its distinct size and globular shape. At the ends of the ducts are lobules, or clusters of alveoli, where milk is produced and stored in response to hormonal signals.[3] During pregnancy, the breast responds to a complex interaction of hormones, including estrogens, progesterone, and prolactin, that mediate the completion of its development, namely lobuloalveolar maturation, in preparation of lactation and breastfeeding.
Along with their major function in providing nutrition for infants, several cultures ascribe social and sexual characteristics to female breasts, and may regard bare breasts in public as immodest or indecent. Breasts have been featured in ancient and modern sculpture, art, and photography. Breasts can represent fertility, femininity, or abundance. They can figure prominently in the perception of a woman’s body and sexual attractiveness. Breasts, especially the nipples, can be an erogenous zone.
Etymology and terminology
The English word breast derives from the Old English word brēost ‘breast, bosom’ from Proto-Germanic *breustam ‘breast’, from the Proto-Indo-European base *bhreus– ‘to swell, to sprout’.[4] The breast spelling conforms to the Scottish and North English dialectal pronunciations.[5] The Merriam-Webster Dictionary states that “Middle English brest, [comes] from Old English brēost; akin to Old High German brust…, Old Irish brú [belly], [and] Russian bryukho”; the first known usage of the term was before the 12th century.[6]
Breasts is often used to refer to female breasts in particular, though the stricter anatomical term refers to the same region on members of either sex. Male breasts are sometimes referred to in the singular to mean the collective upper chest area,[a] whereas female breasts are referred to in the plural unless speaking of a specific left or right breast.
A large number of colloquial terms for female breasts are used in English, ranging from fairly polite terms to vulgar or slang.[b] Some vulgar slang expressions may be considered to be derogatory or sexist to women.[7]
Evolutionary development
Mountain gorilla breastfeeding an infant
Humans are the only mammals whose breasts become permanently enlarged after sexual maturity (known in humans as puberty). The reason for this evolutionary change is unknown.[8] Several hypotheses have been put forward:
A link has been proposed to processes for synthesizing the endogenous steroid hormone precursor dehydroepiandrosterone which takes place in fat rich regions of the body like the buttocks and breasts. These contributed to human brain development and played a part in increasing brain size. Breast enlargement may for this purpose have occurred as early as Homo ergaster (1.7–1.4 MYA).[9] Other breast formation hypotheses may have then taken over as principal drivers.[10][11][9]
It has been suggested by zoologists Avishag and Amotz Zahavi that the size of the human breasts can be explained by the handicap theory of sexual dimorphism. This would see the explanation for larger breasts as them being an honest display of the women’s health and ability to grow and carry them in her life. Prospective mates can then evaluate the genes of a potential mate for their ability to sustain her health even with the additional energy demanding burden she is carrying.[12][13]
The zoologist Desmond Morris describes a sociobiological approach in his science book The Naked Ape. He suggests, by making comparisons with the other primates, that breasts evolved to replace swelling buttocks as a sex signal of ovulation. He notes how humans have, relatively speaking, large penises as well as large breasts. Furthermore, early humans adopted bipedalism and face-to-face coitus. He therefore suggested enlarged sexual signals helped maintain the bond between a mated male and female even though they performed different duties and therefore were separated for lengths of time.[14][13][15]
A 2001 study proposed that the rounded shape of a woman’s breast evolved to prevent the sucking infant offspring from suffocating while feeding at the teat; that is, because of the human infant’s small jaw, which did not project from the face to reach the nipple, they might block the nostrils against the mother’s breast if it were of a flatter form (compare with the common chimpanzee). Theoretically, as the human jaw receded into the face, the woman’s body compensated with round breasts.[16]
Ashley Montague (1965) proposed that breasts came about as an adaptation for infant feeding for a different reason, as early human ancestors adopted bipedalism and the loss of body hair. Human upright stance meant infants must be carried at the hip or shoulder instead of on the back as in the apes. This gives the infant less opportunity to find the nipple or the purchase to cling on to the mother’s body hair. The mobility of the nipple on a large breast in most human females gives the infant more ability to find it, grasp it and feed.[11]
Other suggestions include simply that permanent breasts attracted mates, that “pendulous” breasts gave infants something to cling to, or that permanent breasts shared the function of a camel’s hump, to store fat as an energy reserve.[8]
