Breasts are Sexualized

Most Americans are utterly ethnocentric about their attitudes towards toplessness, female breasts and nudity. There are widespread cultural differences in male and female attitudes about female breasts and the role they play in sexual attraction. They have no idea the virtually all of the rest of the Western world are not similarly absorbed by the female bodice. In so-called primitive or indigenous societies, the female breast was rarely covered. Only in North America do we eroticize the female breast to such an extreme. In Europe, public toplessness was accepted beginning in the 1970s. Public nudity at the beach, pool, or spa is common in Scandinavia. In Sweden, it is difficult to find a beach where most of the bathers are not nude.

In Japan, nude communal bathing for men, women and children at the local public bath, or sento, was a daily fact of life until the mid-1800s and an increase in western influences. Today Japanese magazines show pictures of nude models. American-based airlines that fly to and from Japan ban the weekly Japanese magazines that include pictures of nude models.

Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book, by Dr. Susan Love 632 pages, Perseus Publishing; 3rd Revision edition (September 20, 2000)

Nearly all of the beaches of Europe, the Mediterranean, Australia, and New Zealand allow women to go topless. Asia has many locations that attract tourists by offering nude or topless beaches and resorts. Certain South African resorts like Clifton, Camps Bay and Durban; West African resorts like Gambia; and South and Central American beaches like Rio de Janeiro and Cancun. France has the largest nudist colony in Europe, Cap’d Agde, where over 40,000 guests each summer not only swim in the nude, but shop and eat in restaurants nude.

"Well, we do have a peculiar obsession with breasts in this culture. A lot of people think it's just the human nature to be fascinated with breasts but in many cultures, breasts aren't sexual at all. I interviewed a young anthropologist working with women in Mali, in a country in Africa where women go around with bare breasts. They're always feeding their babies. And when she told them that in our culture men are fascinated with breasts there was an instant of shock. The women burst out laughing. They laughed so hard, they fell on the floor. They said, "You mean, men act like babies?"

(Carolyn Latteier, the author of Breasts, The Women's Perspective on an American Obsession, in a TV program "All about breasts".)

Many Americans seem to believe that the more information an adolescent has about sex and sexual behavior, the more likely the youth is to engage in sexual activities. While sexual education is widespread in the public schools, is is largely focused on the biology of human relations. Teachers and school districts often avoid teaching too much about contraception and other matters for fear of being accused of encouraging teen sexual activity.

Among western industrialized countires, U.S. teens are the youngest—at an average age of 15.8 years—to experience first sexual intercourse. Teens in the Netherlands—which exhibits the most liberal attitudes about sexuality and sexual behavior—experience first intercourse at the latest average age, 17.7. The teens of Germany and France experience first sex at 16.2 and 16.8, respectively.

In the Western world, the difference between U.S., European, and Middle-eastern attitudes towards women's bodies, nudity and sexuality in general are quite extreme. For example, an Arabic women of one culture would experience greater shame in having her face seen unveiled than her breasts or even her pubic region exposed. Meanwhile, in most western European countries, females often and routinely go topless at beaches and public bathing facilities.

During 2002, in Escravos, Nigeria, about 600 Nigerian village women held over 700 ChevronTexaco workers hostage inside a giant Niger Delta oil terminal by threatening to expose themselves to the men. They were demanding employment for their sons and improvements to the local communities. most of which lacked electricity. The women prevented the men from leaving by threatening to strip naked in a traditional and forceful local gesture of shaming men.

A representative of the women said their weapon was their nakedness. Most Nigerian tribes consider displays of nudity by wives, mothers or grandmothers as a damning protest and an act that shames all those it is aimed at. In this instance, not the women but those who saw the woman would be shamed. After 10 days they emerged with promises of assistance and their clothes on.

In Zambia, women paraded topless to protest against the government's new rules that outlawed miniskirts and tight pants. Baring one's breasts also has a history in that country, where 40 years earlier it was used as a protest against the British colonists, and became a badge of freedom and independence.

In Kenya in 2001, a team of scientists were driven away from a nature reserve by a band of 300 naked women who ran into their research camp. The women were using their nudity to invoke a curse on the men, and thus prevent them from extending the nature reserve onto tribal land.

Our mixed-up obsessions about women's breasts has also led to incidents like the half-time show of the 2004 Superbowl, when not Justin Timberlake but Janet Jackson was held at fault for the incident where he tore away part of her costume to reveal her breast. The resulting tempest highlighted America's obsession with the breast once again. Breasts are featured everywhere, everyday. Why the sudden upset? Perhaps because Janet Jackson attempted to exploit that obsession, her action was like dirt in the eye of Congress.

Congress has ignored the widespread fixation of Madision Avenue and Hollywood on the female breast because there was in reality little they could do. Given our nation's inclination towards cultural relativism, Congressmen like to shy away from legislating morality. Until someone rubs her breast in their eye, so to speak. Then they have the moral center stage and can make loud calls for new standards and fines. Unless it's the Victoria's Secret Lingerie Special or a the side of a bare bosom on ":NYPD Blue.":